Exodus 12:1-2: The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.
Prayer Focus: At the start of the Exodus, the Hebrew people are held in captivity in Egypt, the most powerful nation in the world. And yet, these Israelite slaves are God’s own people. When they cry out and groan in pain, God hears them. God remembers the covenant. God looks upon them, takes notice of them, and feels their suffering. We enter this story after nine plagues have been sent by God upon Egypt: disruptive acts which serve as signs of God’s power and sovereignty over and above the tyranny of Pharaoh. In chapter 11, Moses and Aaron warn Pharaoh of the final, devastating plague in which God will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt but will “pass over” the households of Israel.
Yet, the actual plague doesn’t happen much later in chapter 12 (verse 29). Chapter 12, verses 1-27 represent a break from the Exodus narrative. Suspense is created as we must wait and see what happens next. We’re transported outside the limits of the Exodus story itself. Time and space are transcended. We’re no longer reading the saga of the Israelite people in Egypt. Instead, we are reading the liturgical material of the major feast of the Jewish tradition: the Passover. It’s easy to read the Passover narrative as an event that happened to God’s people long ago, in a far off, distant land. It’s easy for us to feel disconnected from this story. Yet, when read as a liturgical act of worship, we are reminded that we too are invited to identify with those suffering Israelites. We too are chosen and saved by God’s grace. For the Jewish people, the Passover marks the beginning of the liturgical year. May each of us begin this new day with a reminder that we are God’s people. In every time and place, God chooses to be God for us.