Meditation 258
Exodus 12: 1-4; 11-14
This passage is part of the story of how the Israelites were by God from slavery to freedom. The people were in bondage to another nation, and God led them away from oppression and servitude to become an independent nation. As the nation Israel, the people were to be led by God so that they could be a witness for God to the world. God loved the people and they were invited to love God in return. God saw their distress and led them away from what was confining them to the wilderness. Here they would learn to rely on God. After the lessons of the wilderness had been taught, the people were brought to the Promised Land.
The Passover was one of the events that shaped the identity of the people of Israel. They were the ones who had been delivered by God, and they had a ritual to remind them of God’s goodness. This is what the people were told “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) Each year there was to be a remembrance acted out of what God had done. Such a remembrance was intended to keep people’s hearts close to who God is. They could turn to God who had proved to be faithful, and trust that God would help them, just as God had brought them safely from Egypt.
That last week of Jesus’ life he observed the Passover with his disciples. They gathered to share in the feast where they remembered that God had brought the people to freedom, and that God had been their God for generations. The last Passover Jesus ate was to be different from the others. When we read Matthew, Mark and Luke we read that during the meal Jesus took bread and wine and gave them a new meaning. He told he disciples that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood of the covenant. (Matthew 26:26 &27) Jesus was giving his followers a new act of remembrance that would be a reminder of the covenant between God and humanity. This covenant would ensure the forgiveness of sins so that people could be close to God.
That last week of Jesus’ life was probably one where his human nature needed the reminders that God cares, and that God is strong. Jesus had entered the city of Jerusalem because he knew it was where God wanted him to be. Jerusalem was not safe. There were people in the city who were determined to misunderstand Jesus, and who would take his message of love for God and love for people, and turn it into a message of self-promotion. Jesus had been loving to the outcast, who told stories that stayed in the heart of the hearers, and who healed those who were sick or disabled. Our Messiah who had done nothing wrong, and who stood up to lies, was about to be arrested on false charges. Jesus knew that, and I think that as he went through the days leading up to his arrest, that he needed to draw upon the strength of God as it had been shown in the Passover.