In this time of lament, a prayer for the people
The first Passover was celebrated at home in a time of plague. The Last Supper was a Passover meal, celebrated in the Upper Room, the owner of which was told that Jesus had a message for him: “I will keep the Passover at your house.”
At your house. We normally pass over those words about preparing for Passover. This year we won’t. Not when we are all at home for the duration.
This Passover, this Easter is a return home, to where it began. It is not a joyful homecoming, but a painful one, for we cannot on these holiest of days gather in our churches or synagogues to worship together.
The Passover seder usually brings together different generations and branches of a family, together with friends and neighbours. And the youngest begins by asking a question which resonates across the millennia: Why is this night different from all other nights?”
It belongs then to the eldest in the family to explain that this night is different because it is the Passover of the Lord, the night of the liberation of the Jewish people from the tyranny of Pharoah and from slavery in Egypt. Sometimes it is a grandfather who answers the questions of his grandson. This year grandchildren are kept away from their vulnerable grandparents. In some places the solemn, sacred dialogue of Passover becomes only a monologue or a memory.
At that first Passover, ancient Israel sheltered at home — to employ the current formulation — again the last of the ten plagues that God sends upon Egypt, the striking down of the firstborn. The blood of the Passover lamb put upon the lintel and doorposts is the sign of salvation; the plague will not touch this house.
Jesus goes to the cross as the Lamb of God, the sacrifice, which saves all people from the tyranny of our own will, for our slavery to sin. The blood of Christ, shed on the cross, is the sign that salvation has come to this house.
All which remains true, whether we gather at home or in church, whether we are alone or with others. All of which remains true in a time of prosperity and peace, or a time of pandemic and privation.
But the isolation of these days remains a grievous spiritual suffering. For many people, especially in the affluent parts of the world, this is our first experience of a plague. “Pestilence” is a relic of a biblical world view no longer relevant in a world of scientific advancement and material abundance.
At the foot of the cross, Jesus is jeered by those who challenge him: “Save yourself!” God should be able to do that, no? To lay down his life for others willingly was a love too great to comprehend.
Today we can go a long time without finding the cross at all; suffering and hardship, sickness and even death are kept out of sight. If we bothered at all we might cry out, “We can save ourselves.”
The coronavirus has reminded us that we cannot save ourselves, that death comes when we do not expect it, like a thief in the night. That too is part of the biblical world view. We are relearning that.
At that first Passover in Egypt, the quiet of the night was broken by the wails of the Egyptians as the tenth plague struck down their sons and daughters, their manservants and maidservants, their flocks and herds. Ancient Israel, sheltering at home, knew well their need for salvation.
This Passover, this Easter, will be lived as a time of lament. That too is part of the biblical world view. Lament demurs from the modern preference to fix what is broken, solve what is a problem or to rail against the dying of the light. Lament recognizes that the light shines in the darkness, but that there is abundant darkness. Lament recognizes that this vale of tears desperately needs salvation. Thus the Book of Lamentations is as relevant as this morning’s headlines:
“How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.”
The city indeed is solitary, the gates are desolate, none come to the solemn feasts, the priests sigh. But grace remains in this time of lament, the grace of recognizing that the world needs a saviour. And that it has one.
A blessed Easter to all.