“Christ, the Firstborn, Is Sacrificed,” Exodus 12.21–32, Good Friday April ‘17

1.       Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The message from God’s Word on this Good Friday is taken from Exodus 12:21-32, and is entitled, “Christ, the Firstborn, Is Sacrificed,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.       When darkness came after Adam’s first day in this world, he cried all through the night over the death of the sun. So legend has it anyway. The sun drops and tears fall, caused by the darkness that covers our eyes. Since Adam, or at least since Abel, has a single night passed when someone hasn’t wept over the death of someone else? “Weeping may tarry for the night,” the psalmist tells us, “but joy comes with the morning” (30:5).   Would that it were always so. Would that the sunlight always dried our tears, instead of only revealing the full extent of them.

3.       Can you hear the Egyptians weep and wail? Do you see their tears? Last night had been no friend to them, only an ally of the Almighty. At the stroke of midnight the angel of destruction marched through the highways and byways of Egypt. His targets were specific. His focus was on the firstborn sons of Egypt. They would die in this 10^th and final plague. No more, no less. And die they did, in great number. Great was the cry in Egypt that night, for there wasn’t a house where there wasn’t someone dead. Dead were all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who labored at the millstones. Even the firstborn of the cattle weren’t spared. God executed them all. Never had Egyptians shed more tears, and never in years to come would their tears equal those that streamed from their eyes that awful night.

4.       You knew that it would come to this, for already from the burning bush, the Son of God tells Moses that strong-hearted Pharaoh won’t let his people go. So, Moses is to tell this tyrant that since he won’t let God’s son, his firstborn, go, then God will let his anger go upon Pharaoh’s son, his firstborn (Ex 4:22–23). An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son for a son. And the Lord wasn’t bluffing. Just look. Watch as the Israelites leave the morning after their Passover, as they pass by heartbroken mothers and fathers laying to rest their firstborn sons, struck down by the heavenly Father of Israel (Num 33:3–4).

5.       Forever after that night, God claimed every Israelite firstborn as his own special child. They belonged to him in a way different from all others. The Levites, as a group, represented these firstborn (Numbers 3). These sons who labored in and around the tabernacle, who cared for the holy things of their Father, who daily watched as doves and pigeons, goats and sheep, bulls and cows shed their blood and were burned on the altar—these Levites were the firstborn of Israel, the special sons of God.

6.       But where were they on this day of days, this Friday we call Good? Where were these Levites on the day their own job and responsibility in the temple was being fulfilled? Where were they who represented the firstborn of Israel, when the firstborn of earth and heaven, the only-begotten Son of God, shed his blood upon the altar of the cross? Tell me, where were they? O you blind Levites, unseeing sons of the God of Israel, have you no eyes to see that it is finished, that he has come who brings all things to their fulfillment in himself? Go on, go on, toil at the temple, watch as birds bleed, sheep die, and cattle go up in smoke, but know that you are missing the real thing. Not there at the temple, not there in those sacrifices, not there upon that altar, but here, in this unveiled temple atop Golgotha, in this sacrifice of human flesh and blood, upon this cruel altar of wood and nails, here’s the real thing, the real firstborn, the real Savior of us all.

7.       With 10 plagues the Lord had attacked Egypt in the time of the exodus. Water to blood, a blitzkrieg of bugs, disease, thunder, hail. And in the 9^th attack, when Moses stretched out his hands toward the heavens, a sea of darkness flooded Egypt. A darkness so thick and black you could feel it. Not for one, nor two, but for three days God kept the sun at bay. Then, after those 3 days, came the greatest of the plagues, the execution of Egypt’s firstborn sons.

8.       But that darkness and that death was a shadow of what was to come. Because for you, to ransom you, O captive Israel, one greater than Moses stretched out his hands toward heaven, to have them nailed to the wood of earth. There he hangs, his hands and feet attached to the tree of death, that he might bear for you the fruit of life. Yes, there he hangs, suspended between God and man, making peace between him and you by the blood of his cross. And there comes the darkness, from the 6^th hour to the 9^th hour, a darkness that fell over the whole land not for one, nor two, but for three hours. The Father, who lifts up his face to enlighten us, hid his face from his firstborn Son. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken him? “Because my Son who knew no sin has become sin for you. Because my Son who was not of Egypt has become the Egypt you are. Because my Son has become all the firstborn of men: firstborn men like Cain the murderer, firstborn men like Reuben the incestuous one, firstborn men like Aaron the idolater, and firstborn men and women and children such as you.” Whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, he has become it. Jesus has taken your place, as did the Levites, to offer a better sacrifice than they, his own body and blood, a sacrifice that closes the book on the temple, the altar, all of it. The firstborn is dead, killed by the judgment of God. The plagues are over and you are free.

9.       You are free to go, O Israelites! In fact, you too, O Egyptians, are free to go. And you as well, O Canaanites and Perizzites, Greeks and Romans. And all of you, Americans, Africans, and Russians, all of you are free to leave the slavery of sin that gripped you so long. For the Lord has sent his firstborn Son into this world, not to kill but to be killed. God let his anger go upon him. All this so that you might go free—free from sin and death, free from every evil chain wound around your neck.

10.   But you aren’t the only one free. God forbid. Think not that the firstborn of the Father can remain dead. How can the grave hold him who is the author of life? It cannot and it will not. Jesus lives. And when God raised Christ, he killed death. For Christ is the head of his body, the Church, the beginning, the firstborn of all creation and the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might have first place. But Jesus is the firstborn, not the only-born, for in him you, too, call God “our Father.” For you St. Paul says in Romans 8, “whom [the Father] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29).

11.   When Mary gave birth to her firstborn Son, she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. And this Son, all grown-up, now wraps you, his adopted siblings, in the swaddling clothes of his flesh and blood, joining you to his own crucifixion and resurrection, making you a partaker of all that is his. In the exodus that he has accomplished in Jerusalem, you are the recipients of His inheritance. And now he leads you to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels in festal gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect. Jesus leads you to himself, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.  God Killed the Firstborn to Free the Firstborn.  Amen.

“The New and Better Passover Meal of Meals,” Ex. 12.1–14, Maundy Thursday, April ‘17

1.       Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word on this Maundy Thursday of Holy Week is taken from Exodus 12:1-14 and is entitled, “The New & Better Passover Meal of Meals,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.       Sometimes a meal is more than a meal, more than a chance to pacify your appetite or stuff your stomach. Sometimes the meal takes on a life of its own. On their wedding day, couples don’t place a bite of that pretty cake in each other’s mouths just because they’re in the mood for it. The final meal of a death row inmate is more than a chance for him to die without hunger pains. And you may not even like turkey and dressing, but I’d bet most of you have cooked it, or at least eaten it, for more Thanksgivings than you care to remember. Eating is often about far more than eating.

3.       On their last night in Egypt, during their final hours of slavery, the Israelites partook of a meal that was far more than a meal. A simple menu, really, but no serving was there just to pretty up the plate. Nothing was chosen because of nutritional content or even because it happened to have good flavor. In fact, one part of it was chosen because of its bad taste! Bitter herbs the Israelites were to eat, yes, bitter herbs, for the taskmasters had embittered their slaves’ lives with the daily grind of servitude. As cows chew their cud, so the soon-to-be-freed slaves were to chew these herbs, year after year, as an edible token of the bad taste left in their mouths from those years in slavery in Egypt.

4.       Unleavened bread was also part of the meal—unleavened because Pharaoh would oust them from his land before the sun rose, before the yeast had time to work its way through their dough. It was the bread of affliction, because with haste they’d have to exit Egypt (Deut 16:3), before the tyrant once more revised his decree and relocked their chains. This bread truly was “fast food,” but of the sacred sort, because the people of God would literally eat and run.

5.       The bitter herbs were the dish of remembrance, and unleavened bread the food that foreshadowed their upcoming haste. So, too, the main course, the roasted flesh of a sacrificed lamb: that meat also signaled something else, something that was for them both a now and a not yet. The now of the roasted meat was the sign that an innocent victim had been, just a few hours before, slaughtered in their stead. The angelic destroyer who was passing through the land that night would pass over their homes, sparing the firstborn sons, while he would pass into the homes of unbelievers, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. But above and beside the entrance of the homes of the faithful was painted the blood of the passover lambs, like a crimson hieroglyphic that translated into one saving message: “Pass over, O angel. God’s child lives here.” So that night, as they tasted that meat, they knew that neither they nor their sons would taste of death. Their Good Shepherd had prepared a table before them in the presence of their enemies, a table that gave them light and life as they walked through the valley of the shadow of Egypt.

6.       But this main course proclaimed a message that extended well beyond that night, beyond the many Passover celebrations to come. The whole meal—bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and roasted lamb—this entire meal was an edible prophecy. For as the preachers of old uttered prophecies of the coming Messiah, so this meal also was a foretelling, a foretelling that they could sink their teeth into. It promised that what now the Israelites were eating was but a foretaste, an appetizer, that was to whet their appetite for a meal that was not yet. And this not yet meal would be one that would surpass their supper in Egypt both in wonder and excellence.

7.       This surpassing meal is definitely more than a meal—about eating but about far more than eating, about drinking but about far more than drinking. It’s a table where the things of earth are lifted up to the things of heaven and the things of heaven are brought down to the things of earth. Here God comes down into the Egypt of our captivity, not to kill his enemies, but to place into our mouths his own body and blood, given into death to save his enemies, to save us.

8.       It may seem a bit plain-Jane, this food of the new and better Passover. Bread. Wine. Nothing there to razzle-dazzle the palate. Nothing to make this world’s food enthusiasts salivate. But so it was in olden times as well, when Israelites ate unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and roasted lamb. Nothing there either to raise the eyebrows of Egypt’s Martha Stewart, or even Rachael Ray. But the Father didn’t send his Son into the world to impress the world but to save the world through him. And the means he uses to save you are wrapped in the disguise of utter simplicity.

9.       Take, eat, this simple bread is his body. It’s the body of the Lamb that wasn’t passed over, but passed under the knife. Or, rather, passed under the court of the Sanhedrin, passed under the sentence of spineless Pilate, passed under the whips of the soldiers, passed under the sneers of the crowd, passed under the beams of his cross, passed under all the evil this world could heap upon him, and then some. For he also passed under the verdict of his Father, which declared this innocent one guilty of our crimes, which bade him serve our sentence, all that we—the truly guilty ones—might go scot-free. Take, eat, this is the body of God’s own Lamb. No knife slices his throat open, as the dumb beasts of old, but “nails, spear shall pierce Him through, The cross [is] borne for me, for you” (LSB 370:2). Behold, the Lamb of God, skewered on the beams of that cruel tree, all the flames of hell ablaze beneath him, fueled by the firewood of our iniquities, leaping upward to roast the flesh of this pure and perfect sacrifice. Take, eat, open your mouth, fear not. Taste and see that the Lamb is good—good for you who have been bad, good enough for you and for all the world, so good that in eating him you become the good that he is. You are what you eat.

10.   Take, drink, this simple wine is his blood. It’s the lifeblood of the Lamb who gave his life for you. He gave it not in a single outpouring, but from the alpha of his life to its omega. He gave it as an 8-day-old infant, the drops of his circumcision blood, shed for you. He gave it in Gethsemane, as he prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Mt 26:39), his sweat becoming like drops of blood, already filling that cup the Father would remove from him, but only after this obedient Son had drained it of the poison of our sins and filled it with the liquid of his love. Christ gave his lifeblood when the whips ripped open his muscles, when the thorns stabbed his brow, when the nails bore through his hands and feet, and finally when the soldier’s spear broke through the dam of his flesh to unleash the water and blood that spilled forth to pool in every baptismal font and chalice of the Lord’s Supper. Take, drink, this is his blood. Paint it not on your doorposts and lintel, but on your lips, on your tongue, on your heart, and on your soul, for this blood is the armor of the Almighty, shielding every inch of you from the destruction that will overtake this world when the angels execute the judgments of God. They will pass over you, these destroying angels, for you have passed under the bleeding side of the Passover Lamb, painted with the crimson colors of the Christ who hands his chalice to you. Take, drink and drink and drink some more, for this libation is your salvation, the blood that flows from the veins of the Lamb.

11.   Here, dear Christians, is a meal that takes on a life of its own, or, rather, that takes on the life of another, the life of its founder, our Lord Jesus Christ. And in taking this meal into yourself, you take on his life as your own, passing over from death into life everlasting.  In God’s Simple Meals, We Pass from Death to Life.  Amen.