What’s the fastest meal you’ve ever prepared? Why did you have to prepare it so fast? Was there unexpected company? Was the company expected but you forgot? Did you lose power because of a storm and decide to feed everyone the melting ice cream for dinner?

            Or did you suddenly realize that you needed to be on the road now! and you’d all better eat something immediately before setting out on an unexpected journey?

Passover

            Today’s scripture passage gives instructions for the Passover meal while describing the first Passover itself. In an odd way, it seems to have a foot in the past, the present and the future. The Lord is speaking to Moses about what is going to happen that very day — about the urgency of slaughtering the lamb, preparing the meal and eating it fast, with staff in hand — but also about how, in the future, this meal is to be eaten every year as a remembrance of God’s goodness in the past. It’s a family event. It’s not done for them. It’s done by them.

            The first Passover was not a calm, reverential, worshipful remembrance. It was a matter of life and death. It must be done now! Death was at the doorstep, literally. The angel of death was about to pass through Egypt, and the firstborn of every house would die.

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