Eating the Exodus

Lenten Vespers, Week Two: Passover

A Reading from the Book of Exodus:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt … 

“Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household … then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it … with unleavened bread and bitter herbs … your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord.

“I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments … when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt …

“You shall observe this as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this observance mean to you?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ”

And the people bowed down and worshiped.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” Such is the famous quotation from Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, which we typically paraphrase as: “You are what you eat.” For most of us, food is more than sustenance. It is community, camaraderie, enjoyment, tradition, celebration. We all eat certain foods and drink certain drinks at certain times of the year. Thus our meals form our memories; they tell us stories; indeed, they make us who we are.

I think that’s why food is always an integral part of religion; because it is so human, yes, so universal; but also because it takes us out of ourselves, binds us to other people, makes us part of something greater. We find joy in food, gratitude, transcendence even.

One of the great religious meals, amongst all of humankind, is the Passover. This remarkable custom has been maintained in recognizable form for at least 2,500 years. Traditionalists would put it at more like 3,500 years. That’s one heck of a legacy, one heck of an inheritance. Most of our Christmas traditions only date back to the 19th century or so.

At the Passover, family and friends gather together in order to share in a meal; no surprise there. But it’s a specific sort of meal, following a set order, or seder. Children and guests are tasked with asking questions—questions which the meal itself will answer. “What makes this night different from all other nights?” they inquire. And over the course of the evening, through narrative, prayer, and song, those gathered at the table retell, and in a sense relive, the story of the Exodus, of the Jewish people’s liberation from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land of their ancestors.

Each food serves as a symbol. Flatbread proclaims the celerity of the Exodus, so sudden that their bread had not the time to rise. Bitter herbs represent the bitterness of bondage. Four cups of wine provide the sweetness of God’s promises. And of course we have the lamb, whose blood upon the doorframe marked the household as faithful to the Lord. The story, then, is not simply heard, but touched and tasted, smelt and sung. It is visceral, tactile, incarnational. We participate in the story, host and guest alike, each in an active role.

Because here’s the thing: the Passover seder does not simply remember something that happened long ago and far away, to our Nth-great-grandmothers. No, by entering the story, by tasting and acting out the Exodus, we become partakers in the original event. We are there in a very real way; a ceremonial, spiritual way. Thus God did not simply save our ancestors from the lash, but we ourselves. God has come to set us free! We are in the Exodus, drawn fully—body, mind, and spirit—into the story of God’s people and His promises to them.

The fancy term, the technical term, for remembering in this way, is anamnesis. Anamnesis means a spiritual remembrance, a religious and ceremonial remembrance, far beyond the rote repetition of facts. Anamnesis describes mystical union with the thing remembered, with the people whose stories we tell.

Christians tell the story of the Exodus: in Sunday School, in Confirmation, in worship, in Holy Week, not to mention innumerable Hollywood adaptations. I told the story of the Exodus last week, and I tried to make the telling worth your time. But to participate in a seder is not simply to learn the story but to live the story, to taste it and to touch it and to literally digest it. That’s a whole other level of religion. That’s a higher integration of the faith.

I grew up in a neighborhood with seders. At 13 years of age, four cups of wine are an experience. And I miss that ritual, that story, that joyful celebration of friends and family ‘round the table. It’s one thing to read the Bible, another thing to live it in that way. But seders aren’t for Christians. On this our faiths agree: that anyone can join in the Jewish Passover meal, but only a Jewish person ought to host it. The Church has a Passover meal of her own, as ought to be made clear over the course of these Lenten Vespers.

Jesus, as a faithful Jewish man, raised in a faithful Jewish family, would travel to Jerusalem every year for the Passover meal. He would break the bread and share the wine and tell the age-old story, ancient even in His day. If we want to understand Christ in His Incarnation, then we must understand Him as a Jew. That’s why we read the Hebrew Bible, why we sing the Psalter, why we quote the Prophets: because these were Jesus’ Scriptures, Jesus’ people, Jesus’ faith.

And it’s no small beer that Jesus travelled to Jerusalem that fatal final time—knowing we would kill Him when He came—so that He could celebrate the Passover with His disciples. It proved the crown and culmination of His earthly ministry, His early life. And we will pick up the story of that Last Supper as the subject for our homily next week.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Nidaros Lutheran

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