Sermon for Maundy Thursday - Ex 12:1-14

 

Maundy Thursday

                                                                                      Ex 12:1-14

                                                                                      3/28/24

 

          It turns out that in eastern Europe, people don’t want to remember.  After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union built numerous memorials to the Red Army and its soldiers in the countries where it defeated Nazi Germany.  These countries then became areas that were dominated by the Soviet Union. They were forced to become communist as true free elections were denied.  They were places where free speech was not allowed, and the state police repressed all opposition.  These nations were basically colonies of the Soviet Union, and the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1967 in order to maintain this control.

          With the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, these nations have regained their full independence.  However, the past remains. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, it prompted a reaction across eastern Europe.  Places like Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Bulgaria began tearing down Soviet Union memorials in their lands.  These countries don’t want anything to remind them of how the Soviet Union oppressed them.

          In tonight’s Old Testament lesson we hear about a memorial with completely different associations.  Yahweh institutes the Passover as a memorial that will recall his rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt.  We learn tonight that the Passover lamb was something that pointed forward to the great rescue Jesus Christ has won for us.  At the Last Supper, Jesus took the Passover meal and transformed it into the means by which he gives that rescue to us.

          Israel had been enslaved in Egypt.  Yahweh had sent Moses to Pharaoh with the message that he must let God’s people go.  Pharaoh had refused, and so God had sent a series of nine plagues upon the Egyptians.

          Now, in preparation for the tenth and final plague, Yahweh told the Israelites to take a lamb and kill it at twilight.  They were to take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and lintel of their houses.  Then they were to roast the lamb with fire, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

          This was no ordinary meal.  Yahweh told them: “In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover.”  They were to eat it ready to go, because God was going to act.

          He told them, “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.”  Yahweh promised that the blood on the houses would be a sign, and that no harm would befall the Israelites on that night when he struck the Egyptians.

          God would rescue them, and this meal would not be a one time thing.  Instead, Yahweh said, “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.” The continued celebration of the Passover meal would cause the Israelites to remember how God had rescued them from Egypt.

          At midnight Yahweh went through the land and struck down the first born of all the Egyptians.  However, wherever the blood of the lamb was on the house – God passed over that house and the Israelites were spared. The trauma was so great that Pharaoh finally commanded the Israelites to leave. 

God acted through the Passover lamb to rescue Israel from slavery. This action by God was type. It was an event in the Old Testament that pointed forward to what God would do in the New Testament.  St. Paul told the Corinthians, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

In our text we learn that the Passover lamb was to be blameless.  Jesus Christ was the sinless Son of God who entered the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Born without sin, he perfectly kept the Law and fulfilled God’s will.  

The Passover lamb was killed and its blood was placed on the houses.  This blood marked the house and caused God’s judgment to pass over the Israelites. Jesus Christ’s blood was shed on the cross for us.  Paul told the Ephesians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”  Because of the shedding of Jesus’ blood for us, God’s judgment has passed over us. God acted in the Passover to rescue Israel from slavery.  God acted in Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb - to rescue us from slavery to sin.

This is deliverance that we needed because we were conceived and born as fallen, sinful people.  We were unable to free ourselves because our actions simply pile one sin upon another. In thought, word, and deed we continually generate sin and so we have no basis for living with the holy God.  Yet Jesus Christ’s death has won for us the forgiveness of sins and rescued us from God’s judgment.

At the end of our text God says, “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.”  The Passover meal was to be celebrated each year.  It would continue to call to remembrance what God had done for Israel.  Later in this chapter Moses adds, “And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the LORD's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’”

Jesus, the Passover Lamb, had come to Jerusalem to die at the time of the Passover.  As he prepared to do so, he celebrated one last Passover meal with this disciples.  He told them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

But as the fulfillment of the Passover Lamb – as the true Passover Lamb sent by God – Jesus took the Passover meal and transformed it.  He took bread and gave thanks.  Then he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me.”  Then after supper he took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them saying, “Drink of it all of you; this cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Jesus told the disciples that he was giving them his body to eat.  It was his body that was given for them.  Then he told them that he was giving them his blood to drink. It was the blood that established the new testament – the blood shed for the forgiveness of sins.

At that last Passover meal, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Altar.  Jesus’ words do what they say.  He declared that the bread was his body to eat.  He announced that the wine was his blood to drink.  These things are what Christ declares them to be. And so in the Sacrament we eat and drink the true body and blood of Christ.

Jesus gives his body and blood to us for a reason.  He does so in order to give us the benefits that he won by his death on the cross.  We receive his body given on the cross for us – the body nailed to the cross to rescue us.  We receive his blood shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  Jesus the Passover Lamb gives us the very price that he paid to rescue us from the slavery of sin.  He places it into our mouth in order to apply the benefits of that redemption to us.

Jesus died on the cross as the Passover Lamb. But on the third day God raised him from the dead.  It is the risen Lord who continues to be the host of the Sacrament of the Altar.  Our Lord speaks his words through the pastor. The risen Lord gives us his true body and blood into our bodies. And in doing so we receive the pledge and assurance that our bodies will be raised up on the Last Day.

God had told Israel that the Passover meal was to be a memorial – it was to be a yearly reminder of the Passover and God’s rescues in the exodus.  When Jesus fulfilled the Passover and transformed the meal, he declared that it was still to cause remembrance.  Yet now it reminds us of Jesus’s saving death.  Our Lord said that we are to celebrate his Sacrament in remembrance of him.

For the Israelites, the Passover meal was an act of remembering a past event. But in the Sacrament of the Altar we do not have only a mental activity occurring – an act of remembering.  Instead, the remembrance is caused by the true body and blood of Christ that is present.  Our Lord – the risen Lord - comes bodily into our midst. We celebrate the Sacrament in remembrance of Jesus because in this way he is present with us and gives us the benefits of his saving death and resurrection.

In the Old Testament lesson tonight we hear God establish the Passover meal as he rescues Israel from slavery.  The death of the Passover lamb was the means by which God spared Israel from judgment.  Jesus Christ is the true Passover Lamb whose death has rescued us from slavery to sin. He has transformed the Passover meal into the Sacrament of the Altar in which he gives us his true body and blood.  He causes us to remember his death as he gives us the very price he paid to win us forgiveness.  Here we have the assurance that we are forgiven, and the pledge that the Lord will raise up our bodies on the Last Day.