Passover
3 1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.16 He said to the woman:
I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
17 And he said to the man,
“Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”20 The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.
22 The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:1–24 [CSB]
We may not see…understand or accept the reason…or think it deserving…
This…the result and consequences of sin…
…especially since it was not us…but our first parents…who did it…who began
this journey…
Why should we be held accountable for them? Why should we be blamed…we didn’t ask to inherit this mess!
But we have to stop and think. Let’s go ahead and drop the original…the first…and just ask about our own individual sins.
Sure, but then we will do what Adam and Eve did…won’t we?
We are all ready and willing to then blame our parents…or the devil…or anything…else…
Yet they remain ours…and they are because of us.
But this is Lent. And so…today…we could stand before God…naked…ashamed and guilty…
If we chose to try and justify ourselves in anyway…
And that which we fear…would overwhelm us with terror…and…dread…
So… think along those lines… what are you going to say to Him? What’s to be done?
This day and age…though…we are all about denial, changing the rules and the definitions…so that we don’t have to feel so bad…because if there are less things we do wrong…well…then…
They tell us… out there… that we then… need not fear and tremble…
…as we will surely not die…at least not as soon as we once did…we are on the way to finding its cure all on our own…
Yes, we will cheat it…we will beat it… so no… don’t… let’s not call sin, sin. Let’s not deal with it as we used to. Live and let live.
Or…not too long ago it was all about cover-up. Pretend to be good…put on a good face…at church especially…and maybe no one will notice…
…and maybe God is at least pleased that I try….
But… there are other ways too…to deflect all of this…that which we feel…that brings sleepless nights…and worries…
We can justify ourselves…you know…say that the ends justify the means…and all that…after all, it was for a good cause…
Well, wasn’t it?
You could also just plead ignorance of the Law…
But that is why we have Lent…each and every year…as no matter what we come up with to try and deal with what we are and what we have done…
Lent arrives again…
And Lent is God coming after us…
Lent is all about God exposing our to light reality… bringing it all full bore…right between the eyes of the world… of humanity…
…and also, if need be… aiming for the heart. Ours?
You? Me? Everyone… lest we forget… but all whom God makes to sit up and pay attention…
Again…is this YOU and this is ME?
Are you hiding in the bushes…there…
Are you trying to cover yourself with things that don’t do the job. Are you who like pointing the finger and blaming others.
YOU. IS GOD LOOKING AT YOU? IS GOD POINTING HIS FINGER AT YOU? OR ME?
And we have nowhere to go… do we and… are there really any excuses left? My hand is caught in the candy jar…
Is there blood on our hands?
YOU…yes…ME…yes…HE IS TALKING TO US…
ARE YOU GETTING UNCOMFORTABLE? Are you yet? What have you done? What have you left undone?
You…YOU who knows…THAT HE KNOWS…all too well…in fact…
This is about you…this is about your life…and paying the piper…reaping what you have sown…
Well, you wanted to dance. You wanted to do your own thing. You wanted to make your own way in the world…
With your own rules…
How has that been going for you…now that it is the morning after. Now that your head hurts. Now that you are in a fix and cannot get yourself out.
Now that you are sick…
Now that you are dying…
Now that the time of your life is done and gone…and you are old…and you are dying?
What now? What do you have to say? What do you have to show for yourself?
From dust we are taken, and to dust we will return. Everything comes to an end. Everything crumbles and fades away. Everything is taken away.
That is the very meaning of Lent. This is what Lent is for… each year…
Lest we forget… Again! We do… with all those voices out there… and in here… saying differently…
Lent is to bring us to this place. To this point. Again!
To bring us to this understanding about ourselves and our lives.
And to show us that there is nothing we can do about it… as if we remain in it… as it will not end well.
Sa what’s left then?
Well…yes, we can continue in this… those many ways,,, that try to avoid or ignore… but…in the end…here we are.
Before God, just like our first parents.
God has (and thank God He has) brought us to this now…here and now.
He is doing this right now. That is what Lent is for. That is what God wants.
Because this is the start also of the Passover. His Passover.
And His passing over kills. His passing over spills blood, wrecks lives, destroys kingdoms…small and great.
Yes. And He passes over all…the whole world this time. He comes. He is coming. He is here.
All of this while we are holding the bag…without anything that could help us…that could prevent the fallout…that could be used in our favor.
Most will die because of it.
And yet…His passing over also saves. Anyone who has His blood covering them… lives.
His Sacrifice is offered instead of ours. His life in place of ours.
Just like He did for our first parents, He brings His covering to us.
Just like He made a way for Israel, Jesus is the way for the whole world…for us.
Yet it all begins in facing these terrible facts about ourselves…. It requires pleading guilty.
But again, better today, then in the end where there no longer is a covering to hide our shame and remove our guilt.
This is what our first parents faced. This is what the Jews faced in the Exodus, and then had to deal with when Jesus exposed their hypocrisy.
But they too, like Adam and Eve, all tried to avoid it. This is what we try all too often.
We still… knowing all this… we still all too often try our best to cover up, blame and make excuses…
Do we want to insist on this? Do we remain stubbornly justifying ourselves?
Then doomed they and we are to die. Thrown out of God’s presence.
But there is no need! As God began the Passover…that which has been there from the beginning.
God provided the way out…the way of escape…the sacrifice, time and again. That blood that hid shame and the stain of our sin….
This until the right time…and then God became the sacrifice, once and for all. This once and for all removed the shame and cleansed us of sin.
That is why the Passover is such a big deal. Why God insisted that it be remembered every single year…its story told at the Seder meal again and again. That story of God’s rescue is called in Hebrew the Haggadah.
And God told them that they were to celebrate the Passover forever. And it is.
We do. For us now, each year, it is Lent, Holy Week and Easter.
Now… Easter is coming. And Easter has also already arrived. Easter’s Lamb HAS shed His Blood to cover us…
So, God in His Wrath would pass over us and not bring about what was due…what we should receive…
Then…our Seder Haggadah story is about the end of our slavery…an end of that headlong plunge so many still insist upon…that defiance of His creation…His ways and what God wants…and wants of us…
That keeps us out of the Garden. That binds us. That kills us.
But this final Passover…It marks…an end of the bondage to sin and this sinful world…as we are covered by Him at our baptisms.
It marks the beginning of the road out of demonically controlled Egypt, another name for the devil’s kingdom…as we walk this path to the final and permanent promised Land.
It is the road to the New Garden…the restored innocence. The Presence…Him.
The Passion Narrative of Lent is our Seder Haggadah. The Story of our Exodus and How God accomplished this by a Passover.
Jesus. Jesus’ blood being put on us…and in us… in the Holy Meal He has set before us.
This keeps the angle of death from taking us…from taking us to hell…while we trek the desert of this world.
In doing this, we remember His death … our Passover, until He comes….
Yes…but then our Easter is coming.
Easter is almost here. We have already eaten the Manna that has come down from heaven. We have already have passed the Jordan baptismal waters. We are even about to step onto the further shore…
Soon now…the sun is about to rise. Morning is near. Hear the rumors of wars…feel the earthquake? He is coming. Amen.
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