A Perpetual Ordinance

Scripture — Exodus 12:1-14 (NRSV)

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 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. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; 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. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: 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. 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. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

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.

Devotion

Today is Maundy Thursday. Usually, in these devotionals, I reflect on the readings for the upcoming Sunday, but when a feast day of the church falls on the actual day of the devotion, I write about that instead. Last year, even though Easter Day was at a different time of the year, it just so happened that I also had Maundy Thursday and Good Friday assigned to me in our schedule, and I reflected on the Epistle lesson for both; you can read those here (Maundy Thursday) and here (Good Friday). This time I’ve chosen on both days to talk about the assigned Old Testament lessons.

I’ve written a number of times now about the Methodist Bible study I’ve attended for almost a decade even though I’m Episcopalian. (The first time I seem to have brought it up here at Life for Leaders was 2022.) We’re currently studying Exodus, and went through this passage just a few weeks ago.

If I asked you to tell me the story of Exodus, you would surely mention all the exciting action—including Moses’ birth and rescue, his flight after killing a man, his meeting God in the burning bush (which I wrote about in March), his confrontations with Pharoah, the ten plagues, the hurried departure, the miracle at the Red Sea, the wandering in the wilderness, the meeting God on the mountaintop, the Ten Commandments, the golden calf. What you would probably not tell me is that there are a lot of detailed descriptions of liturgical observances and objects and laws. (Isn’t that Leviticus? I can hear you saying).

But one thing that the pastor has pointed out in this Bible study is that all that action takes up less than half the book. When Moses is on the mountaintop, there are chapters and chapters of detailed descriptions of liturgical observances and objects and laws. And before we even get to the mountain—right in the middle of the hurried departure from Egypt, in fact—we find these also very detailed instructions on how to observe the Passover.

Why read these (very detailed, I repeat) instructions as Christians, and why on this particular day? The church has not replaced Biblical Israel (to say that it has done so is a Christian heresy, called “supersessionism,” which can be your ten-dollar word for the week); these are not instructions for Christians on how to celebrate Maundy Thursday. (We get those in the Gospels and in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.)

But when Jesus first asked us to eat bread and drink wine and remember him and pray for his coming again, it was in the context of celebrating this very Passover meal. The Christian story, and the reason for this day, is deeply rooted in remembrance—not only of Christ’s deliverance of us on the cross, but of the fact that God has always been about the business of rescuing all those whom God calls God’s own.

And we have not always been—but we should always be—about the business of saying thanks.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Moses and Aaron Announce God’s Judgment to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1-12:51).