Holy Wednesday--Passover Time

 

One summer at Princeton Carlyle Marney leaned over the pulpit and told 200 preachers, "Boys, if they ever find out Jesus was a Jew we're going to be in bad trouble." And we Christians often forget that Jesus was trained in the Synagogue. He followed all the Jewish rituals.  And on his road to the cross, so near--like his fellow Jews he observed Passover one of the greatest days of their faith. He remembered this was the time when they looked back, back to those suffering slaves in Egypt. And they prayed and prayed and the muddy waters of the Red Sea did not stop them. They learned there was a power greater than anything the world could throw at them.They walked to the other side of the water to a freedom they had only dreamed of. Though their wilderness journey would last years and years they kept going looking for that place of freedom they had been promised

And so every year on Passover they would light the candles and sit quietly around a table and usually the father would ask: "Why is this night different from other nights?" And once again as their forebears asked the same question someone would say: "It was the day when God's people moved from slavery to freedom." And though their year had been bad and suffering was seemingly everywhere they still would light the candles and remember their story. God was with them. God would always be with them. And even during those dark Nazi days when they were placed in concentration camps and millions of them were killed even there furtively they would keep Passover. 

As Jesus' days grew darker and he knew where his rocky road would lead he took his disciples to an upper room to observe Passover. Surely his faith must have said God is with me--and God will lead all these all-too-human disciples too me through whatever was out there. And we know the Lord's Supper grew out of that remembering. 

So we are really one with our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are all beset by many things--inside and out. Yet our challenge is to hang on to that slender thread of faith and go on. And the gift that the Negro slaves gave us were those spirituals we still sing:"Were You There," "Swing low sweet chariot," "Deep River,","The LonesomeValley," "Go Down Moses," "All God's Chillun' got Shoes."

So on this Holy Wednesday let us remember once again the troubled waters we have crossed and that old "I will be with you" keeps us coming back on the hardest of our days.

That stubborn kept Jesus going all the way to the finish line and that faith will lead us too.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com