Sermon from Sept. 29, 2024, by the Rev. Dr. Tara W. Bulger
Exodus 12:1-13
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.
They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 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 when I strike the land of Egypt.
Several years ago there was a conversation that was televised between the journalist Anderson Cooper and the late night host, Stephen Colbert. In part of the interview, they start talking about something they have in common, which is they are both men who lost their fathers very young. Stephen Colbert's father and two of his brothers died in a plane accident when Steven was 10. When Anderson Cooper was 10, his father died in the middle of a surgery. And at the time they are talking, Anderson Cooper's mother has also just died.
Steven Colbert, quoting JRR Tolkien, says this, “What punishments of God are not also gifts?” And Anderson Cooper says, “Do you really believe that?” And Stephen Colbert says, “I do.”
What Stephen Colbert means is not that he was punished by God in the death of his family, but that it felt like a punishment. And what he has grown to see over the course of his life is that it has made him who he is, that there have been gifts out of what felt like a terrible punishment. And Anderson Cooper, when he says, “do you really believe that,” you can hear this edge of hope in his voice. He desperately wants it to be true.
We have a story today that is really hard to hear. It is a story about punishment, and it's also a story about gift and hope. It begins in the land of Egypt. Last week we talked about Joseph who had rose to power in Egypt. He knew the Pharaoh of that time. But by the time we come to this passage in Exodus, Joseph has long died and there is a new Pharaoh in the land. And he doesn't remember Joseph. In fact, he has started to enslave the Israelite people. They're called Hebrews at this time. And this new Pharaoh enslaves them, puts them under back-breaking labor. We're told too that the Pharaoh fears the Hebrew people because they are reproducing at such a rate that their population increases. There are just so many of them that they've become a threat to Pharaoh. And so Pharaoh just puts his thumb down on them even harder. We are told in the text that the Hebrew people cry out to God, “help us, help us here in the land of Egypt.” And God hears them. And what God does is God calls Moses. He calls Moses and he tells him, “I want you to go to Pharaoh and I want you to say to Pharaoh, let my people go.”
Now, it would seem that maybe Moses should just lead the people out into the wilderness. But God knows, unless Pharaoh relents, Pharaoh will send his people after them into the wilderness. And so Moses goes to Pharaoh and requests the freedom of the Hebrew people and Pharaoh says, “no.” There's a part of a text where it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart because it seems that Pharaoh has something to learn too. Pharaoh is going to learn who Almighty God is.
So God sends 10 plagues upon Egypt. The first plague is that Nile is turned to blood and Pharaoh sees this. There's no water for the people. And Moses says, “will you let my people go?” And Pharaoh says “No.” So God sends different plagues upon the Egyptians: frogs, then gnats, then flies. There is a plague on all the livestock in Egypt. Over and over again, God sends a plague. Pharaoh has agency in this story, despite his hardened heart. Moses says to Pharaoh, “will you let my people go?” And two times Pharaoh says, “yes, I will.” And then he doesn't do it. He makes a promise and then goes back on it. So God sends another plague, the 10th plague, the hardest one of all.
It's the story of the slaughter of the firstborns. God tells Moses to tell the people that they are to prepare an offering to God. That's what the lamb is. And just like the offering in the temple, they are to roast it. They are to roast all of it. They are to eat it with unleavened bread, unleavened because this is all happening so quickly. There's no time for the bread to rise. They eat it with bitter herbs to remind them of the bitterness of being oppressed by Pharaoh. And they're supposed to eat it dressed ready to leave. Because when God enacts this 10th plague, Pharaoh will relent because Pharaoh's own firstborn son dies. And so the people are able to go out into the wilderness.
This is one of those readings where when I say “this is the word of the Lord”, I almost feel like saying, “thanks be to God???” It's a really hard text to read. But there are a couple of things that help me with this text. The first is this—this story was first told and written down when the Israelites had been torn away from their homeland and sent to live in Babylon. The Israelite people believed that they had been ransacked by the Babylonians because God was punishing them for not being faithful. And so when they are off in Babylon, they tell this story to one another. Remember, it was God who liberated us they would say, and the subtext was God will liberate them again.
It is also written and told by a people who felt punished. So they told the story of a punishment from God. It helps to remember that these are traumatized people telling a story at a traumatized time.
Another thing that helps with this story is when I remember that the best, most accurate, most complete version of who God is, is found in Jesus Christ. If you want to know who God is, you come to know Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ was the one who said, “I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but it all the world might be saved through him.”
What punishments of God are not also gifts of God? The punishment of the Egyptian people is severe, but it is also the gift of them knowing who God is and who has power. God says, “I will execute judgments over all the gods of Egypt. All the things the Egyptians worshiped like Pharaoh, like power, like military might, God executes a judgment on them and lets them know that the Lord God is almighty God.
What punishments of God are not also gifts? The gift is that this is a liberation story. It’s told by the Israelites for the Israelites, and it reminds them that the Lord God does not want people enslaved. The Lord God wants God's people free.
When we come to the Passover meal that is the last Supper, we know that Jesus Christ is the ultimate Passover lamb. That he will go and be sacrificed for you and for me, and we will be liberated in the death of Jesus and in his resurrection, we will be set free from all of those gods that rule our lives. We will be set free from all the ways we try to hustle for our own worth, all the ways we try to accrue power or wealth. None of those mean anything, when we remember that our Savior, in his weakness died for us and in his power rose for us.
I don't believe in the punishments of God. I don't believe it because in the person of Jesus Christ, I see someone who loved humanity so much, He would rather die himself than execute some sort of punishment on people. But the ancient Israelites believed in it. And they tell this story to tell the way that they were set free from slavery. And I tell you this story today to remind you that you have been set free from the consequences of sin, that we all sin and fall short of who God has called us to be. And God, in God's goodness does not punish my us, but instead forgives us. And so my question is, are you living like you're liberated?
Are you living with the gratitude of being set free? Are you living into the goodness of God because you know who Jesus Christ is? This is a hard story, but the whole of the biblical witness and the whole of the witness of Jesus Christ tells us that God loves and God forgives and that God would die even for us.
It's funny—in the story that will come in Exodus, the people are going to return to those Egyptian gods. They're going to get scared. They're going to think God isn't there. And my question to you is, how many of us return to our small gods too? How many of us think we only have value when we are productive, when we are doing something, when we are anything other than who we are? A sinner forgiven by loving God.
May you remember that Jesus Christ came into the world and though we were sinners, Christ died for us still. You have been set free. May you live into the gratitude of that witness. Amen.