Exodus

Those who pray The Daily Office (you may be interested in http://satucket.com/lectionary if you don't!) know that the Old Testament readings for this week began at the Burning Bush, and ended today with the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and the first Passover. It is critical for Christians who wish to understand the final week of Jesus' life - Holy Week - to return again and again to the Exodus story, and to teach it to our children and our children's children.

In the events that begin on Palm Sunday, we remember that Jesus and his friends have come to Jerusalem along with other religious pilgrims to celebrate Passover. The synoptic gospels connect the last supper that Jesus shares with his friends to a Passover meal, while the fourth gospel sees Jesus as the Passover lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

The story inspires those who are enslaved in every generation (literally and metaphorically) to not only dream of freedom, but to work for social justice by standing up to Pharaoh and against all that destroys the creatures of God, especially oppression and violence and degradation. It reminds us of God's liberating love. This is the context in which Holy Week unfolds. One week from today, at "The Great Vigil of Easter," we'll hear once again the story of how God tossed the Egyptians into the Sea, and the waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers and the entire army of Pharaoh. (Exodus 14:27-28) And then the Israelites sing and dance on the other side: free at last, free at last.

I appreciate the old Hasidic tale, which tells of the Hebrew children dancing to the beat of Miriam's tambourine when the angels in heaven notice that the Creator is weeping. They ask God, "why are you weeping in the midst of this deliverance?"- to which God responds: I am weeping for the dead Egyptians on those shores, who are somebody's sons, and somebody's husbands, and somebody's fathers.

I love that story for two reasons. First, it reminds us that the rabbis knew that stories generate more stories, not dogma. Christians would do well to remember this as we enter into Holy Week. But secondly, I think we need to remember that freedom does not come easily, and always there are costs. Even when one is on "the right side" of justice, there is loss that should be grieved, and in the week that lies before us we do well to remember that triumphalism of any kind is not what God's people are all about.