Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8

So, you go to Ikea… or to Best Buy… or to Costco… and you buy a new doodad. Maybe it’s furniture, or a TV, or some other kind of electronic device. Included in the packaging is an instruction manual. The manual contains detailed instructions for putting together your new bookcase, or hooking up your new TV, or installing your new printer. The manual also contains instructions on caring for your new purchase. It may also contain warranty information.

Show of hands: how many of you regularly read the instruction manual? Keep them up if you read it before attempting to assemble, hook up, or otherwise engage with your purchase. (Pause) Interesting… some never read it; others turn to it only after failed attempts.

Now, is the instruction manual interesting reading? Sure, it’s riveting… not!! Still, it contains important information which can help us to have a more successful and satisfying interaction with our new device or other item. Would we take it with us to read on a beach vacation? Probably not.

Today’s lesson reads like an instruction manual. It contains detailed instructions to the Israelites for observing and eating their first Passover meal. It contains important and useful information. But it is so dry! I don’t know about you, but I find it rather challenging to keep my interest and focus up during these kinds of passages. There are many other places in the Bible that are just like it, such as the instructions for building the ark, or for building or rebuilding the temple.

In our life together here at Holy Shepherd, we have recently needed to focus on and to attend to many details related to our preschool expansion and the concomitant building remodel program. Thanks be to God for the many willing Holy Shepherd members and friends, including our beloved Pastor John, for reading and following all of those detailed instructions! The end result in our case will be a beautiful and functional new preschool facility.

The results for the Israelites of following the detailed Passover instructions given by Yahweh through Moses and Aaron was that they were passed over by the tenth plague; they received freedom from slavery; a new life; and a renewed closeness to Yahweh, who was to lead them on their journey out of Egypt and into the promised land, and who would continue to lead them once they got there.

Our scriptures contain stories, a narrative history of God’s people through the ages. Yet, the scriptures are not entirely stories. Interwoven with the narrative, in both the Old and New Testaments, are instruction manuals, genealogies, letters, sermons, prophecies, and more!

The first five books of the Hebrew scripture are known collectively as the Torah, as you are likely aware. Commonly thought of as “the Law,” a more literal translation of the word Torah would be “instruction,” or “teaching.” Taken this way, the stories, directions, genealogies, and prophecies contained therein begin to take on a broader meaning. Specifically, passages such as our lesson today, when seen as education, begin to look like an education in remembering. By following the instructions for this first Passover, and then by following them year after year, and generation after generation, the people of Israel learned to take remembering seriously.

This remembrance takes three forms. First, there is the Feast of Passover itself. What Passover leads the Israelites (and us) to remember is God’s mercy. Second, there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which came along with the Passover rituals. During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the people would remove yeast from their homes for seven days; they would go without; they would fast, as a remembrance of the scarcity out of which God had brought them. Third, there was the consecration of the firstborn, who were set aside for lifelong work and service. Later, the entire tribe of Levi – the Levites – took on this holy obligation in place of the firstborn children of every tribe.

There are lots of commandments and laws in the Bible – in both testaments. We know Jesus to be the fulfilment of the law. When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest, he replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is most certainly true, as Luther would say.

While these are the greatest commandments, perhaps the most important instructions in the whole of scripture are these: “Take and eat; this is my body, broken for you. Take and drink, this is my blood, shed for you. Do this to remember me.”

The people of Israel were led by God out of slavery and into the promised land. Their observance, year after year, generation after generation, of the Passover meal helped them to remember who God was and how God had acted in their lives to bring them to freedom. The Passover meal feeds them in ways that are not just physical. The remembering gives them spiritual strength and hope for the journey.

Love came down from heaven, took on human form, and nailed our sins to the cross. We come to the table of grace, where there is room enough for all. We come to remember. We come to be fed. And, getting up from the table, we travel… not through an actual wilderness as the Israelites did… but we get up from the table of grace and we travel out into the world, out into our lives, where many are hungering and thirsting, where many are hurting, and where God is leading us. We have been spiritually fed at the table of grace, and we travel, we go on our way, rejoicing that God has delivered us. We go on our way, ready to share our bread, share our time, share our possessions. We get up from the table of grace, and we follow… wherever Jesus leads.