Loving God, you remind us of your power to save and of your provision for us on our journey through the wilderness of this world.  Teach us to trust you in all circumstances, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Amen.

            At least part of what we heard today from Exodus were instructions for how to celebrate the Passover.  These were not simply instructions for the night before the Israelites left Egypt, but instructions for a festival that was to be celebrated every year at the same time.  The purpose of this annual festival was to help the people remember.  They needed to remember God’s salvation and tell their children what God had done for them.  At the same time, they remembered the bitterness of the slavery that had led up to the Passover.

         We sometimes forget that, by the time the Israelites were led out of Egypt, they had been there for 430 years (Ex. 12:41).  The vast majority of those years had been spent providing slave labour for the Egyptian Pharaoh, who had also tried to thin out the Hebrew population by killing all the baby boys.  When we are aware of this larger context for the death of the firstborn, perhaps it doesn’t seem quite as “over the top” as it might when just focusing on that particular story.

         The reality is that the Israelites had been looking for a way out for a long time.  In fact, they had been waiting so long for God’s deliverance that they had pretty much resigned themselves to staying in Egypt as slaves, even though they had been asking God to deliver them.  They have trouble at first believing that Moses has actually been sent by God.  They are ready to give up as soon as they are asked to make bricks without straw and then are beaten when they can’t comply.  And even when they do leave Egypt, they sometimes think that things were better when they were slaves.  All things considered, it takes them a very long time to adjust to the idea that God can and will save them.

         In many ways, this seems to be part and parcel of our natural aversion to change.  There have been many cases over the years of people who have been held in captivity for a long time.  Often, when they are finally given an opportunity for freedom, it seems too scary for them to accept the freedom that is offered.  They have managed to get used to their circumstances, or have even turned off parts of their brain as a coping mechanism.

         While our circumstances might not be quite this extreme, it seems that we, too, often resign ourselves to nothing ever changing.  We believe that we are sick and never going to get any better.  We have convinced ourselves that nobody wants to come to church any more.  We believe that all of the best things that have happened to us are in the past.  We believe that there are so many hopeless situations in the world that we can’t possibly do anything about it.  And, we keep asking “where are the youth?” even when they are right there in front of us!

         It is so easy to slip into these ways of thinking that we don’t even notice that it’s happening – and when it does, we really need to ask ourselves, “Do we believe in the God who saves, or not?”  Do we really believe that God is not going to do anything about any of these things that we tell ourselves?  In fact, have we stopped asking God to be at work in our lives and in our church and in our world?

         The thing is that once God gets involved, things can and do change.  The Israelites went from a predictable life where they were slaves but could still eat the produce of the land, to a life in the wilderness.  They didn’t know where their food and drink were going to come from, and they didn’t know exactly where they were going or how long it was going to take to get there.  In fact, they were pretty sure they were all going to die by the time they made it as far as the Red Sea.  Of course, we know in hindsight that God provided all that was needed, but would we have trusted God in the same situation?

         In the reading from Exodus that we heard today, the Israelites have enough faith to enter into a covenant of protection with blood.  They put the blood of the lamb around the doors of their houses in order that the angel of death might pass over them that night (Ex. 12:13).  And once they have done this act of faith, it is only a few hours before they are on their way out of Egypt and into the wilderness.

         In the gospel that we heard today, there is also a covenant of protection with blood.  “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood,” says Jesus (Lk. 22:20).  In this new covenant, we become participants through our baptism into Christ and are renewed in the covenant at the Lord’s Supper.  This happens through the work of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the gift of faith and moves us from death to life.

         Just like the Israelites, however, there are times when our faith is really strong and we are moving forward, and there are other times when we just really want to go back to how it was before.  This is in spite of the fact that God is both guiding and providing all along the way!  

         And so, we, too, need to remember God’s salvation.  We need to remember how God acted in Jesus Christ in order to show us our worth and free us from the power of sin and death.  We need to remember that we are precious children of God who have been given the Holy Spirit.  For, once we remember and look to God for all that is needed, things can change in a hurry.  For, the Spirit continues to be at work among us, leading us from bondage into freedom and from death into life.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost 18 (NL 3)                        Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8

October 4, 2020                               Luke 22:14-20

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2020 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved