Home | Site Map | Contact Us | Feeds

We Are Passing-On the Passing-Over

            In some languages word order is very important.  Germans put the main verb at the end of the sentence.  The Greek of the New Testament tends to put the word that needs emphasis either at the beginning or at the end of a sentence.  Word order plays a role in the English language, too.  In fact, moving a word or phrase to a different part of a sentence can change the entire meaning.  For example: "You ought to say what you think about" takes on a whole different meaning if I said, "You ought to think about what you say."  "Bill got to the job" means something quite different from "The job got to Bill."  "I'll pass on that" means something very different from "I'll pass that on."

            God commanded the Israelites to celebrate the Passover each spring and to pass on the core meaning of that meal.  Within the context of that Passover meal Jesus told his followers to celebrate a different special meal and to pass on the core meaning of that meal.  While we no longer celebrate the Passover, we do celebrate the Lord's Supper, the focus for our worship on this Maundy Thursday.  But there is an underlying connection between the two, like an underground oil vein that bursts out of the ground through two wells.  The connection is the core meaning of each meal which we want to pass on, not in the sense of "No thanks.  I'll pass on that," but in the sense of, "Thank you, Lord, for giving us this meal and for allowing us to be in a position to say" …

"We Are Passing-On the Passing-Over"

The Passing-Over

            You wanted to be nice.  Women and children first, then the elderly, then your neighbors, your friends, and your family.  You stuck around to the end, the last to lift a foot off of Egyptian soil and head down the embankment into what used to be the churning waters of the Red Sea.  Down below is a wide, dry highway.  But you are at the back of the pack, and you hear the Egyptian chariots clattering closer.  Within minutes you expect to feel the snorts of the horses on your neck.  You're preparing to get yanked from your feet as a charioteer snags your flowing robe.  You'd like to sprint.  But where are you going to go?  There's a wall of two and a half million people ahead of you.  You glance over your shoulder, and suddenly the Egyptian horses pull up.  The chariot wheels start to wobble.  They get stuck in mud, and water comes pouring on top of them!

            This pivotal point in Israelite history has always been referred to as the exodus.  It is referenced time and again on the pages of Scripture and portrayed in Bible story books and movies.  What can we say about the parting of the Red Sea?  Two and a half million people marching through the Red sea on dry ground, and the Egyptian army drowned!  Wow!

            God wanted the Israelites to recall this event during the eating of the Passover meal each spring.  But in reality, the most significant issue he wanted them to recall wasn't the escape from slavery and the drowning of the bad guys but another escape that took place just a day or so earlier.  As the tenth of ten plagues, which had been aimed at Egyptian gods to prove there's only one true God, the tenth one was aimed at the king of Egypt, who wanted to be considered to be a god.  God determined that all firstborn in every house and barn in Egypt would die – no exceptions.  But there was one way to be an exception – have a substitute.  That is what God told the Israelites.  But not any substitute would do.  It had to be a perfect lamb.  The Lord told the Israelites, "Slaughter a lamb.  Drain its blood into a bowl – because blood drained out means it died; if you were lying on your bed and all of your blood was in a bowl next to you, you'd be dead – Take that lamb's blood, and paint it on the doorframe of your house.  The angel of death will fly in for the kill, see the blood, and say, "Ah!  Something, someone already died!  I'm going to pass over this house."  Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb.  Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe.  Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning.  When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.  God told the Israelites, "Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance."  Yes, look back at the rescue from slavery and look ahead to the rescue from the slavery of sin.  But more importantly, kill a lamb, eat it, and recall that a lamb died for your ancestors, in their place, so that death passed over them.  Then look ahead, and keep in mind that someone will have to die in your place so death passes over you."

            That is what we celebrate today and every day.  I call it "the passing-over" – not passing over sin as though God doesn't see it or know it, but the fact that God does see and know our sin, did not ignore it, but did something about it.  Someone did die in order to make passing-over sinners possible. The Lamb of God did die.  Our Substitute did die.  When the angel of death passes over us, God is not ignoring our sin.  He's showing that he moved the payment for sin away from us to our substitute, to our Lamb, to Jesus.

            That body of Jesus given in death, that blood of Jesus poured out on the cross, that payment, is in this meal.  I don't know how.  But Jesus says it's here, and if he says it, then it's true.  Since the payment is here and becomes part of us as we eat and drink it, it's as though a brush from heaven is painting Jesus' blood over the doorframe of our hearts so that every time we eat this meal, God is peering into our hearts and saying, "The angel of death is passing over you."  That does not mean we won't die.  What it does mean is that our death is only physical, not eternal.  It means that our death is not a payment for our sin but rather the doorway into heaven.  And that does not mean go out and kill yourself.  God wants you on earth for his purposes – which is a whole other sermon – until the time he calls you home.  In the meantime, we get to experience this passing-over every time we hear and recall his love, and every time we participate in this meal.

The Passing-On

            You heard the question, "What does this ceremony mean to you?"  What are you going to say?  Will you tell your children only part of the story?  Will you say, "The drowning of an army must have been something for our ancestors to see!" or "Our ancestors must have really enjoyed the smell of the salt sea as they walked between those walls of water" or "The meal our ancestors ate that night was the closest they came to fast food" or "Isn't it great that God put an end to slavery for our ancestors?"  Wouldn't you rather tell your children what was most important about the Passover, that the core of the Passover meal has to do with the passing-over?  Wouldn't you say to your children, "Everything connected with the exodus from Egypt was amazing from the death of Pharaoh's firstborn, to the bread dough made without yeast because our ancestors were in such a hurry that they didn't have time to wait around for dough to rise, to the Egyptians handing over their gold and jewelry and pleading with our ancestors, ‘Get out of our land,' to the Egyptian army's chariots chasing them down, to the cloud of God's presence that put a dense fog between the Egyptian army and the fleeing Israelites, to the piling up of walls of water so our ancestors had a clear path to freedom, to the sheer magnitude of the crowd making an escape.  All of it was amazing!"  But wouldn't you also pass on to your children the meaning of the heart and core of the Passover meal, the lamb and the passing-over sinners?  Of course you would because that's what God commanded the Israelites to do.  When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony.  And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians' ".

            The passing-on of the meaning of the Passover meal was essential because it was not intended for all.  As noble as it is to feed the hungry and homeless in a community, the Israelites did not take the food of the Passover meal outside to do that.  God told them, "It must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house" (Exodus 12:46).  Why?  Because just dropping Passover mutton off at a local Israelite food pantry would not give those who ate it the benefit of asking about and learning about the core meaning, the passing-over of sinners.  However, there was a way for outsiders and guests to participate.  An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the LORD's Passover must do so in accordance with its rules and regulations (Numbers 9:14).  They needed to be instructed first.

            In a similar way, this meal of our Lord is not intended for everyone.  When Jesus said, "Drink from it, all of you," (Matthew 26:27), he was not talking to a mass of people, a mix of friends and foes.  He was speaking to his disciples who were instructed in its core meaning.  So how can visitors at a Lutheran service participate in this meal?  We invite them first to a time of instruction because we are delighted and thrilled to pass-on the passing-over of sinners.  When they understand the core meaning, when they understand what the passing-over is all about, when they are ready to say, "I'm a part of this spiritual family," then we pass on the passing-over in this meal.  In a way, the whole reason for our congregation's existence is to keep passing-on the message and meaning of the passing-over of sinners to more and more people.

            Last week there was an article in the paper about the fourteenth Annual African-American-Jewish Seder (Passover meal), an event meant to honor the histories and cultures of two peoples who overcame slavery and oppression, and to renewing their commitments to fighting racism and anti-Semitism (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 1B, 3/30/09).  There's nothing wrong with trying to end racism and anti-Semitism.  Both of those are wrong and sinful.  And there's nothing wrong with some people getting together to experience a Seder, a Passover meal, to try to understand what the Israelites of old were supposed to do each spring.  But to assume that the original, main meaning of Passover had something to do with celebrating freedom from slavery and oppression is to miss the point of the whole deal.

            So, why don't we celebrate Passover?  If you had a son fighting in Afghanistan and gazed longingly each day at his picture on the mantel, then heard a knock on the door and opened it to find him standing there, I doubt whether you would close the door in his face, return to the picture on the mantel, and say, "Oh, I wish my boy would come home!"  No!  You'd rejoice in the real deal and his real presence.  Passover is the picture of what Jesus did, and we don't need the picture if we've got the real thing.  He is the real deal, offering us his real presence in this meal so that we can be assured that the angel of death passes over us.  As surely as the Israelite mommies and daddies held their firstborn close on that Passover night in Egypt and cried out to God, "Thank you, dear Lord!  He's alive!  He's still alive!" so surely, when we look at our faith and wonder whether it's good enough and what God expects, this meal's passing-over leads us to cry out to God, "Thank you, dear Lord Jesus!  My faith is alive!  It's still alive!"  And that's why We Are Passing-On the Passing-Over.  Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on April 9, 2009

Services

Sundays 7:45, 9:00 & 10:30 am

Mondays 6:30 pm

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

Home | Site Map | Contact Us | Feeds