the devil's refugee

is gonna be blinded by the light / that follows me

A sermon on the Passover meal instructions at the wrong time:

It may not have sounded like it, but today’s passage is a startling record scratch. Our Scripture has plopped us into a moment of eerie quiet. The great cosmic battle between Pharaoh, the divine leader of the most powerful nation in the world at the time, Egypt, and YHWH, the LORD of that no account tribe, Israel, is about to reach its fever pitch. The LORD has unleashed plague after plague on the bull-headed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh, although roughed up, isn’t about to back down. 

Until, finally, the LORD God Almighty raises the hammer to let fly that last, greatest, and most terrible of all assaults; the death of all firstborns. But then, before God delivers that devastating haymaker, absolutely everything screeches to a halt! And God stops all the action for an odd reason! The goings on aren’t paused because God is winding up. And they’re not paused because God is giving the Israelites instructions for what to do when Pharaoh is down for the count, either. 

No, God holds off to give the people directions for a meal. That’s right, a meal! Think of it! I mean, I don’t know about you, but when I’m in a hurry, stopping for a meal is one of the absolute last things on my mind! And I bet you’re no different, either.

…It’s curious. Isn’t it? We’re all in a rush. Life always seems to be speeding up. And meals are often one of the first things to go by the wayside when we’re trying to keep up. Aren’t they?

I don’t want to put anyone on blast, but we could take a little survey. I bet if I asked for a show of hands of those who used to have dinner together around the table, many of us would raise our hands. Wouldn’t we? However, if I were to ask who among us still does this, I bet it’d be significantly fewer hands raised. Wouldn’t it?

The mystifying thing, though, is that jettisoning dinner hasn’t seemed to have saved us any time! Has it? No, for all our hustle and bustle, we never seem to gain any time. Do we? Truthfully, the opposite is the case! The faster we go, the quicker life gets away from us. It’s troubling. Isn’t it?

Being a pastor is a really good gig. But sometimes, part of the job is delivering bad news. And that’s what I have to do today. I hate to tell you this, I really do, but it’s not going to work. I mean it. It’s not going to work. 

Sorry to say, but the to-do list never ends. There’s always something waiting in the wings. Speeding up doesn’t get you done any faster. It just brings the next thing quicker. And it’s no accident, either. No, it’s part of the devilish design.

I wish I could tell you you’re nearly there. I really do. I wish I could say, “Work the system, and the system will work for you.” But that’d be lying. It’s not true. Just ask the Israelites; the system is rigged. The system is rigged.

…That was the bondage the Israelites found themselves in. As horrible as it was, and it was horrible, the forced labor wasn’t the hard part. No, what was truly soul-crushing was the work deprived of any greater purpose. The Israelites weren’t making bricks to build pyramids. No, they were just making bricks to make more bricks! And that was the wretched misery the Pharaoh made sure to inflict upon God’s people.

It’s not the workload that does you in. No, it’s the loss of any rhyme or reason for it! This is how life devolves into nothing more than one blasted thing after another! When you work just to work more, life itself becomes nothing more than a to-do list with no ending and even less meaning.

But here’s the truly frightening thing: we do this to ourselves now. We don’t need a Pharaoh anymore. No, now, we’ve all become our own pharaohs! In the foolish desire to optimize our lives, we now subject ourselves to that horrible labor that never ends and always only ends up robbing us of what makes a life worth living.

Speeding up doesn’t get you anywhere faster. Honestly, it doesn’t even get you anywhere at all! On the contrary, rushing just accelerates the speed by which life, LIFE, is passing you by! Instead of living, you put off the incredible miracle of existence radiating all around you, all by itself, just for the sheer God-given delight of it!

And make no mistake, it never ends, either. Perhaps you’re thinking, “This is all well and good, pastor. But I’m retired. I’m not rushing around anymore. I’ve learned better.”

Well, I hate to tell you, but you’d be lying to yourself. I’ve seen how a person can stop expecting much out of life. I’ve noticed the way people begin to wait around just to die. I’ve watched as the days blur into each other. And you can’t tell me that the net effect isn’t uncomfortably the same as working a life away; life passes you by. 

…This is serious. You can’t work yourself out of it. In fact, this malaise is resistant to work. Truth be told, work is one of its comorbidities. 

It’s what Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish Lutheran theologian and philosopher, called sickness unto death. And what’s so deadly about this ailment is that you become so infected you lose any awareness you’re sick at all! Instead of human being, you become a human doing. And little by little, you cease to really live, even though your heart still mindlessly pumps blood and your lungs reflexively suck air, too!

Now, I know that’s a harrowing prospect. But it also means if this is getting through to you, nothing less than a miracle is afoot! Believe me, I’d love to believe I’m that good. But I’m not. I can’t break the spell. So, if it is, understand that it’s the Holy Spirit who’s doing the breaking!

If you’re beginning to perceive the peril of your plight, it’s the Holy Spirit empowering you! On our own, we can’t diagnose ourselves. We’re not objective enough for that. Sure, we might know we’re bone tired, but by ourselves, we can’t figure out why. So, if this is making sense, if you’re getting a better picture of your own situation, let me tell you, it’s the Holy Spirit who’s revealing this to you!

You know what? It only gets better! The Holy Spirit isn’t doing all this just to show you the fix you’re in. No, the Holy Spirit has stepped onto the scene to lead you out into freedom! That’s right, freedom!

But hold up! Strange to say, before we go any further, I’ve got to stop you right there! And I’ve got to stop you to tell you about, of all things, a meal! That’s right, a meal! 

It would have been more effective if I could make that cool record scratch sound. Wouldn’t it? Well, I’ll work on it. In the meantime, though, let’s pump the breaks.

…I know it’s easy to think that nothing could be less pressing than a meal right now. After all, we’ve got to figure out how to break this cycle of more work only to do more work. But then again, think about it! That’s just the same old thing all over again! Isn’t it?!? Only this time, the illness is dressed up as the cure! That’s just the illness talking! Work won’t work on this!

So, trust me. And if you don’t trust me, and I wouldn’t, then trust the holy Scriptures! Today, amidst everything else, God speaks in these words. And God stops everything to give directions for a meal. Yes, a meal.

When you stop to think about it, in a strange way, an upside-down kind of way, it makes a certain sort of sense. Wouldn’t you say? If working isn’t the cure, perhaps stopping for a meal might be part of the remedy. Sure, it wouldn’t be our first impulse. That said, it may be the guidance of the same God that led the Israelites out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the wilderness, and into the Promised Land, too!

Whoah! It’s happening! Isn’t it? God, GOD, is breaking through to you! You! The sacred science of the cross is making itself known to you. And it’s happening with a meal! 

This is deliverance we’re talking about today! This isn’t the great escape. No, this is the work of God! This is salvation, hard-won! This is freedom at the last moment, with great risk, by the skin of your teeth, and at the cross-shaped urgency of God! And it all happens with a meal!

This is how it always goes for God’s people, too! Take the Israelites, for example. Are they free in today’s passage? No, they’re not! They’re still in Egypt itself! However, that meal is the foretaste of their freedom in the land of Egypt! The people stop to eat because, in God, they’re already as good as free!

And what about the disciples? Were they free that night Jesus gathered them in the upper room for the Passover meal he had so eagerly desired to eat with them? No, they were not! They were still bickering about greatness and worrying about their own hide. Weren’t they?

Nevertheless, Jesus stops them and gives them what the Passover meal had always promised, God Thyself! “This,” said Jesus, taking the bread, "is my body!" And then, taking the cup, he said, “This is my blood!” Thus, Jesus himself becomes the ultimate Passover lamb once and for all, and institutes holy communion forever and ever, too!

…This, people of God, is the meal God has instructed me to tell you about today! But God is not content with any abstract conversation. God doesn’t just want you to know about this meal. No, God wants you to have it! 

And in this meal, you don’t just get the bread and wine. No, you get Jesus himself! His body! And his blood!

But when you have Jesus, you don’t just have Jesus! No, in Jesus, you also have all of God! In this meal, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit fully gives Thyself to you! In this meal, God doesn’t hold back from you! No, in this meal, you receive where the Promised Land leads, to God! The Promised Land isn’t a place. It’s a person! His name is Jesus Christ! And in this meal, he’s all yours!

It’s all been leading to this! It’s all been leading here! God has stopped everything for this! There’s nowhere else to go! And there’s nothing else to do, either! No, it’s all yours! And it’s all right here and right now!

Yes, of course, you’re still on our sojourn through this veil of tears. But in Christ, you have the one who wipes away all your tears! Like the Israelites, like the disciples, you already have redemption! In Christ, it’s as good as yours! And it’s yours this very instant!

It’s all grinding to a halt. But the force of this rest is the three-in-one God! The force of this rest is the God who is always the same but neither slumbers nor sleeps! The force of this rest is the God who will not stop until God has taken you to Thyself!

You really are free! All those siren songs that promise rest but only destroy no longer have any power over you anymore! No, you now belong to Christ! And in him, you really are free! In him, you can even exercise a little of this blessed freedom, too! And you can do so today! Right now!

In Christ, you can stop for a meal! You can stop for worship! In Christ, you can confess that there are more important things than the next darn thing! In Christ, you can live as a person who is going somewhere!

You can do all this because, in Christ, it’s true! It’s true! You exist because, as far as God is concerned, the party is incomplete without you! And in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can live life as the lovely dance that it has been all along! And so, in the process, bear witness to the Lord of the dance, God the Father Almighty!

…All right. That’s enough! Time’s up! The meal is about to be delivered! And so are you! So are you.

God’s stops everything for this meal! And in this meal, the life that really is life finally begins! As Christ said from the cross, “It is finished!” There are no more to-dos for you! No, now it’s all done! And now, the rest is gravy! 

The tasks in your life are no longer problems to solve! No, now they’re holy instances burning with the same sacred fire that lit the cosmos! The people in your life are no longer mere helpers or hindrances. No, now they’re fellow creatures bearing the mark of the all-holy Creator themselves! 

And so are you! Your life isn’t a project. It’s a promise! It’s a gift! An adventure!

That’s just scratching the surface, too! You have so much more! Go ahead, and find out for yourself! In Christ, it’s all yours! And it’s yours right now! 

Blessed assurance, Jesus is yours! And as you are filled with that goodness, may you get lost in God’s love! And in that never-ending love, may you also start to find you find all that God has in store for you, too!

We said it’s all a dance! So, let’s call the song! Our Hymn of the Day is hymn number 638, Blessed Assurance! Hymn number 638, Blessed Assurance! Let’s sing!