Celebration

"For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink."

John 6:55

Exodus 10, Luke 22:1-23, John 13:18-28

Since 1973 ABC has broadcast the Cecil B. DeMille movie The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston every year around Easter.  Many years on Silent Saturday or Easter Sunday.  For the past ten years this sixty year old movie has been the first or second most viewed program for the evening.  This T.V. ritual began before I was born.  I grew up watching Charlton Heston as Moses annually, and much of what I think of regarding the Passover is tied to this movie.  I do love this movie, but I think that this view has sanitized my understanding of gruesome aspects of this celebration.

Central to the celebration of the Passover is the blood of the sacrificial lamb.  The Israelites in Egypt needed the blood to cover their door posts.  To do this, the person performing the sacrifice had to hold the lamb close and cut the it’s throat.  While holding the dying animal close to their chest, the sacrificer would hold a bowl to capture the blood.  The rest of the preparation of the lamb was regular roasting preparation, but the blood was paramount.

I had been a hunter until the last few years, and I butchered my own kills.  There is a distinct odor

to blood that nothing else mimics, nor covers.  Blood smells like blood.  During the Passover Seder that Jesus was eating with his disciples, Jerusalem was permeated with the smell of blood.  Thousands of lambs were sacrificed that day.  The blood from the sacrifices was sprinkled on the altar and poured out at the base of the base.  Passover was a celebration in blood.  The Last Supper was also a celebration in blood, with the One whose blood brings completion.  "In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness."(Hebrews 9:22)

--Zine Smith