Edible Words

Those of you who have had children, or who know children, will know that they go through various stages in their early years. There's learning to crawl. Then learning to walk. Learning to talk comes some time around then, although that doesn't happen all at once. First, there are noises that vaguely resemble certain words we use every day, but you can't be sure if you've heard correctly. Then there are single words: mummy, daddy, pudding, bath. Then those words get strung together in twos and threes: more pudding. Then you get short sentences. And at some point, most children go through the stage of asking: "Why?" To everything. And the chances are that your answers will be replied to with another why, and another one, until you get pushed back so far you just don't know the answers any more.

Children love "Why?" questions. Exodus 12 and 13 knows that children love "Why?" questions. The stories that are related in these chapters are part of Israel's identity. So that, in chapter 12, verse 26, "when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Pass-over sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.'" The story related by these chapters is so much part of the identity of ancient Israel, that the best answer to many of the "Why?" questions their children would ask is to tell this story.

As we'll see, there's sufficient continuity from this story to ourselves, that this is our identity too. This story is one of the best answers there is to many of the "Why?" questions the children of our own day will ask us. And to many of the "Why?" questions the adults of our day will ask us. And to many of the "Why?" questions that we may ask ourselves. And not least to the question: Why do we eat bread and drink wine when we come to church?

Let's start, though by recapping the story. You will remember that Israel was enslaved in Egypt, and that God sent nine plague on Egypt. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is stubborn, and refuses to let Israel go. So God sends Moses to Pharaoh one last time, and this time what God will do will work. God will bring his people out from serving Pharaoh as king, and into a new way of life where God is served as their king.

This plague requires a fair bit of preparation from the Israelites. With the other plagues, they could just sit back and watch. Watch as God turned the lights out on the rest of Egypt. Watch the Egyptian crops devoured by locusts. The other plagues were a spectator event for them. Not so this last one. They need to take steps to make sure they're ready.

Here's what they need to do - it may be that the story is so familiar to us that we don't realise just how bizarre it is.

Each family has to take a lamb a year old. It's time to kill it. The kids won't like it, because they're still cute at the age of one, but so be it - the lamb must be killed. Then, they have to drain the blood into a bowl, and paint it on their doorframes. If you walked through the area of Egypt known as Goshen, you would see all the men outside painting their doorframes - with blood! A weird site, but it would be happening outside very house.

As the sun sets, it's time for the family meal. Roast lamb is the menu, served with bitter herbs and pitta bread. We aren't told which herbs, but modern Jews use raw horseradish root and the bitter let-tuces that seems to come in every pack of prepared salad you can buy. Pitta bread, because there was no time for yeast to do its work. And this meal had to be eaten with their coats on - not hung up by the door. And no slippers on their feet - this meal had to be eaten in their walking boots.

And then, finally, at about midnight, the tenth plague struck. An angel went through the whole of Egypt, went into every house, and killed the firstborn son in the family. It didn't matter if he was a newborn baby, or much older. It didn't matter if you were someone no-one had ever heard of, or the heir to the throne. Every firstborn boy, dead.

By the way, don't feel too sorry for the Egyptians. This was the people who had systematically op-pressed Israel for several hundred years. This was the people who had ordered the massacre of Israel-ite baby boys, either on the birth stool or by drowning them in the Nile. This is justice, and poetic justice at that.

I say every house. Not quite every house. The angel passed over, passed over, any house with lambs' blood on the door.

Anyway, one by one the Egyptians discovered the tragedy. And they couldn't get Israel out fast enough. So much so, in fact, that they loaded them up for the journey. And we're not just talking a few sandwiches - they gave away their precious jewellery as well. And so they left. All 600,000 of them. On foot. In the middle of the night. But they were out.

As I say, a bizarre set of instructions for them to follow. But why? Well, that's what the children would ask. And God is kind to the Israelite parents - he gives them an answer to the "Why?" ques-tion.

God gives the people of Israel three things to do to remember this unique occasion. They are to eat that Passover meal annually. Once a year they are to go a full week without yeast. But the memorial that unlocks the meaning of this unusual night is the redemption of the firstborn. God explains to Moses in chapter 13 that, because of the Exodus, every firstborn male animal is his, and must be killed. There are only two exceptions. Firstborn donkeys can, if the owner wishes, be spared and a lamb killed instead. Firstborn boys must be redeemed with a lamb.

And the explanation to "Why do we redeem our firstborn boys" is the story of the Passover. That is why all firstborn males are God's, but boys must be redeemed. In other words, on that memorable night, God killed every firstborn male in judgement. But because the Israelite families had killed a lamb, God accepted the lamb in place of the little boys. That first generation of Israelite boys had al-ready been redeemed; the lambs were killed instead of them. And each subsequent Israelite family needs to redeem their first son as well.

That's Israel's story. It's also our story. Isaiah looked for the day when God's servant would be put to death, like a lamb led to slaughter, for the sins of God's people. John the Baptist introduces Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Paul speaks of Jesus as our Passover lamb. And John, the gospel writer, draws specific attention to the detail that none of Jesus' bones were broken, referring to this chapter. As we read their story, we are reading our story too.

Each Israelite family had to kill a lamb when their first son was born. We need rescuing from God's judgement just as much as they did, but we don't need to kill any lambs. That's because Jesus was the lamb of God who took away the sins of the whole world; he didn't just redeem one family.

So rather than kill our own lambs, we look back with gratitude to our Passover, to our Exodus, when Jesus delivered us from the tyranny of sin by offering himself up in our place.

The Israelites had to look back as well. Every year they had to go without yeast for a week, and eat that Passover meal again. Adjusting the menu in this way made their story, made this piece of their history, real for them. Eating and drinking is a vivid way to enter into our past, as our taste buds al-low us to relive our story. It's how Israel would own that story. It's how they would identify with it. It's how they would remember it - in the fullest sense. It's how the next generation, the children, would be brought up in the community's story.

Today we come to share in the memorial meal that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted. It was at a Pass-over meal with his disciples that he taught us to eat bread and drink wine as a memorial of our re-demption by his own death. The meal we are about to share is how Jesus wants us to own our story, to identify with it, and to bring up our children in this story.

So next time a child, or an adult, asks: Why do we eat bread and drink wine in church? Next time you wonder that. You can tell the story of the Passover lamb who was slain in our place. So we too adjust our menu. We eat and drink for the vivid way it offers us to enter into what happened. Our taste buds allow us to relive the story.

Which challenges us, as we receive the bread and the wine this morning, as to whether this is what is going on in our hearts. Is Jesus' rescue of us on the cross how we define ourselves? Is it part of our identity? Are we trusting in that death, personally? If it is, then I hope the bread and the wine this morning make that trust all the more real for you. If it isn't, then please make this story your own. Please learn to echo in your heart what you taste on your tongue.