This evening we begin our trek, once again, to the cross. The cross is the focus and center of our faith and life as Christians. The beginning of the world, the creation of the universe, the fall into sin, the promise to send a Savior all point to the coming of the cross. As Christians, our Church year cycle, the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany season, the Lent and Easter season all look back at the cross. The cross is the focus because all who believe in Jesus Christ, and only those who believe in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, are saved.
This year we will work our way through the celebration of the Passover Seder to help us in focusing our attention on the cross, the reason for the cross, and the fulfillment of the cross. We begin briefly with a reminder of the original Passover. The original Passover took place as the last plague before the children of Israel were driven out of Egypt. The homes of the children of Israel were marked with the blood of the lamb that was killed, sacrificed, so that when the angel of death saw the blood on the door post and lintel it passed over those homes not killing the first born who lived in those homes. Instead, the angel of death killed the first born of those homes not marked. This last plague of Egypt marked the deliverance of the children of Israel from their bondage of slavery to the Egyptians.
After the children of Israel were safely out of Egypt, God called them to remember the night of their deliverance. Thus, the celebration of the Passover was instituted as a time to remember. Why is remembering so important? Remembering is so important because we have a tendency to forget. Or at least we have a tendency to forget those good things our Lord does for us and gives to us. We need a constant reminder of our Lord’s gifts, lest we forget and despair.
We are still called on, even today, to remember all the good gifts and blessings our Lord gives to us. How do we remember today? We remember today in much the same way as God’s children throughout history remembered, namely through ritual. In our divine service we remember through the ritual of our liturgy. As our liturgy is permeated with the Word of our Lord, so our Lord works through the very means of the Word to give us the gifts He has to give. It is just as important for us to remember today as it was for the children of Israel and for all people throughout time to remember.
This evening we remember the first Passover and Lord’s giving of the celebration of that feast and the ritual which accompanied it. We also remember how we are given something new from the Passover as we celebrate the giving of the Passover by Jesus Himself and His giving us a new ritual, even a sacrament which He draws out of this ritual feast. The original Passover celebration began with the removal of Yeast. Yeast was the symbol of sin and the sin had to be removed from the house where the Passover would be celebrated. Jesus sent His disciples ahead in order to get everything ready so He might celebrate the Passover with His disciples. Certainly removing the yeast was one of the things they did in preparation.
During the celebration of the Passover with His apostle’s, Jesus, arose, took off His outer garment, wrapped a towel around His waste and began washing the feet of His disciples. When Jesus got to Simon Peter, he refused to allow Jesus to wash his feet, or at least he protested at the gesture. It was only after Jesus assured him of the importance of what He was doing that Peter relented and allowed Jesus to wash his feet. Because he did not completely understand what Jesus was doing, Peter asked that he be completely washed to which Jesus reassured him that only his feet needed washing. With this example, Jesus told His disciples and He tells us that this is the way we are to be toward one another, that is we are to serve one another as a reflection of the love with which He first loves us.
Today we might rightly connect this ritual with the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Notice I did not call baptism a ritual, because it is more than simply a ritual, it is a sacred act through which our Lord works to give the gifts He has to give. Through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism we are washed, our sin is removed, our guilt forgiven. And notice too that this washing does not need to be an emersion, as God does not prescribe the mode of baptism or the amount of water needed. Simply a sprinkling of water with God’s name works mightily in giving the gifts God has to give.
We continue our need for and our work in using the ritual of the liturgy in our divine service today. We begin our divine service with an invocation, an invoking or inviting of our God, who is a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be a part of and to bless our divine service. This invocation serves well to reminder us of our own baptism because at our Baptism our Lord’s Trinitarian name was put upon each one of us with the water.
Following our invocation we continue our divine service with confession and absolution. Certainly we know that we daily sin much and are in need of forgiveness and most certainly as we come before our Lord in divine service we will want to begin by cleansing our hearts and mind. This confession and absolution thus, reminds us of sins and even more it reminds us of our forgiveness.
The celebration of the Passover reminds us of the importance of ritual even of our liturgy. Because we are sinful human beings, because we are conceived and born in sin, because we are spiritually blind, spiritually dead and enemies of God, because we daily sin much and are in need of forgiveness, we tend to be very forgetful especially when it comes to recognizing and being given the gifts our Lord has to give to us. Thus our constant need is to be reminded of who we are and whose we are, even the fact that we are at the same time sinner/saint.
Just as the Passover celebration served as a reminder and as a teaching tool for the children of Israel, so our ritual, our liturgy does the same for us today. Our liturgy teaches us the importance of the means of grace as the means of grace permeates our liturgy. Because we believe the means of grace are so important our whole divine service is filled with them. Even if we do not have an actual baptism we are reminded of our baptism, through the invocation and the benediction. In our divine service we have confession and absolution reminding us of our need to confess our sins and our need to hear our Lord’s most beautiful words of absolution, “Your sins are forgiven.” Through the liturgy of the divine service we speak back to God the very words He has given us to speak as we speak and respond even in the chanting of the liturgy. We hear the importance of God’s Word as it is proclaimed from the pulpit. And we understand the importance of our Lord’s body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins as we celebrate His Holy Supper. Because these means are important they permeate our divine service. Because they permeate our divine service we understand how important they are.
Because God works through means we understand the importance of the means of grace. It is through these means that our Lord gives us the gifts that He has to give. And what are the gifts that are being given? They are the gifts of faith, strengthening of faith, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. They are the greatest gifts anyone can imagine, because without these gifts we would be lost and condemned persons, we would be without hope, we would be the most to be pitied.
So we are taken back to the cross. The cross is where Jesus paid the price for our sins. The cross is where He earned our forgiveness. And then we are directed back to His means of grace, the place where His gifts are given out. As we walk through the Passover this year, may the Lord direct us to remember. And may He bless our remembrance as through His means of grace He gives to us the gifts He has to give. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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