“This Is the Feast of Victory”
Exodus 12:1-14

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Maundy Thursday—April 14, 2022

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our text is this evening’s Old Testament Reading, in which the Lord institutes the Passover celebration: “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 . . . it is the Lord’s Passover.”

The Lord first commanded the observance of the Passover celebration over 3,000 years ago and on the other side of the world from us tonight.  The amazing thing is, 3,000 years later, here we are in rural Block, Kansas, a long way from ancient Egypt in both time and space, really a whole different world.  Yet, once again here we are, commemorating tonight this festival of the Lord’s Passover, and not only us but billions of Christians around the world.  The Lord said it is to be “a lasting ordinance . . . for the generations to come,” and that certainly has been fulfilled.  In fact, what we are doing here tonight is surely the longest continuously observed commemoration of any kind in the whole history of the world.

Those words from the first Passover 3,000 years ago are being fulfilled right here, tonight.  For, our observance of Holy Communion tonight, and really every time we celebrate this Sacrament, is closely linked to those events so long ago and far away. 

Like the ancient Hebrews, we are too are enslaved, spiritually enslaved.  As Jesus says, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”  Like the ancient Hebrews, dying in their slavery in Egypt, your slavery to sin brings you death and destruction and damnation, “For the wages of sin is death,” Paul says.

Like the ancient Hebrews, persecuted and tortured by Pharaoh, we too are trapped, captive and subjugated to the Devil, whom Jesus calls “the prince of this world.”  Like the ancient Hebrews, who had no hope of themselves fighting against the mighty Egyptian army, we too are helpless by ourselves to battle against Satan.

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slavery.  I am concerned about their suffering, for I know their sorrows.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Our observance of Holy Communion tonight, and really every time we celebrate this Sacrament, is closely linked to those events so long ago and far away.  For, like the ancient Hebrews, the Lord has seen your misery, he has heard you crying out to him, he is concerned about your suffering, he knows your sorrows.  So, he has come down to rescue you and set you free, to bring you out of bondage and into Paradise.

Moses told to the Hebrews, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers,” and John reports, “After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

Moses and the events of the Exodus were a prototype; real historical events, yet also a prototype, symbolic events pointing forward to the salvation that was to come.  A salvation that was to come, which would bring freedom not just from earthly slavery for one tribe of humanity, but freedom from spiritual slavery for the whole world.  A salvation that was to come, which would bring release not just from earthly bondage under an evil Pharaoh, but release from eternal bondage under “the prince of this world,” that old evil Foe, the Devil.  A salvation that was to come, which would lead us not just into an earthly promised land, but into the Paradise of heaven.

Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed for us.”  All the events of that first Passover pointed forward, especially the slaughter of the lamb, and the covering with the lamb’s blood, which protected the Hebrews from death.  That prototype was fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  As John the Baptist cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” “You were redeemed,” Peter says, “with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect.” “Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood set us free to be people of God.  This is the feast of victory for our God!”

All the events of that first Passover pointed forward to their fulfillment “on the night in which he was betrayed,” when Jesus made clear the meaning of the prototype, of the slaughtered Lamb, and the covering blood, and the unleavened bread:  “This is my body, which is given for you.  This is my blood, which is shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. This do in remembrance of me.”

“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 . . . it is the Lord’s Passover.”  What we are doing here tonight is surely the longest continuously observed commemoration of any kind in the whole history of the world. Our observance of Holy Communion tonight, and really every time we celebrate this Sacrament, is closely linked to those events so long ago and far away.  For, all the events of that first Passover, when the Hebrews celebrated the Lord’s victory for them over slavery and death, pointed forward to their fulfillment in this “feast of victory for our God.”