With the story of the Passover in Exodus 12 we leapfrog forwards from the lifechanging encounter between Moses and Yahweh in Exodus 3 which takes place beyond the wilderness. Last week I explored the dynamic of finding our way beyond the wilderness – wilderness being a metaphor for life’s status quo. To reach beyond the wilderness is to risk following our curiosity – curiosity that is triggered by the glimpse of something  in peripheral vision – out of the corner of our eye. The encounter between God and Moses beyond the wilderness was life changing both for Moses -obviously – but also for God. Life changing, how exactly?

For Moses it was an experience of being called; of finding his identity radically reshaped. But called from what and called to what?

The place beyond the wilderness is a metaphor for an experience bereft of the signposts that keep us corralled within the familiar. It is a place empty of the signs and markers that normally keep the unfamiliar at bay – for in the unfamiliar thar be dragons. Beyond the wilderness Moses is called from his uncalled life – his life amidst the familiar routines and expectations shaped by life as business-as-usual. By turns – Moses is terrified and yet curious, he’s stripped and exposed and yet empowered – he’s shaken not stirred into a new identity – an emerging new sense of self and purpose.

But the encounter with Moses is also life changing for God. Moses is not the only one whose identity is shaken not stirred. God – I AM WHO I AM – a God of memory of the past becomes God -I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE – God now defined by future actions that refashion God’s identity to become the God of liberation, the warrior God, who gets their[1] hands bloody in the messy affairs of human history.

In today’s reading from Exodus 12 we catch a glimpse of just how messy things had become.

Between Chapter 3 and 12, Exodus chronicles a series of skirmishes in the war Yahweh – to use God’s Hebrew name – has provoked with the Pharoah over his refusal to let the Hebrews go. In pursuit of his new role as liberator – God has donned the identity of the warrior. One interpretation characterizes this conflict as a trial of strength between Yahweh and the Gods of Egypt. Whether this is a cosmic struggle or simply a struggle between the divine will and recalcitrant human resistance, need not overly concern us, here. Save to remind ourselves that the Pharaoh’s opening salvo – his command that all Hebrew male infants be killed at birth has now found its echo in Yahweh’s ultimate response – that is to strike all firstborn – human and animal – in the land of Egypt as a judgement not only against the Pharaoh but upon all the gods of Egypt. Yahweh asserts his right to do this terrible thing – for he proclaims I am the Lord – that is -I AM WHO I WILL BE.

Yahweh instructs Moses on how the Hebrews are to prepare for and commemorate the angel of death’s passing over the land shrouded in the darkness of night. This is to be a unique event- an event like none other – therefore it is to be remembered as a perpetual anniversary – a commemoration of Yahweh’s involvement in the liberation of his people from bondage.

On the night of the angel’s passing over the land – the Hebrews encounter their God in a lifechanging event that will henceforth forge them into a people. On this night the Hebrews will be changed from a community of slaves into an Israelite nation – identified and protected by the blood of the sacrificial lamb smeared on their door posts.

Down the centuries the Jewish people have continued to commemorate the night of the angel’s passing over. Passover or Pesach is not only a yearly commemoration but also a weekly family meal of remembrance on the eve of Shabbat – the Sabbath day. At the Shabbat meal a question is posed by the eldest to the youngest person present: why is this night different from all other nights? This question triggers collective memory enshrined in the unique customs of this commemoration where food is the focus. A meal of unleavened bread – for there was no time for the dough to rise. A meal seasoned with the bitter herbs of adversity, eaten in haste – eaten in a state of readiness for flight.

The Passover and flight from Egypt mark a reset in the measurement of chronological time – it becomes the beginning of months. It’s on the 10^th day of the first month that the festival of Passover is to be commemorated.

How we measure the passing of time is interesting. As a Church community, we measure our year according to three different cycles. Some aspects of Church life follow the dictates of the chronological calendar year – January to December. The Lectionary and calendar of greater and lesser festivals of the Christian year run from December to November – beginning with Advent Sunday and concluding with the celebration of the kingship of Christ. Yet we have a third way of measuring the passing of months in the Program year from September to July. The Program year is a particular – and in my experience – a unique feature of American Church life.

September is the first month of the Program year. Homecoming is the first Sunday of the program year and by a quirk of chronological time – this year Homecoming occurs on the 10^th day of the first month. I wrote in E-News this past week about what we can expect in the new Program year at St Martin’s. To give the briefest overview, we can expect a creative and energized application of the principle less is more. If you are interested to read what I mean by this, you can find it here.

The first covenant between Yahweh and Israel was inaugurated on the night of the Passover and sealed in the sign of sacrificial blood. The second covenant between God and the second Israel – that is – an Israel now extending beyond the blood boundaries of the Israelite nation – has also been sealed in sacrificial blood – this time not the blood of a sacrificial lamb but the blood of Jesus the Christ – the Lamb of God.

I need to say here that in using the language of first and second covenants and racial and extended Israel – I am not in any way suggesting that the second covenant has replaced the first. God does not abrogate their promises – nor abandon their faithfulness. Therefore, both covenants remain in force and are conduits for God’s continued presence with God’s people -Jew and Gentile. Neither am I suggesting that the extended Israel – the nonracial Israel – has supplanted the Israel of blood and circumcision. Extended Israel – usually referred to as the New Israel is an extension of God’s promises to Abraham – which through Christ – now encompass – potentially – the entire human race.

The parallel continues. As with the yearly commemoration of Passover and its weekly echoes on the eve of Shabbat, the New Israel of the second covenant – the Christian people of God – likewise commemorate Jesus’ with the symbolism of the Passover meal. We read On the eve of Passover Jesus took bread and gave thanks; he took the cup  giving thanks and saying …..

The yearly celebration of Easter therefore coincides in the same Luna calendar cycle as the Exodus Passover. So as with the weekly celebration of Pesach on the Shabbat eve – Christ’s Passover – the passage from life to death to new life – is celebrated by Christians on the first day of the week.

On that fearful night when Yahweh’s angel of death passed over the land of Egypt – the identity of a new people was forged through the experience of deliverance at the hand of Yahweh now the warrior God – sallying forth in defense of a chosen people. The promise made to Abraham becomes renewed as God cherishes once again an exclusive human relationship with Moses. The Jews rightly remember this night as the lynchpin of their identity as a community liberated to become instrumental in God’s plan for the liberation of a world – a world still ensnared in Egypt’s bondage.

Egypt represents in any age our entrapment in the uncalled life in which we continue to connive with the forces of oppression – be they political, social, or environmental. The promise made to Abraham became renewed in the sacrifice of Christ as Passover lamb. The blood of Christ – no longer a sign smeared upon our door posts, is now seared into our hearts.

On the night before he died, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. Over the following three days the angel of death passed over him. In his passage from life to death to new life – those who follow in his name were forged into a new community liberated to become instruments in God’s plan for the liberation of a world still ensnared in Egypt’s bondage.

On the 10^th day of the first month of the Program year – Homecoming Sunday we celebrate Christ our Passover as the lynchpin of our identity as a community liberated to become the willing instrument in God’s plan for the liberation of a world still ensnared in Egypt’s bondage.

Deliverance is the lynchpin in identity. We can only pray that as Episcopalians – we might take our identity as seriously as our Jewish friends and neighbors across the street from us on the corner of Orchard place and Orchard Avenue – do. That together as Jew and Gentile we might work tirelessly in the divine dream for the healing of the world. Amen!

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[1] My use of the collective pronoun for what the Tradition often views as a singular God reflects an affirmation that God’s nature  is communal not singular, and also beyond the immediate associations with human gender.