Title: Liturgical History
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: Exodus 12:1-14
It's not always easy to get the timing right when we are hearing a story. Some of us like to jump around from year to year in a way that sometimes confuses our listeners. Then again, it is kind of hard to tell one complete story when we include all the details of a timeline, as it will make them seem rather disjointed. While one thing is happening to Moses, something else is going on with Aaron, and something completely different in Pharaoh's court. At some point, we have to pick and choose what parts of the story to tell in order to get to the point we are trying to make. What do we do with a text that seems to jump away from a chronological retelling of events to something rather different?
We've followed Moses and the children of Israel living under Egypt's thumb. The story began with the nation. Then it shifted to Moses' parents and sister. Then it jumped to a princess before setting us before Moses as a grown man. We skip a whole generation and find Moses at the burning thornbush being commissioned by God to return to Egypt as the people's deliverer. Now we shift to the part of the story presenting the conclusion of the ten famous plagues upon Egypt. Chapter twelve of Exodus shows us Moses telling the people what they are to do on that night we celebrate as Passover. Then things suddenly get dicey. That's what should happen, but it's not what this chapter actually does.
It is what we are led to expect. It is how we tend to read the narrative, but embedded in this retelling of that event we call Passover is a series of instructions for the nation that has already settled in the land promised to Abraham. These instructions are about how they are to recall that night in celebration and worship.
That first Passover was a very different quantity than those later celebrations. The people were to slaughter lambs to eat and use the blood a ...
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: Exodus 12:1-14
It's not always easy to get the timing right when we are hearing a story. Some of us like to jump around from year to year in a way that sometimes confuses our listeners. Then again, it is kind of hard to tell one complete story when we include all the details of a timeline, as it will make them seem rather disjointed. While one thing is happening to Moses, something else is going on with Aaron, and something completely different in Pharaoh's court. At some point, we have to pick and choose what parts of the story to tell in order to get to the point we are trying to make. What do we do with a text that seems to jump away from a chronological retelling of events to something rather different?
We've followed Moses and the children of Israel living under Egypt's thumb. The story began with the nation. Then it shifted to Moses' parents and sister. Then it jumped to a princess before setting us before Moses as a grown man. We skip a whole generation and find Moses at the burning thornbush being commissioned by God to return to Egypt as the people's deliverer. Now we shift to the part of the story presenting the conclusion of the ten famous plagues upon Egypt. Chapter twelve of Exodus shows us Moses telling the people what they are to do on that night we celebrate as Passover. Then things suddenly get dicey. That's what should happen, but it's not what this chapter actually does.
It is what we are led to expect. It is how we tend to read the narrative, but embedded in this retelling of that event we call Passover is a series of instructions for the nation that has already settled in the land promised to Abraham. These instructions are about how they are to recall that night in celebration and worship.
That first Passover was a very different quantity than those later celebrations. The people were to slaughter lambs to eat and use the blood a ...
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