Exodus 12:1-14 New International Version

The Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ² “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ³ Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb^[a] for his family, one for each household. ⁴ If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. ⁵ The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. ⁶ Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. ⁷ Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. ⁸ That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. ⁹ Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. ¹⁰ Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. ¹¹ This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

¹² “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

¹⁴ “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

A Holy Thursday Leave-Taking
17 April 2025
The Rev Dr Dianne ES Carpenter

Tonight is about “Taking Leave”. There are times when we must acknowledge that we are “graduating”, “moving on”, departing from what has been for what will be. By far, more profound than leaving on a trip from which you expect to return.

The reading from Exodus is about an entire nation leaving Egypt – never to return. Though the disciples did not realize it at the time, the Passover celebration we remember tonight was the Last Passover Supper the Disciples would share with Jesus.

Taking Leave involves preparation, and The Exodus teaches us to-

First, travel light. That is the message that God has for the Israelites on the cusp of their own departure into their destiny. Eat quickly, reverently, and then travel light, leaving behind all those things that cannot endure the journey—your boxes of despair, your chests of regret, your shackles of servitude. Leave them behind in a pile, with the blood of the lamb marking the spot of their abandonment, as you abandon yourselves to the new thing that God desires for you—liberation, courage, undaunted joy. Wrap yourselves in a mantle of trust and wave goodbye to your subjugation, for the Way of the Lord is broad and cuts straight across the wilderness for those willing to step up and be carried away.

Traveling light is one thing that sets the people of God apart from the likes of Pharaoh and his counterparts, those tyrants who traffic in heavy certainties.  The people of God are on the move with dusty feet and eyes wide with wonder and a heart softened by humility. The Passover leaving teaches us that our liberation and our salvation will always bear the imprint of that dusty, hungry, vibrant spirit of our forebears. To escape the old heartbreak, to reach the land beyond the Red Sea, to become the light of the world, travel light.

Secondly,  As we leave, we need to say goodbye. Jesus’ supper with his disciples, among all the other things, is a goodbye meal. Our Lord knows, tonight, that He is leaving for a place where, for now, only he can go. But before he goes, a proper farewell is required—the kind that leaves nothing unsaid, nothing withheld.

We can go through our lives lulled by the assumption of tomorrow. Surely there will always be time to say what needs saying to the ones we love. But occasionally, piercingly, we discover that this is not so, that people are called away while a thousand unshared sentiments hover in the air.

Jesus says, “No, there will be no withheld words among us, my friends.” We will speak our love, we will speak our fears, we will speak our souls to one another across this table in the dimming light. We will confess our care, cleansing and holding onto one another while we still can do these things. Because yes, departure is imminent, but now, here, in the eternal, precious present, we have a new commandment: Love One Another….To feast upon each other’s fullness. And this goodbye will be enough to sustain you through the darkness of the days to come, across the hungry years and the lonely places. This meal, this moment, this perfect goodbye, will be enough until we see each other again. So, say goodbye.

Finally, departure teaches us that God is among the travelers. God is, and always has been, the One found in transit and transition. From the wilderness journey of Israel to the long and winding road of Jesus and his followers, God is most reliably present in transitional places and in transitional people. And this is important for we who are disciples in an age of crumbling certainties.

If we wish to know where to look for God in such a time as this, we should not be beguiled by the promises of monumentality and unyielding strength. Those are and always have been the wrong places to look, the wrong places to seek hope, even if they seem to last for a little while.

We should look for God among the people who know about departures—the ones who know all too well about change.  And who are they? They are the migrant, and the unhoused, and the lost and the hungry. They are the ones who have transitioned and the ones who have come out. They are the ones who know: There are worse things than leaving home because sometimes venturing out is the only thing that can save us.

As with the Israelites and with Jesus, too, we learn how to leave behind the affection we have known for the sake of a greater love. We learn how to lay down our baggage, how to lay down our lives, so that we might live in a different way, whole and holy, and free.

It is something that Pharaoh does not understand; something that God alone can reveal to us. It is something unfamiliar and alive, this departure that beckons toward the horizon, that calls us toward that thing waiting for us on the other side of night.

And with all this in mind, it’s important to notice that on this Holy Thursday, our liturgy does not actually end when we leave. It keeps going. We keep moving in perpetual transit through these three days. Tonight, we have simply embarked, because the God of departures, at work in our hearts, has told us, again, that it is time to go.

So, like those who have gone before us, like all those who have had the courage to depart, gather up what is precious to you. Eat quickly, but reverently. Lay down that which has burdened you thus far. Speak words of love and truth, and gratitude to one another. And then step up and come away.

It is a perilous and powerful journey, the one we are about to make together. But, as has always been the case, it is the journey that will save us. It is the journey that, since the very beginning, God has been hoping we will make.