Exodus 12:1-14: This is the Beginning

This is where it begins. THIS is where and this is when God becomes the God of the people of Israel. The people were suffering under the under Egyptian oppression. In their suffering they called out to the God of their ancestors. God heard their cry. God would not stand by and while they continued to suffer at the hands of their oppressors. God decided to do something and that a something was to send Moses to them and to Pharaoh to bring about their salvation.

Moses went to Pharaoh over and over again telling him that God was requiring that he, “Let [God’s] people go.” Over the course of these interactions, Pharaoh learned (the hard way) who this God of the Hebrew people is and exactly how powerful. Meanwhile the children of Abraham were watching and they too were learning. Any doubts they may have had about IAM, the God of their ancestors, any question they might have had about God’s ability to rescue them, to save them, or to free them from the oppression of Egyptian slavery have surely been assuaged, as they have observed the plague signs which God has sent to Pharaoh to convince him to “Let my people go.”

Up until this point the people of Israel have been the audience to this spectator sport, in which the great and mighty Pharaoh was up against IAM the God of their ancestors. The game itself was a series of plagues. They have seen the Nile turn to blood, they have seen the land infested with frogs, gnats, and flies. They have witnessed the death of livestock and the infestation of boils which followed.  The land was then scourged with hail and locusts and finally they witnessed the darkness which consumed everything.

They saw it all, they were witnesses to God’s power and God’s protection throughout all these occurrences. All the while Pharaoh was refusing to learn the lesson about the scope, and strength of God’s power, the Israelite people were observing and taking notes about who this IAM, the God of their ancestors, this God who claims to have the power to rescue them from the great and might hand of the Egyptian Empire, from her gods and from her Pharaoh. They have watched, they have seen and they have observed. They can see God’s power.

Thus far they have stood on the sidelines, choosing to cheer or not to cheer for this God who says to be working on their behalf. But now they can be spectators no longer. God asks them to act, to do, to be prepared, to participate. They must choose to participate, to do and to be the people of God.

This is the beginning. God has not yet said, “You will be my people and I will be your God.”  There is no covenant. There are no commandments, no ordinances, not stipulations, no mutual agreement. But this is where it all begins. “THIS month”, God says, “shall mark the beginning.”  This is where it all starts.

Up until now they have gotten to see God at work, God’s power, God’s might; and how God asks for them to step up to be active participants in their salvation. Gods asks them to do several things. First they are to acquire an unblemished lamb, one for each household, or if there is too much for one household join with those around them. Then they are to slaughter the animals and put the blood on their door posts marking their dwellings. They were to then roast it over a fire, eating as much of it as possible. If there was anything they cannot eat, they are to burn it. While they eat they are to gird their loins, have their sandals on their feet and their staff in their hand. They are to eat hurriedly. They are to be ready to leave, to flee, at a moment’s notice, ready to travel as soon as God makes the way.

Basically they are asked to all get what they need to have a great feast, mark their houses with blood and eat quickly in a manner which anticipates an imminent departure, as if they expect to leave at any moment and make sure they don’t leave any of the feast behind to rot, they are to destroy it.

This is the beginning. This is the start of the relationship which is chronicled throughout the rest of scriptures. This is when these people become more than just the descendants of Joseph or the children of their forefather Abraham. This is when they stop being observers of the actions and works of God and begin to participate in the salvation which God is preparing for them. This is when they become the People of God. This is the moment when a handful of Hebrew slaves really and truly become more than the descendants of the great patriarch, more than just God-fearers, this is when they become the People of God, the Children of God.

This moment of transformation is to be observed, it is to be remembered. They do this by marking time differently from here on out. The very way they mark the days, the months, the way they think about time itself is from this moment forward is to revolve around the moment they went from being the Hebrew slaves of Pharaoh and became The People of God.

This is the beginning. They changed their calendar. They changed their dates. Everything for the Israelites revolves around THIS moment, THIS date, this place in their history. From this moment everything is different. Who they are is different and they know this and will always remember this because they will, for forever more, mark time based on this moment when they came into relationship with God. (this is one of the many reasons why we choose, here at this church, to pay more attention to a calendar which revolves around holy days and dates which mark who we are as Christians more than the calendar of the world around us – to mark time by things that matter to us as Christians and not so much by what matters to the world around us)

This is the beginning. Not only has the way they have marked time, hanged, but once they changed their calendar, once they changed their sense of time, they also changed their outlook. When they became the people of God they became a PEOPLE. They were no longer individuals who obeyed God or did not, they were not just households, or families who choose to follow and believe in the God of their ancestors, but they became a People, a gathered community.

From this point forward God does not only ask for individuals to do something as God had before. Before God spoke to Abraham, God wrestled with Jacob, God watched over Joseph, or worked through Moses, but now God asks for all the people, all the people to do something, well to do several things, but to together do the things which from this time on will be associated with Passover.

They are asked to gather together and kill lambs or goats, to eat in readiness, to mark their door posts. At this point God is not just working with Jacob or Isaac, or Abraham or even Moses, God begins to work with the People. They are all called on to do something, together in community. This is the moment when this collection of individuals become a community, a community chosen by God, led by God, a community of faith. This is when they become God’s PEOPLE.

Their salvation is not wholly reliant upon each one them trusting the God of their ancestors who sent Moses to Pharaoh on their behalf. Their salvation is not merely in the hands of this God who has shown that the power to command all things is within this God’s control. But their salvation begins when they join together and take up actions which allow them to participate together, with God in their salvation. They gather the goats and the lambs. They join together with their friends and neighbors. They come together and slaughter the animals and then in unison, in community, partake of the feast these animals provide for them. So that they, together, can leave in haste as soon as God has prepared the way for them.

They must actively join together. They must become the people of God and together as a community of faith, in relationship with God, they work out their salvation. Passover occurs when they become the people of God, when they form a community of individuals joining with God to participate in the salvation God is working out with them, in them and for them.  

God calls us to join together to be the people of God. God’s desire is for us to love God and worship God, for God to be our God and for us to be God’s people. God calls us to work together to participate in our salvation, to be active participants in the work God is doing in us, through and for us, as God seeks to bring salvation not only to us, but to the world. We are called not merely as individuals though, we are called to be a people. Individuals who love, and worship God, individuals who come together and work together to be the people of God together, actively participating as a people, as a community to do the work and the will of God in our neighborhoods, in our city, and in our world. We are called to be the Church.

We are not called to be observers; we are not called to be spectators. We are not called to sit the stadium to watch God at work, in the same way we watch the Sox beat the in the Yankees in the final game of the season. We are not called to just sit back and watch the show and evaluate if we like the way the plot is going, or if the actors are properly playing their parts. To hear if the violinist got the vibrato in the third movement because we know that it is really tough section. We are called to act to participate, to get goats, to kill lambs to eat with our loin girded. Our salvation is not reliant upon us seeing, hearing and knowing that God is at work, but our salvation is dependent upon us participating with God in the very work of our own salvation, but not doing so on our own. This is not wholly about God saving ME (or you, or any one of us individually, nor am I saying that personal salvation is not important). God calls us to be a people working together, participating together, and joining together, following God together.

Not only is this not a spectator sport but this is a team sport. One in which we all work together. One in which we cannot go it alone. We are called to work together to join with one another, to share and to participate together in the work which God is asking us to do. One, in which, God promises to lead us, all of us together. One in which, God calls us to be God’s people, to be a people a community, living and working and participating together in the world of salvation so that we might bring God’s salvation to the our world.

We cannot go it alone. We are not called separate from the community of faith. When we are called to be the people of God we are called to and into a community of faith, so that we might be the people God is calling us to be together. This means we are to be there for one another to share with one another. The people of God are called to share their meat, to share their meals with one another, in essence to share the work of God with one another. But also do to be in community with one another.

When you participate in a meal together you talk, when you talk you share your joys, your concerns, your fears. And a people who are about to be released from lifelong slavery but are also about to begin a journey into the unknown have many joys and many fears to share with one another. We are to share these together; to join with one another in celebration, to join with one another in our fears. We struggle together, we learn together. This is what it means to be a community of faith, a Church.

God is leading us, God is taking us on a journey. A journey which is our salvation; it is a journey which will lead us to a land flowing with milk and honey. This journey together promises to bring us joy, it promises to bring us happiness. It promises to be wonderful and exciting and pleasing.  But let me tell you something, the Israelites passed through the desert, through the wilderness through the dry and barren places. Sometimes they were afraid they would starve. Sometimes they were afraid they would die of thirst. Sometimes they feared the people of the land around them. But they were still called to journey together through these dry, barren, difficult places together. They journeyed together with God and God provided for them, God lead them and directed them. It was not always easy, it was not always what they wanted and sometimes they dreamt of a different life, but the journey was the journey to which God called them.

Journeying together as a people of faith is not always easy. The life to which God has called us is not always what we wanted it to be. Sometimes we find ourselves in dry desert places. Sometimes we find ourselves lacking the things we feel we need. But we must always remember that we are not called to BE in THESE places alone.  We are called to do this together, journeying together, being there for one another as we struggle through the most difficult places in our lives, comforting one another and supporting each other. But God is there leading us and providing for us, giving us exactly what we need when we need it. We are all called into this life together, to journey together, to laugh with one another, to be a support to one another, we are called to be a people, to be a community, to be the CHURCH, just as much as we are called to anything else to which God calls us.