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Passover: Walk to Freedom

This year the Jewish sacred time, Passover, coincides with Easter.  Because Passover is so important to Christians, too, let’s talk about Passover a couple days before it begins on Friday.  I want to take cognizance of that as the day unfolds.  Obviously, it is a special day for the Jew.  It is a day of deliverance.  It is a day when the Jew knows God is for them.  Passover is the story of God’s deliverance of the Jew from the bondage of Egypt to the ultimate freedom of their own place---their own land.

Of course, that history is itself riddled with controversy.  The struggle over the land is a continuing saga to this day.  But that is not the story for this Passover day.  Rather, we need to focus on the essential theme of bondage/freedom.  Perhaps that is one of the most basic human situations.  Passover is the assurance that bondage is not the ultimate fate of being human.

Even if I am a Christian, I should take Passover seriously.  Growing up in my Quaker family, I actually had no clue about Passover.  What that really meant was that I never paid any attention to the gospel readings that surely must have taken place at Easter.  As a boy I somehow missed the Passover/Easter connection.  I am willing to admit I was not listening, rather than blame it on someone else for never telling the story.  But I did miss it!

As a Christian who now listens, I know that the Last Supper that Christians take so seriously was itself either the Passover meal or the night before the Passover meal.  In any event, the Last Supper is set in Passover season.  And of course, this means the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus inevitably has Passover connotations.  I now know that, but once I missed the connection.

Passover is not the time for the Christian rendition of the story.  I really appreciate the Jewish challenge.  Since the Jew operates on the lunar calendar, they don’t have a set date for Passover.  It is linked to a full moon and that might happen on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  The Christians have it lucky!  Easter is always on Sunday.  That makes scheduling and celebrating easier.  But the Jew is at the mercy of full moons.  So Friday is Passover.

I want to join the Jews in remembering the God who chose Moses and the people and led them out of Egypt.  “Egypt” here is symbolic for that which holds me in bondage.  I certainly have my own “Egypt.”  Many of us are in bondage.  Most of us do not have handcuffs or ropes tying us in visible ways.  My bondage is not evident to anyone else.  I am not fully free.

What are the contemporary forms of “Egypt”---of bondage?  Many of them are psychological.  I may be in bondage to the expectations of others.  I may be bound by my own expectations or self-image.  Some of us are in bondage to our wealth and others to their poverty.  Personally, self-image has been a culprit of mine.

Whatever our personal bondage, the good news of Passover is there is a God and that God is a Deliverer.  That God is ready to call us and lead us out of bondage.  But we have to be responsive.  And to be responsive means we have to be aware.  Awareness alone is not sufficient.  We have to be willing.

God is not going to put us in a little red wagon like a child and pull us through our own personal Red Sea!  We have to be willing to walk though the waters of separation and head into the freedom of the new place.  Often that is easier said than done.

Unfortunately, there is a familiarity with our bondage that can make it difficult.  We may settle for the bondage of familiarity instead of the unknown of the freedom.  But we should know: we can only live if we are free.

When God comes, may we each be ready to Pass Over: to arise, walk, and embrace the freedom that God wants for us.

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