Passover, Bread, and Holy Week

Holy Week is quickly approaching.  This weekend, we intensify the journey to the cross.  On Sunday, we’ll shout ‘Hosanna’s and celebrate a triumphal entry.  Thursday, we’ll feast and receive Christ’s most powerful commandment, ‘to love one another as I have loved you.’  And in the blinking of the sun, we’ll turn to voice with the crowds words of condemnation as we remember Christ’s passion and devotion to the will of God for our sin.  And when we depart that night, our heads will hand low with despair as we grieve the death of the one we hoped would be our Messiah!

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Yet we must remember what brought Jesus, and his followers to Jerusalem:  the Passover festival.  The Passover was, and still is, a celebration of God’s liberation of the house of Israel (God’s chosen people) from their enslavement, abuse, and oppression of the ancient Egyptian rulers.  This story is found in Exodus (1-19).  That celebration has been, and is still told, by God’s people every year to mark God’s deliverance of all people.  However, the festival is not called ‘The Deliverance.’  It would make sense if it had been, because that was the ultimate goal of the event.

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The celebration is called the ‘Passover.’  Why?  Because the event that is fully remembered is not just the end result.  The full story is told.  And the eponymous event is the night before the flight, when God’s spirit passed through Egypt and passed over the households of God’s people who prepared for the deliverance, ritually ate hastily and trusted God’s direction.  The Passover then became a festival to celebrate by ritually reliving that experience through narrative and meal (consider how we in the United States ‘celebrate’ and commemorate Thanksgiving each year).  And down through the centuries, God’s people would travel to Jerusalem and upon entering the city shout praises the harkened back to their desperate cries to God from Egypt, “Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest” (We sing/say this weekly as we celebrate the Eucharist).  Hosanna is the imperative (command verbal form) of the Hebrew verb meaning ‘Save us!’

            Save us from oppression!
           Save us from death at the hands of cruelty!
           Save us from destruction!

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Of the various elements that lend importance to the celebration and remembrance of the Passover, unleavened bread plays a big part.  God commands the people to eat unleavened bread because there will not be time for the dough to rise (Exodus 12:14-20).  When Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is timing his arrival (and so the Gospel writers interpreted it too) with this celebration of deliverance.  And in that night feast with his disciples, he reinterprets part of the meal in the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine for us to remember his passion (God’s passion) for humanity in his suffering and death upon the cross at the hands of another empire!

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This coming Sunday I invite kids of all ages to come and help make communion bread for Holy Week and learn about the events of the week to come through a reverse Easter Egg Hunt.  We’ll have fun getting messy making bread, and hunting to learn about the week to come! Join us from 2:30-4pm in the kitchen for a fun time.  If you’re a kid at heart and want to come and help or learn along with us, please contact Pastor Fred as to how you can join in.