Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 06 July 2014.
Based on an earlier version presented 01 July 2012 by Captain Michael Ramsay
Click here to read a more detailed earlier
version of this homily: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2012/06/exodus-1224-28-remember.html
I heard a harrowing story. Dave, a
member of the Rotary club here in town, told this story of a family vacation
that he took in Acapulco in 1968:
Dave and his wife are on holiday down in Mexico. They
check into their hotel. They are near the ground floor and there are these
little lizards - Geckos or something else – climbing all up the walls; so they
speak to the hotel and ask to be moved as far away from the lizards as they
can, up to the top floor. They do move up to the top floor. This turns out to
be a mistake. In the middle of the night, they are woken up as people are
running through the halls screaming. Some girls from Quebec tell them what was
happening: the hotel is on fire. The stairs, they are concrete for the top few
floors and then wood beneath and the wooden stairs are ablaze. The girls from
Quebec jump over the railing from the 10th storey or more up and plunge
all the way down. Dave and his wife and his two sons, aged six and nine, are
trapped. Without thinking they run to the elevator but the door closes with
people inside it just before they get there. Actually I think Dave may have
even gotten his hand in the closing door but they don’t catch the elevator,
which is good because we know what happens to people in elevators in a fire.
Dave and his family are trapped. They try to tie sheets together to scale down
the outside of the building but as Dave is heading over a balcony, it is good
that he has an arm linked through the railing because someone unties the
sheets. He then climbs down the side of the balcony and swings onto the balcony
below. His wife then drops one of his children for him to catch and then the
other and then she scales down as far as she can, then falls and Dave catches
her legs and pulls her in. They do this until the third story or so of the
building when they run out of balconies. Dave then throws one child down onto a
straw thatched roof, hoping that will break his fall. He sees the boy fall
through the roof and run away; so he throws the other son down who makes a new
hole as he crashes through the thatched roof. He runs to safety. His wife jumps
next and Dave is able to scale a palm tree to the bottom. They are injured but
they survive. It was quite a tale to hear recalled. They survived by the grace
of God but others on their floor who leapt over the railing or who took the
elevator did not.
What had happened was, apparently there was a dispute
between two ownership groups – one local and one foreign – the foreign group
was residing in the hotel on that day and some local people had attacked the
hotel with Molotov cocktails – hoping to collect insurance, I believe.
It was quite something
to hear this story. I don’t think many of us in Rotary previously knew this
about Dave at all. There is more to his story here too. One of his sons had a
piece of the thatched roof he fell through stuck into his foot. The other had a
twig protruding from his neck with blood spurting out. They were okay though.
There was another miracle in this story. Dave and his wife recognize this as a
miraculous salvation. When Dave and his wife were climbing down the balconies
to escape the flames, they left somewhere her straw purse with their passports,
money, plane tickets, and the like. The next day Dave went back and began
looking in this burned out hotel building for this straw purse. God saved it
for them. It was on a balcony on a burned out floor but this straw purse with
its contents was still there. It was fine. God protected it and God protected
them. God was there for them in the midst of this ordeal.
It is the same with the Hebrews in
our text today. Those of us who have been reading Exodus as we have been
looking at it as a church family recently will have read the stories of the
plagues in Exodus. They are quite something with each one becoming more
awe-inspiring than the previous one.[1]
- The Nile turning to blood (7:14–25)
- Plague of frogs (7:25–8:11)
- Plague of lice or gnats (8:12–15)[2]
- Plague of flies or wild animals (8:20–32)
- Plague of pestilence (9:1–7)
- Plague of boils (9:8–12)
- Plague of hail (9:13-35)
- Plague of locusts (10:1–20)
- Plague of darkness (10:21–29)
A few weeks ago,
we shared about Susan the kids and my experience on our camping trip to Montana
and how we got a little taste of hail with our tent being destroyed and us
having to flee for shelter elsewhere.
And I still remember vividly the closest thing ever to a plague of
darkness that I have ever experienced and that was about two years ago here in
Swift Current. I don’t know how many of us were outside and experienced and can
still recall that darkness that swept over a corner of the city: it was really
quite something. I have not seen anything like that before. I heard people
refer to that as an ominous, fear-provoking experience as that blackness
approached at mid-day, even as you could see blue skies fleeing from its
presence. We went to pick up Rebecca for lunch from school at that time. There
was a tornado warning. The school had announced that the children were not to
go outside. Some students, of course, were pressed up against the windows to
see what was happening, others were in tears hiding safely under their desks.
These feelings of fear and awe, of terror and wonder, that people were having
here in Swift Current on that day are probably a fractional reflection of the
intensity of the emotions that would be swirling around the Israelites as they
sre experiencing the power of God through the first nine plagues and they would
be in our text today, I imagine, in a metaphorical funnel cloud of awe and
terror as they prepare for the final plague, the tenth plague: The Angel of
Death (11:1–12:36).
It is in the
context of the children of Israel huddled in their houses preparing for Death’s
arrival that our pericope today is found. In the opening 13 verses of this
chapter, God tells Moses and Aaron exactly what is about to happen. Just like a
Tornado alert: ‘Get ready’, God warns them, ‘the Angel of Death is coming’.
Now there has
already been a lot of flooding and states of emergency declared in this
province this past week alone. And just like we have emergency disaster plans
that we are to follow in the city and in The Salvation Army when disaster
strikes, God here is giving Moses and Aaron their instructions as to how to
save themselves and their families when the Angel of Death strikes at Goshen,
in Egypt. I don’t know if anyone here has ever huddled in a storm cellar or was
forced to take shelter or headed beneath deck on a boat being tossed about in a
storm but I imagine that it is the same feeling. The people take all the right
steps and now they are just waiting and hoping, and praying for Death to pass.
I have binders and
binders full of the city’s and the Army’s plans of what we need to do in the
event of a major disaster: a flood, a fire, a tornado strike, … God in Exodus
here gives Moses and Aaron a disaster preparedness plan to share with the
Hebrews in Egypt for the impending strike by the Angel of Death. It looks like
this. Picture with me - you and your family – you have received your disaster
preparedness plan from your leaders. Disaster is going to strike, you are
fearful (like the school children hiding under their desks awaiting a tornado)
and you are in awe as you await the Angel of Death who is coming to claim many
from your country on this very night. On this very evening as Death is
approaching; this is the plan:
- You are to take a lamb or a kid to share as a meal with everyone in your household. If there aren’t enough of you in a household to eat a whole lamb, you must share it with your closest neighbour (12:3-4);
- The animal must be 1 year-old and without defect (v.5);
- You have already been taking care of the animals for 14 days in preparation for this day – now everyone in town is to go and slaughter the lamb at twilight (v.6);
- You will then – this is important – take some of the blood and put it on the sides and the tops of the doorframes of the houses where you will eat the lambs (v.7);
- Then you will eat the meat roasted over a fire with bitter herbs and bread without yeast and you must eat it all. You may not leave any of it until morning! If there are leftovers, you must burn them (vv. 8-10);
- When you are eating this meal, you are to eat it with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on, and your staff in your hand (v. 11). In our language today: you are to have your coats, hats and shoes on and your car keys in your hand. You are to be ready to go. You are to eat it in haste because it is the LORD’s Passover.
God tells Moses
and Aaron that as the people follow this plan they will survive the impending
strike by the Angel of Death. Then God tells them, ‘You must never forget this
night. You must remember how I saved you.’ I imagine this evening must be as
clear to those who experienced it as the images were to Dave and his wife of
that night climbing down the side of the building – and Dave’s wife, she’s
afraid of heights. I imagine that every time they think about this night, they
remember every feeling that was racing through their heart and mind and I
imagine that they’ll never forget it.
I remember when I
was in Nipawin and the building exploded right behind The Salvation Army
Ministry Centre downtown. My office shook. It felt like a truck had struck it.
With others, I headed outside to see what had happened, I saw injured or dead
or dying people lying on the ground as the flames began to engulf part of the
downtown. My children and everyone else around on that day have stories
surrounding those moments. I imagine each of us have had times like these that
will never leave our minds.
The thing with
these events as real as they are to us, they are not as real to people who
don’t actually experience them and as time passes people tend to forget the
important lessons that come from them. I had the honour of speaking at the
D-Day memorial again this year. For those hundreds and thousands of soldiers
present on June 6, 1944, as long as they live, this is a day they will never
forget; but if I were to guess I would say that less people across this whole
country officially remembered that anniversary even than lost their lives on
the beaches on that day alone. Remembrance Day and the Legion remind us of the
horrors of war, lest we forget. It is no coincidence that as the Cold War ended
and more and more of our veterans pass away, that there are more wars in our
world than ever before. Did you know that from end of the cold war -1989 or
1990, until the end of the twentieth century there were more wars in that one
decade than there were in the whole rest of the century prior. People forget
and then another generation experiences the same horrors.
As the Israelite
families of our pericope today are sitting in their houses awaiting the
impending calamity, God tells Moses that they are never to forget this day.[3]
They are to remember it forever. They are to tell their children and their
children’s children. This should a permanent feature in the school curriculum,
so to speak. It is to be like our annual Remembrance Day ceremonies in that
there are some elements that must be observed. As far as the Passover
remembrance ceremonies for the Israelites, they are to incorporate some of
their Emergency Disaster Preparedness Plan into a ceremonial dinner and they
are not have any yeast in the house at all for seven days prior and they are to
eat only unleavened flat breads. Then God tells them, Exodus 12:24-27:
“Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance
for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the Lord will give
you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you,
‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover
sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt
and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed
down and worshiped.
One reason that
the people were to remember this was so that they would not forget what the
Lord had done for them in the past and another reason is to wait for a future
deliverance. As this ceremony developed over the generations, it came to
incorporate an act of ceremonially ‘looking for Elijah’. This is because
tradition later stated that Elijah must return before the Messiah is to come.
Now Elijah does
return and Jesus the Messiah does come and when he does and as Jesus is
celebrating this very important Passover remembrance with his disciples, Jesus
the Messiah utters the very important words, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
This is, I think, a big reason why God wanted the Passover ceremony etched so
deeply in the minds of humanity for so long because just as when the Egyptians
gave up their firstborn sons, God saved His people through the blood of the
Passover lamb; so when God gives up His firstborn son –Jesus Christ – He also
saves us; His people, all His people, He saves through the Blood of the Lamb.[4]
This is the most
important event in the whole history of the world: The death and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. God, through the giving of His only begotten son
has made it – just like with Exodus and the Angel of Death – so that none of us
need to perish but all of us can have salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord. This
is important to remember.
This is why we
come to church, this is why we go to Bible studies, this is why we pray and
this is why we read our Bibles; this is why we have our Mercy Seat and this is
why every year we celebrate Good Friday and Easter Sunday/Monday every year.
That is why we are here today: because just as God offered salvation to all His
children from the passing over of the Angel of Death and all the plagues in the
Exodus account; so too He offers salvation to all of us, this very day, from
Sin and Death and from everything that is plaguing us. As that is the case, it
is my hope and my prayer that if any of us have not yet implemented our eternal
disaster preparedness plan, that you would delay no longer and that we would
all experience that salvation both today and forever more.
Let us pray.
www.sheepspeak.com
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[1] Cf. Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Expositor's Bible Commentary,
Pradis CD-ROM:Exodus/Exposition of Exodus/I. Divine Redemption (1:1-18:27)/E.
The Passover (12:1-28)/1. Preparations for the Passover (12:1-13), Book
Version: 4.0.2. for more detailed list.
[2] R. Alan Cole, Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 2), S.
113: In the evening: literally ‘between the two evenings’. Jewish scholars are
not agreed as to the exact meaning. The phrase is also used of the time for the
regular evening sacrifice (Exod. 29:39) and of the time for lighting the lamps
in the meeting-tent (Exod. 30:8). The orthodox piety of Pharisaic Judaism
understood the meaning as being between the time in the afternoon when the heat
of the sun lessens (say 3 or 4 p.m.) and sunset. Other groups preferred the
time between sunset and dark, or other similar explanations.
[3] Thomas W. Mann, “Passover: The Time of Our Lives.” Interpretation
50, no. 3 (July 1, 1996): 240-250. ATLASerials, Religion Collection,
EBSCOhost (accessed June 28, 2012), 241-242: The Passover narrative is arguably
the most important section of the entire book because it is primarily here that
the experience of exodus is communicated not simply as a moment in historical
time (in the past) but as a perennially recurring moment in the present life of
those for whom the story is sacred.
[4] Norman Theiss, "The Passover Feast of the New Covenant." Interpretation
48, no. 1 (January 1, 1994): 17-35. ATLASerials, Religion Collection,
EBSCOhost (accessed June 28, 2012), 17: In the eyes of the first three
evangelists and Paul, Jesus construed his last supper with the twelve disciples
as the fulfillment of God's plan to inaugurate a new Passover meal. In this new
meal, Jesus interpreted his death as a new Exodus in which the new people of
God were liberated from all that enslaves them and freed to serve God in holy
living.
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