Exodus 12; Mark 14
6th Sunday after Trinity
St Barbara’s 07.07.2024
Rev Jeremy Bevan
Odd. The age-old traditions of the Jewish Passover, and our Eucharist or Holy Communion that remembers Jesus’s last Passover meal with his disciples are, frankly, odd. Odd in a world that worships the individual, because they insist community matters; odd in a world that worships the new – the latest phone, car, fashion accessory – because Passover and communion draw strength from what’s gone before; odd in a world grown cynical and weary, because they insist there is hope.
The word ‘remember’ has two meanings. We know one of them, don’t we? We remember when we call to mind something from the past. The other may be less familiar: to remember something is also to re-member it: literally, to join back together its parts, or members, that have become separated. In Egypt, the yoke of relentless hard labour was destroying the Israelites’ sense of their identity as God’s people together: when an oppressive system works you to death, there simply isn’t the energy to look beyond yourself.
That’s why that Exodus passage insists that the Passover is for everyone: “A lamb for each family”, each household; if a family can’t afford a lamb, it goes halves with its neighbours: everyone is included. The “whole assembled congregation of Israel” (v. 6) is to slaughter the lamb for the feast together. That sense of a communal celebration comes through in the commandment to observe the feast “throughout your generations”, too: everyone is included, its members past, present, and future.
We see that emphasis on re-membering in Jesus’s last meal with his friends at the time of the Passover feast. The disciples all share in the bread Jesus blesses; they all drink from the cup: two marks of their commitment together to the new community God is bringing about through Jesus. That’s what we do whenever we celebrate the Eucharist or communion together: “Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread”; we share the cup “poured out for many”, as Jesus describes it (Mk. 12:24). When we come up for communion today, then, let’s take a moment to see ourselves not as individuals in a queue, but as joined together, re-membered with those around us. In communion, God puts community back together. Let’s take opportunities to build community, too: sit with someone we don’t know in the hall after the service; hear something of their story; pray for them during the week.
If Jesus understood and celebrated life lived together at that last meal with his disciples, he also injected new life into old traditions, revitalising them in startling ways. On Thursday evening, I stayed up long enough to hear the first victory speech of the night from the newly re-elected MP for Sunderland South, Bridget Phillipson. Like others interviewed that evening, she repeatedly referred to a ‘changed’ Labour Party. In some ways the same as before, it had nevertheless clearly undergone a transformation, revitalised under new leadership since 2019 to become electable in 2024.
For the Israelites in Egypt, Passover was without doubt a revitalising experience, celebrating hope where there had previously been only despair. But Jesus takes Passover’s symbols and gives them a daring makeover, saying, in effect, “I’m giving new meaning to everything that spoke to generations of our people about freedom from oppression. Through me is coming the freedom for you to become all that God wants you to be.” Understanding that his death would somehow be a symbol of God’s relationship with us being re-energised, he compares the bread and wine to his soon-to-be-crucified body and blood as markers of the moment that re-energising gets underway.
There would have been tremendous energy in the room when Jesus applied those Passover symbols to himself; all sorts of resonances in the air for the disciples. Hadn’t God foretold this new covenant, this resetting of relations with humankind, through Jeremiah and Ezekiel? Could this Jesus be God come down once again, hearing us, remembering us, as at that first Passover in Egypt (Ex. 2:24)? Communion, like Passover, gives energy for life ahead. For the Israelites in Egypt, Passover began the year. It said, “We go again, into whatever lies ahead, knowing God has our back.” We go again: to teach; we go again: to care for those in need; we go again: to volunteer for vital charity work. And much more.
Re-membering. Revitalising. And finally, rejoicing. At Passover, the Israelites rejoiced with wine because God was liberating them from slavery and oppression. It would take a long time for the full reality of that liberation to hit home. In Jesus’ time, it must have seemed particularly far off, as the Jews laboured under Roman oppression. But in another of those resonances I referred to a moment ago, when Jesus lifts that cup of wine and blesses it, everyone would have spotted a symbol of the future heavenly banquet, the promise of the coming kingdom. Isaiah and other prophets foretold it. So did Jesus’ presence at the wedding in Cana. At Cana, at this last supper Mark recounts, Jesus declares, “You know what? That kingdom’s on its way.”
There’s an element of ‘now and not yet’ to the kingdom, then. Just as the Israelites ate that first Passover meal with their shoes and coats on, ready to flee to something better in the promised land, so Jesus declares he won’t drink that wine again until he drinks it in the kingdom. And with his resurrection three days after this farewell meal, that kingdom breaks in. Knowing the truth of that as we approach communion today, we rejoice, proclaiming that “heaven and earth are full of your glory”: they are. But earth needs more of that glory. That first Passover sent the Israelites from Egypt with much to learn, much to do; re-membered, revitalised, rejoicing; seeking to live lives reflecting God’s glory for all to see. So too communion is not church ‘ticked off’ for the week: it’s just the beginning. In the days ahead, how will we reflect God’s glory at home? Work with God wherever we are? Build the kingdom with people we meet? This week, let’s be willing to stand out, to be distinctive, even be a little odd, for God’s glory.
