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Maundy Thursday
April 17, 2003
Christ Church, Covington
“The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I
see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you…’”
(Ex. 12:13).
All peoples and nations have a beginning; a “genesis moment” that brings
them together and gives them a common identity, a shared story that is a
part of their culture. Often these beginnings are ambiguous and bloody,
such as the Norman conquest of England which strangely enough ended up
being instrumental in the creation of England and what Churchill I think
called its “mongrel race”; or the traumatic and destructive French
Revolution which the French themselves (characteristically) are still
arguing about among themselves. Americans, for instance, celebrate their
beginning with the Declaration of Independence in 1776; though it is
perhaps truer to say that our shared story really began with the surrender
of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in 1865 after four years of war and
conquest and the final end of slavery in the states.
So we all have beginnings. For the Hebrew people, the parallel “genesis
moment” was the Exodus, an event commemorated each year in the feast of
the Passover. The story is as bloody and ambiguous as they come. The Jews
are descended from Abraham, but they are not really a people yet; they are
given freedom and an identity in a night of discriminating slaughter,
followed by the wholesale destruction of the Pharaoh’s army. Even the name
of the feast, “Passover”, is ambiguous. In one place (as in our first
reading tonight) the name relates to God’s action, as the destroyer
“passes over” the houses of the Israelites (note how they are marked with
blood); while in other places the name relates to the action of God’s
People themselves, who “pass over” from slavery to freedom.
The difference with the story of the Exodus from other stories is that it
is the Story of Faith. It constitutes God’s People as citizens of another
country, obedient to YHWH. This story is not only for the descendants of
Abraham, however, because it has become the Story of the Church. Jesus is
crucified at the time of the Passover, and the themes of Passover have
marked our Story as well.
There is in this story of the crucifixion both God’s action and our own.
“Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”, we say at the Eucharist; a
quotation of sorts from St Paul (1 Cor. 5:7) that lets us know that Christ
is the Lamb that was slain, whose blood protects us from the destroyer.
God’s action, not ours; yet in the next breath Paul goes on to say,
“therefore let us keep the feast”. We are God’s People who ourselves have
passed from death to life, from slavery to freedom. Of course it’s God’s
action, but it calls for our response. It is up to us to keep the
festival, as Paul says, not with malice and evil but with sincerity and
truth (1 Cor. 5:8). There is a moral dimension to this sacrifice, a call
from God to holiness of life. God is changing the agenda for the human
race, giving it a common story and a common call that transcends all other
stories and all other calls.
This Eucharist celebrates our beginnings as a People, as a Church, through
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and in the liberation that comes with it. On
this night, we are in the presence of great wonders, deep mysteries, and a
clarity of moral purpose that is simply astounding. The clarity of
purpose, of course, is that of our Lord and Savior. For as we eat the
bread and drink the cup, as St Paul says, “we proclaim the Lord’s death
until he comes (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26)”.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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