B, Maundy Thursday - Exodus 12:1-14 "Passing into; Passing over"

Text: Exodus 12:1-14

1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

Sermon

There seems to be an anomaly in the bible. Tonight we are going to address it, because it has everything to do with the Passover celebration around the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. In the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke Jesus sits to celebrate the Passover meal with his disciples and institutes the Lord’s Supper at the Last Supper. However, in John’s Gospel the Passover meal is not celebrated on Maundy Thursday evening as it is in the synoptic Gospels.

We hear in John 18:28-29a, “…the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning (Good Friday), and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them.” The Jews who held Jesus before Pilate on the day which became known as Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, wanted to stay ceremonially clean for the Passover meal that night. The Passover in John falls on the Sabbath which would begin at six pm on Friday and end at six pm on Saturday night.

This is also why the Sabbath in John is called a special Sabbath, because it was the Passover as well as the Sabbath. We read again in John, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” (John 19:31-34)

When Jesus was hung on the cross on Friday afternoon it was the day of preparation for the Passover Sabbath. Between the ninth hour (three pm) and sundown (six pm, the beginning of the new day), Jesus was nailed to the cross and died, with, and, at the same time as, all the lambs which were being slaughtered for the Passover meal.

However, in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the day of preparation for the Passover is on Thursday, not Good Friday as in John’s Gospel. The lambs were being killed as Jesus sends the disciples to prepare a room where they might eat the Passover, and as we know, institute the Lord’s Supper. We read in Mark’s Gospel, “The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve.” (Mark 14:16-17)

So we have two different accounts that place the Passover on different days. In John the Passover is celebrated on the Sabbath, after 6pm on Friday night, when Jesus is in the tomb. But in the Synoptic Gospels it is celebrated on Thursday evening, and Jesus eats the meal with his disciples instituting the Lord’s Supper, his body and blood physically present in the bread and wine, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

This difference is no cause for us to go into a panic that the bible is in error. Although the bible has historical elements to it, this is not its ultimate function. The bible is a theological document: God inspired Word about God from God for our salvation. In the bible we receive the truths of God; in the bible the truth of God’s plan for humanity’s salvation is revealed to us.

However, this is for certain, there is no inconsistency: Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday and was laid in the tomb, dead, before the Sabbath began at six pm. The Passover, on the other hand, is used as a tool to demonstrate to us two essential truths about the Son of God; the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. So what are they?

In the Old Testament (Exodus 12) we have heard that the Israelites were commanded to follow a ritual, in order that the angel of death would pass over them and their first born sons would not die. So they prepared in haste, slaughtering their lambs, painting the blood on the doorposts of their homes, and then ate the whole lamb before morning. When the Lord did descend he passed over the homes whose occupants had complied with God’s command, and into the homes of those who didn’t, striking down the first born with a plague.

And so we read in Exodus, “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.” (Exodus 12:29-30)

Jesus sits with the disciples and institutes the Last Supper at the Passover celebration and remembrance. He gives us a meal that gives us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. The angel of death, God’s eternal wrath, passes over us. Every time we eat the bread and drink from the cup, the Lord’s death is proclaimed and we are reassured of his bodily presence with us. In fact, not only has God’s wrath passed over us, but the Son of God has passed into us. He is with us and in us. He has cleansed us: this is my body, this is my blood. This is the emphasis of the synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

But how he cleansed us becomes evident in the Gospel of John. The wrath of God passes over us, but not over Jesus. Just as the lambs’ blood on the doorposts and the ritual eating saved the Israelites and gave them freedom and exodus from Egypt, Jesus’ spilt blood gives us freedom from the tyranny of our sinful selves, the evil in this world, and the devil. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; that is the sin of everybody — Jew and Gentile, man and woman, child and adult. Jesus is the Passover Lamb, he was not passed over but died, so we are passed over and have life because of his death. We have become God’s first born Sons, through the death of his one and only Son, Jesus Christ.

As we come to Holy Communion tonight and every time, the reality of the Passover in John’s Gospel and the synoptic Gospels is a reassurance to us. Jesus is with us, he is the one who breaks the bread and lifts the cup of wine to our lips. God is with us; he instituted the meal and he distributes the meal. He is our Immanuel; God with us.

But he is the meal too. He is the innocent lamb slaughtered for us to eat; his innocent blood has stained the cross. The bread and wine is his body and blood; the doorposts of our hearts have been doused in the blood of Christ. We have no fear of death; God’s wrath has passed over us onto Christ. He bore all of God’s anger against our sin, on the cross.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb and he is the host of the holy meal inviting us to come and receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Amen.