Passion Sunday / Palm Sunday – 4/13/2025
These are the instructions to the people of Israel, who in the story of the book of Exodus are slaves in Egypt at the time and are on the cusp of being freed from their oppression. Bear with me, this is long:
Exodus 12:1-11:
“The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: “This month is to be the beginning of months for you; it is the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household. If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each person will eat. You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over fire—its head as well as its legs and inner organs. Do not let any of it remain until morning; you must burn up any part of it that does remain before morning. Here is how you must eat it: you must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.”
And why do I share that? Because of the parallels made between the Passover of the people of Israel in the Old Testament and in the life of Jesus, especially in the week between the Triumphal Entry and the Crucifixion.
The final plague of the exodus of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt was the death of the firstborn son of every household. But to spare the Jews from this fate, and to make a distinction between them and the Egyptians, they were commanded to take a 1 year old sheep or goat, slaughter it, and spread it’s blood on the doorposts and lintel of their houses so that the destroyer would not enter their homes to kill the children of Israel. They were to eat it and the meal with it prepared to flee – Dressed and ready to go. And a few notes are in order in the parallels.
First, to summarize, that in order to be spared from death, they were to slaughter a sheep or goat that was unblemished and without defect. On the tenth day of the month, they were to choose the animal, and it had to be perfect – it couldn’t have birth defects or be sickly or weak. They had to offer to God from the best of their flock. And they did so four days before they slaughtered the animal and ate the meal.
Then we have Jesus. The one presented by the authors of Scripture as the lamb of God, as John the Baptist said, and the blameless and spotless lamb, as in 1 Peter 1. Jesus, who the authors of Scripture wrote that it is his blood and ihs sacrifice that brought redemption for humanity. And Jesus who entered into Jerusalem days before his arrest and crucifiixon – as though his triumphal entry to fanfare and hooplah parallels the selection from the flock the perfect, faultless sheep or the goat that would then, several days later, be killed so that its blood could save the faithful from death.
Thus, Jesus the passover lamb. Thus “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.”
Time would fail to spend more time going into the parallels and repercussions from this – which you all would especially be upset with me since this is already a long service with the other liturgical elements, what with the procession and the passion narrative that we heard read / sung.
But here’s where I do want to go. Hear the words of the prophet Zechariah, which read:
“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you,righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Later he continues: “I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. The king will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. “
Unlike the conquering Roman generals who come triumphant in great shows of power, the king that God sends to the people, the righteous and victorious, one is also lowly, humble, and comes not with great shows of power and might, but in humility.
And in doing so, brings peace. True and lasting peace. Peace that strips away the chariots and the warhorses and the weapons of warfare. But there shall be peace, in all the land, and for all peoples.
That’s Jesus. The king who has come to Jerusalem, at the start of the Passover celebrations that celebrate God’s delivery of the people from slavery in Egypt, and comes bringing a message of peace.
In the passion of Jesus, we see just this thing. That the humble king that comes to the people doesn’t fight against the powers that have conspired against him, nor do his followers fight for him, and yet he reigns victorious even today. The rulers of the Jewish people were not powerful enough to stop this king, nor was the wrath of Rome powerful enough to stop this king, and without lifting a finger against those who would destroy him, he still overpowered them by the love and grace of God.
And you and I are called to imitate this Christ, who though in the very form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant in human flesh, who came in peace to his people to call them to love God with all their hearts and to love one another, even thor enemies and those who persecute you, as yourself.
May this be true of us, that we may live out the messianic vision of peace, love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy that the people who saw Jesus that day as he entered into Jerusalem longed for in their own lives. Not returning evil for evil, but responding in love, understanding that it was the love of God that broke the bonds of death and the grave, not anger. Not violence. Not rage. But love. Love is the force that breaks all bonds, tears down injustice, seeks out the oppressed and the marginalized and downtrodden, forgives all error, restores all relationships. Because where love is, there God is also.
