Preparing
with Joy for the Paschal Feast
Part XIV of XV
Thursday 29 March
2018
Maundy Thursday
The First Passover
Exodus 12:1-24
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the
land of Egypt: This
month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month
of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of
Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family,
a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for
a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb
shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your
lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep
or from the goats. You shall keep it until the
fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel
shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the
blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which
they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that
same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and
bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or
boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner
organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning;
anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This
is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your
staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that
night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human
beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the
Lord. The blood shall be a sign for
you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you,
and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. This
day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a
perpetual ordinance. Seven days you shall eat
unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses,
for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall
be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall
hold a solemn assembly, and on the seventh day a solemn assembly; no work shall
be done on those days; only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared
by you. You shall observe the festival of unleavened
bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt:
you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a perpetual ordinance.
In the first month, from the evening of the
fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day, you shall eat
unleavened bread. For seven days no leaven shall
be found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened shall be cut off
from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land. You
shall eat nothing leavened; in all your settlements you shall eat unleavened
bread. Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and
said to them, “Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the passover
lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that
is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in
the basin. None of you shall go outside
the door of your house until morning. For the Lord
will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the
lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over
that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you
down. You shall observe this rite as a perpetual
ordinance for you and your children.
The Rev’d Timothy
Alleman
Rector
The Church of the
Holy Cross
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