Tag Archives: Passover

Sacrifice

Christ and CrossLent
March 27, 2015

Scripture Reading: Mark 11:1-11

Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna!
   Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ — Mark 11:8-11

Passover is celebrated as a solemn time of remembrance when, in fear and trembling, the Israelites hid behind the protective doors of their homes painted with the blood of a lamb to ward of the angel of death that brought the final plague to the Egyptians, the death of the oldest child in each home.

  •  Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and diligently observe these statutes. Deuteronomy 16:12
  • This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. Exodus 12:14
  • Moses said to the people, ‘Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by strength of hand; no leavened bread shall be eaten. Exodus 13:3

It was to this celebration Jesus came when he rode in on a donkey to the blessings of the people. He, too, was thwarting the power of the mighty. While the people of Israel were not technically living in slavery they were an oppressed people existing under the Peace of Roman: do what we say and you will be OK.

Jesus saw the oppression of his people and did everything he could to alleviate it up to and including giving his very life for them but that was not the end of the story. He had very carefully planted the seeds of the Kingdom of God, the rule of love throughout the world, and in his death, as with the death of seeds a whole movement toward wholeness, oneness, and justice sprouted and grew. It is still alive today as we are still called to fulfill his mission.

Prayer: Lord, we thank you for your sacrifice and for showing us the way to live. Strengthen us for the journey. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

Death be not proud

Death be not proudLiving in the Spirit
September 2, 2014

 

Scripture Reading: Exodus 12:1-14

 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. — Exodus 12:12

A truck transporting a boxcar sized container hit a too-low bridge knocking the container off onto a pickup truck whose driver was killed instantly. A doctor doing his life’s work in Africa contracts the deadly Ebola virus and dies. A plague moves over Egypt killing all the first born even among the animal. John Donne perhaps said it best in his Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Good or evil, we all face the same reality of death and the same uncertainty of time and circumstance. Those of us who call ourselves Christian face it with a different perspective than those without a relationship with God. For we know that our redeemer lives even though he died on a cross. It disturbs me to think that God would kill all those Egyptians even though they had ample opportunity to free the Israelites and did not. I certainly do not believe that God wants the children of Gaza or Israel to die in onslaughts of mortars and missiles or for that matter the children of Syria or Ukraine or anyplace else. I do know that God wants us to do all that we can to introduce the entire world to his ways of love and to live those ways ourselves. When Love ultimately rules, death will die.

Prayer: Lord make us instruments of your love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.