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This particular text, which tells of the institution of the Jewish Passover feast, is to mark the beginning of the year in the month of Abib (March-April) for the Hebrews (v. 2). Originally, the New Year began in the fall with the harvest (cf. 23:16; 34:22), but it was switched to the spring by the priestly writers of the sixth century B.C., who followed the Babylonian calendar.

It may seem strange that this text is now assigned to us for September. We usually associate Passover with Maundy Thursday before Easter, when our Lord eats his final Passover meal with his disciples before he goes out to be crucified. But are we not too at the beginning of a new season in our church schedule? Everyone has returned from vacation. The children will shortly be back in school. Church school classes and choir practices are resuming, and we are entering our fall schedule of worship services. So, like the Israelites in our text, we are at a beginning, and this text has a good deal to say to us about how to conduct ourselves.

First of all, this text has to do with travelers who are on the move. The Israelites are about to be delivered by the Lord out of their old life of captivity in Egypt. And so everything they do in this Passover festival is to be characteristic of travelers who are on the verge of leaving. For their food, they are to select a lamb of a sheep or goat and to roast it over an open fire, where no utensil or boiling water is needed. They are to eat unleavened bread, because there is not time for their bread to rise, and their spices are to be bitter herbs that are pulled straight from the ground. Their loins are to be girded, that is, their long robes are to be gathered up about their hips and tied there with a belt, so they can walk freely. Their feet are to be shod for walking, and they are to have their hiking staffs in hand, ready for departure. They are to be prepared to journey.

So too, good Christians, as we start this fall in our church year, we are to be prepared for moving on, because the Christian life is never a static acceptance of the status quo. It is pressing forward toward God's goal for us. God never lets us remain just as we are. He wants us to know more about the Bible's contents and about his words revealed through those contents, and so we are to press on in our Bible study and in our daily private Bible reading, enlarging our knowledge of our Lord. God in his love desires that we deepen our communion and daily fellowship with him, and so he asks us to commit ourselves to more regular private prayer and to more heartfelt and sincere corporate worship, that we may grow in sanctification and goodness. God sees all of his beloved people out there in our neighborhoods and world who desperately need to hear of his forgiveness and new life, and so he asks us to increase our efforts in evangelism and mission, drawing more members into this church and increasing our activities on the mission field. And God knows that everywhere there are people who are suffering, in hunger or poverty, sickness or anxiety, and he asks us to rekindle our efforts to love our neighbors and to minister to their needs. We are at a beginning once again in this September, but there's no resting on our laurels, no doing things as we have always done them. God says to us, "Be prepared to journey, move on, press forward in the discipleship which I have given you!"

Why? Because, like the Israelites prepared to depart Egypt, good Christians, God is going to "pass over" us and deliver us from our slavery. No. He's not going to do it. He already has, in the cross and resurrection of his Son. Through the work of Jesus Christ, you and I have been delivered from our slavery also, our slavery to sin and death. God has given us a foretaste of "the glorious liberty of the children of God," as he gave it to Israel, and he has set us free to live a new life, as Israel was set free. And we, like that first people of God, are on the journey to a promised land -- a promised land called not Palestine this time, but called the Kingdom of God. So let's move on, beloved Christians! Forgetting what lies behind, let us press on toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, until his kingdom does indeed come on earth, even as it is in heaven!

Lutheran Option: Ezekiel 33:7-11

This passage from Ezekiel details for us one of the functions of a prophet in Israel, namely to be a "watchman." A loosely parallel passage is found in Ezekiel 3:16-21, and the similar watchman function of a prophet is mentioned in Hosea 9:8; Jeremiah 6:17; and Isaiah 56:10. Like a watchman set on the wall of a city to warn it of the approach of an enemy, the prophets were to warn the Israelites of God's approaching judgment on their sin. Ezekiel understands God to be the "enemy" of sin (cf. 13:1-5), as do all of the pre-exilic prophets. And God the enemy can destroy Israel for her sin against him.

This particular passage deals primarily with the sin of individuals. If the prophet warns some sinner of God's approaching judgment, but the sinner does not repent and amend his life, the sinner will die for his iniquity. But if the prophet does not warn a sinner and the sinner dies, the fault will be also the prophet's and the prophet too will die. In short, the prophet is held responsible for the life of his compatriots! He must pass on God's word to sinners or forfeit his own life.

Two emphases speak to us out of this text. First is the life and death importance of the Word of God. God's word as it is given to us in the gospel is not a mere suggestion or an instruction that can be accepted or rejected as we will. No. God's word involves life or death. As we learn also from the New Testament, it involves whether any person will have eternal life or death. And so it is absolutely important for everyone we meet and everyone in the world that we pass on the good news of the gospel to them.

Preachers are sometimes asked, "What will happen to all of those people in the world who have never heard the gospel when the last judgment takes place?" The reply can only be that they are in the hands of the merciful God whom we have known in Jesus Christ.


But this text adds a second thought to that reply. It tells us that if we have the opportunity to tell a sinful world and sinful individuals about the forgiveness and salvation possible to them in Christ, and they die because we have not told them, we are responsible for their death! We have not passed on the good news to them that could give them eternal life, and so we too stand under the judgment of God.

In other words, part of our function and responsibility in the Christian faith is to pass it on. In our mission work, at our jobs, in our social circles, and especially in our families and to our children, we are to communicate God's word. We can do it by what we speak, by how we act toward others, and by the way we conduct our daily lives. Our words, our actions, our standards, and ethics -- all are to show forth our faith. And if we do not do that, as God's servants and disciples, God holds us responsible.

That seems like a fearful calling. But the comforting part is that God not only commands us to pass on the Christian faith. He also pours into our hearts his Holy Spirit, giving us the strength, the guidance, the wisdom, to be his witnesses in our daily lives and in our world. We too are "watchmen and watchwomen" for the Lord, good Christians. And we are called to be faithful at our posts.