Lent 2010 #28

Exodus 12:21-27 (NRSV)

Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down.You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, 'What do you mean by this observance?' you shall say, 'It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" And the people bowed down and worshiped.

THOUGHTS:  

There was a time I thought that my family had no family traditions.  I was in middle school at the time.  It was almost winter break and several friends and I were talking over lunch about what we were going to do for the holidays.  Everyone else, it seemed, had these elaborate traditions in which they would take part.    

I went home that afternoon and announced to my parents in a disgusted teenage voice that I could not believe that we had no traditions.  My mother tried to explain that we did, but I refused to believe her.  I was adamant that we had no traditions; that there was nothing special that set our family apart.    

A few days later my mother casually mentioned that she was thinking about not making sticky buns for Christmas breakfast.  She thought that maybe it was time to try something different.  My sister and I pitched a fit.  "It won't be Christmas without sticky buns," we exclaimed.    

It turns out that we did have a few family traditions; plenty of traditions, in fact.  They just didn't feel like a tradition.  They felt…well…just like what we always did.  There wasn't anything necessarily special about them.  

When the first Passover was instituted, Moses declared to the people of Israel, "You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children."  The Passover was to become for the people of Israel a family tradition.  It was to be passed down through the generations as something special that set them apart.  It was to be a way to remind the generations of Israelites what God had done for them.  So that even in those times that being God's people felt just like what they always did, that they would recall that there was something special about that relationship.  

As we continue our Lenten journey towards the cross, we are reminded that the Passover meal would take on a new significance when Jesus celebrated it with his disciples in the upper room.  It would be his blood that would be shed, placed on the cross so that sin and death will pass over us.  In the midst of our normal, everyday lives we need these kinds of remembrances.  We need the traditions of our faith that remind us who and whose we are. 

PRAYER:

Gracious God, we give thanks for the love that you have shown to your people throughout the generations.  Help us to always remember that love wherever we go and whatever we do.  Amen.       

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Thoughts by Rev. Meredith Lovell Keseley, Lutheran Church of the Abiding Presence 

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These devotions for young adults are provided by:

Lutheran Campus Ministry at George Mason University http://www.gmu.edu/org/lutheran

Lutheran Student Association at the University of Maryland http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~lutheran/lsa/

DC Young Adults http://www.dcyoungadults.org/

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