The Lamb Of God
Commentary
George MacDonald helps us understand the heart-tug of grace in his children’s tale known as “Papa’s Story.” The children beg their father, one cold winter’s night, to weave again around them the spell of storytelling as they sit by the fire.
Papa agrees, and tells of a shepherd who brings his flock home late on a stormy night. One lamb is missing, however. So, after supper the shepherd calls for Jumper the dog, and the two of them brace for the cold and wind and rain. Out in the hills they roam, calling for the wee lamb.
Young Nellie is snug in her bed at home, says Papa, but every moaning of the breeze echoes with her father’s distant voice, and every whining of the woods is a challenge from the darkness that he must fight. She is frightened, for him and for Jumper, and for the little lamb they seek.
But this is a good story, a story of courage and rescue, Papa tells the children. Suddenly Father is home, and Jumper too! They have found the little lamb, and have returned it to safety in the fold. The tests of the night have taken their toll on Father. How weary he looks, and how torn and cut and dirty and bleeding is Jumper!
When little Nellie returns to bed, her sleeping brings a dream. She imagines that she is Jumper, and that the little lamb is her lost brother Willie. You see, says Papa, a year earlier young Willie left home. He wanted to get away because he needed his own space, he told his parents. Willie couldn’t stand the discipline of his father, and had to find his own fortune. Now Willie lives in Edinburgh and never writes. Nellie and her parents know, though, from the scuttlebutt of traders and friends that Willie has become only a shadow of himself: cruel and greedy, filthy of body and mind, constantly drunk and lost in a mad world of sex.
In Nellie’s dream she is Jumper, searching through the storms of Edinburgh’s wilder haunts for the little lamb with Willie’s face. The dream swirls around her like a mist, calling her into its phantom darkness.
When she wakes the next morning Nellie knows what she must do. She acts on her dream and goes to Edinburgh to find her brother. Through hours of struggle and pain Nellie finally reaches him. He, of course, doesn’t want to see her. Surrounded by his jeering and taunting pals, he laughs at his sister’s foolish begging.
Nellie weeps at his harshness. Then she calls him by name: “Willie! Willie!” She tells him of his mother’s broken heart. She gives him a letter of love, written in his father’s hand. The scenes of home wash young Willie’s mind, and the disease of wantonness sickens him. Before long, says Papa, Willie is led back home by his little sister.
The children enjoy Papa’s nice story, as always. But there are two footnotes we need to know. First, the story Papa tells his children that night is actually the story of his own life. His name is Willie, and it was his own dear sister Nellie who one day years before came looking for him in the shadowed dens of Edinburgh.
Second, George MacDonald gives the tale a subtitle. He calls it “A Scot’s Christmas Story.” And so it is, for the story of the Bible is not first of all a bland tale of pious peace or a study in theological ethics. Rather, it is a rescue story, always told best in the first person. Jesus came from home looking through the streets and alleys of earth’s slums for me! For you!
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
Exodus begins with a monumental conflict. Israel, once a free and honored clan of nomadic shepherds regularly in contact with God, is now a multiplied mass of slaves, servile to the pharaoh of Egypt. The young life of Moses, destined for death in the Nile but rescued to become a prince in the palace, exemplifies the strange fate of these people, especially when Moses’ dual identities come in conflict and his life is threatened. The conflict intensifies in Exodus 5:1--6:12, when Moses makes his first dramatic reappearance back in Egypt. The pharaoh’s initial reaction is disdain; why should he listen to the apocalyptic ravings of a wilderness wild man, even if he seems unusually aware of Egyptian language and protocol?
At this point, the famous plagues enter the story. While these miracles of divine judgment make for a great Hollywood screenplay, the reason for this extended weird display of divine power is not always apparent to those of us who live in very different cultural contexts, especially when it is interspersed with notes that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, sometimes, in fact, seemingly as an act of Yahweh. Could not Yahweh have provided a less destructive -- and deadly -- exit strategy for Israel?
The plagues begin to make sense when viewed in reference to Egypt’s climate and culture. After the initial sparring between Moses and the pharaoh’s sorcerers (Exodus 7:10-13) with snakes to show magical skills, the stakes are raised far beyond human ability merely to manipulate the natural order. First, the waters are turned to blood; then the marshes send out a massive, unwelcome pilgrimage of frogs; next, the dust is beat into gnats, soon to be followed by even peskier flies; subsequently the livestock gets sick from the dust, and this illness then spreads to human life in the form of boils and open sores; penultimately, the heavens send down mortar shells of hail, transport in a foreign army of locusts, and then withhold the light of the sun; finally, in an awful culmination, the firstborn humans and animals across Egypt die suddenly.
Strange. But not quite as much when seen in three successive groupings. Among the many deities worshiped in ancient Egypt, none superseded a triumvirate composed of the Nile, the good earth, and the heavens, which were the home of the sun. So it was that the initial plagues of bloody water and frogs both turned the Nile against the Egyptians, and showed the dominance of Yahweh over this critical source of national life.
The ante was then upped when Yahweh takes on the farmland of Egypt, one of the great breadbaskets of the world. Instead of producing crops, Moses shows, by way of plagues three through six, how Yahweh could cause these fertile alluvial plains to generate all manner of irritating and deadly pestilence, making it an enemy instead of a friend. Finally, in the third stage of plagues, the heavens themselves become menacing. Rather than providing the sheltering confidence of benign sameness, one day the heavens attack with the hailstone mortar fire of an unseen enemy. Next, these same heavens serve as the highway of an invading army of locusts. Then old friend Ra (the sun), the crowning deity of Egyptian religion, simply vanishes for three days. The gloom that terrified the Egyptians was no mere fear of darkness, but rather the ominous trepidation that their primary deity had been bested by the God of the Israelites.
All of this culminated in the final foray of this cosmic battle, when the link of life between generations and human connectedness with ultimate reality is severed through the killing of Egypt’s firstborn. The Egyptians believed that the firstborn carried the cultural significance of each family and species, so in a sudden and dramatic moment the very chain of life is destroyed. Furthermore, since the pharaohs themselves were presumed to be deity incarnate, descending directly from the sun by way of firstborn inheritance, cutting this link eviscerates the life-potency of the Egyptian civilization, not only for the present but also for the future. It is a true cultural, religious, political, and social knockout punch.
This explains why the plagues originally served not as gory illustration material for modern Sunday school papers, but rather as the divine initiatives in an escalating battle between Yahweh and the pharaoh of Egypt over claims on the people of Israel. The plagues were a necessary prologue to the Sinai covenant because they displayed and substantiated the sovereignty of Yahweh as suzerain not only over Israel, but also over other contenders. Israel belongs to Yahweh, both because of historic promises made to Abraham and also by way of chivalrous combat, in which Yahweh won back the prize of lover and human companion from the usurper who had stolen her away from the divine heart. Furthermore, Yahweh accomplishes this act without the help of Israel’s own resources (no armies, no resistance movements, no terrorist tactics, no great escape plans), and in a decisive manner that announces the limitations of the Egyptian religious and cultural resources.
This is why the final plague is paired with the institution of the Passover festival (Exodus 12, our reading for today). The annual festival would become an ongoing reminder that Israel was bought back by way of a blood-price redemption, and that the nation owed its very existence to the love and fighting jealousy of its divine champion. In one momentous confrontation, Egypt lost its firstborn and its cultural heritage, while Israel became Yahweh’s firstborn and rightful inheritance.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Probably sometime in late 51 or early 52 AD, a delegation of three men (Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus), all highly respectful of Paul’s apostolic authority, travel from Corinth to Ephesus, bringing to Paul an oral report about the difficulties going on in the church. They also carried with them a written list of questions that members of the congregation are raising.
Paul quickly wrote a letter of response. Although it is actually his second letter to the Corinthian congregation, because the earlier communication has been lost this one survives as 1 Corinthians in our New Testaments. Paul’s answer to the Corinthian congregation’s questions about worship practices (11:2-33) contains a reflection on two social value systems. First, with regard to differing roles for women and men in society, Paul wants to ensure that the genders are not blurred. There is a creational distinction between females and males, according to Paul, and this must not be erased, even by the freedoms found in Christ. At the same time, this gender distinction ought not to undermine the broad equality by which the gifts of the Spirit are distributed. Both women and men can and should prophesy. Spiritual leadership in the church is not limited by gender.
Second, in a review of the church’s celebration of “the Lord’s supper,” as it was becoming known, another facet of social interaction was addressed. The “differences” within the congregation were not only of the kind where parties became loyal to different leaders (1 Corinthians 1-3), but were also the manifestation of divergent socioeconomic groupings present in Corinthian society. The reason why some who attended these Lord’s supper gatherings “go ahead without waiting for anybody else” and others “remain hungry” was due to the divergent lifestyle practices of the rich and the poor among them. Wealthy people were able to come and go as they pleased, including showing up to worship services, potluck dinners, and Lord’s supper celebrations right at the start. The poor and the slaves, however (some likely coming from the same households), were often late to arrive because they had to fulfill their domestic work obligations first. Paul declared that “recognizing the body of the Lord” was necessary if the Lord’s supper was to be celebrated properly. This did not mean having the capacity to understand an appropriate theological theory of the atonement, or some other such cognitive ability. Instead, it amounted to remembering that all who belong to Jesus are welcome at his table, and none have more rights than others. If this socially and economically diverse group of society was indeed the body of Christ, each must live and act accordingly, making room at the table for all.
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The great transition in John’s portrait of Jesus happens between chapters 12 and 13. The first half of the gospel has rightly been called the “Book of Signs,” since it focuses on seven specific miracles through which the divine identity of Jesus is increasingly revealed. As the last of these miracles (the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11) is noised about, John tells us that “Greeks” came seeking an audience with Jesus (12:21). “Greeks” is a code-term John uses for “the world,” the larger designation of all peoples on earth, both Gentile and Jews (see, in this light, John 3:16-17).
When the “Greeks” come, Jesus knows that the “signs” have accomplished their goal and the world is looking for its Savior. At this point, Jesus declares that his “Hour” has come, the time of the full revelation of his glory which will take place through his Passion. So the scenes shift, and John 13-20 becomes the “Book of Glory.”
Here in John 13 we are told that Jesus knows that his “hour” has come, and so gathers his disciples for a final meal. Following Mark’s lead, the synoptic gospels clearly identify the final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples as a Passover celebration. Yet strangely, for all the other symbolism in the fourth gospel, John clearly steers away from that connection in chapter 13. Why?
The answer appears to have several parts to it. First, John deliberately times the events of Jesus’ final week so that Jesus is tried and sentenced to death on Friday morning (at the same time as the unblemished Passover lambs were being selected), and crucified during the precise hours when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple courtyard. In this way, John accomplishes a purpose that he indicated at the beginning of his gospel, to portray Jesus as the “Lamb of God” (1:36). Thus, it is important for John not to identify the Last Supper as the Passover, since Jesus must die with the lambs who were being slaughtered prior to that meal.
Second, this does not immediately mean that either John or the synoptics are telling the story wrong. Instead, there were actually several different calendars functioning among the Jews of the day, marking the celebration of the Passover with slight variations. These came into being due either to the chronological ordering of each new day (Roman: sunrise to sunrise; Jewish: sundown to sundown), or the perceived occasion of the new moon that began the month (adjusted differently by Babylonian and Palestinian rabbis).
Thus Jesus and his disciples probably ate a Passover meal together, as the synoptics identify it, but one which was tied to a different calendar than that used by the bulk of the Jerusalem population. In this way John could leverage the different schedule to communicate a particular emphasis in his portrayal of Jesus’ symbolic identity. Throughout the changes of the gospel, this understanding of Jesus girds everything. Behold the Lamb (not John’s opening reference to Jesus in this manner in 1:36)!
This is why the footwashings take place. The dust of the old expressions of God’s activity with these folks was being washed away so that they might travel with Jesus into the new age. And the badge that would mark them would no longer be circumcision, but rather a visible expression of love (vv. 31b-35).
Application
Walter Wangerin Jr. wrote a powerful allegory of Jesus as the “Ragman.” Wangerin pictures himself in a city on a Friday morning. A handsome young man comes to town, dragging behind him a cart made of wood. The cart is piled high with new, clean clothes, bright and shiny and freshly pressed.
Wandering through the streets the trader marches, crying out his strange deal: “Rags! New rags for old! Give me your old rags, your tired rags, your torn and soiled rags!”
He sees a woman on the back porch of a house. She is old and tired and weary of living. She has a dirty handkerchief pressed to her nose, and she is crying a thousand tears, sobbing over the pains of her life.
The Ragman takes a clean linen handkerchief from his wagon and brings it to the woman. He lays it across her arm. She blinks at him, wondering what he is up to. Gently the young man opens her fingers and releases the old, dirty, soaking handkerchief from her knotted fist.
Then comes the wonder. The Ragman touches the old rag to his own eyes and begins to weep her tears. Meanwhile, behind him on her porch stands the old woman, tears gone, eyes full of peace.
It happens again. “New rags for old!” he cries, and he comes to a young girl wearing a bloody bandage on her head. He takes the caked and soiled wrap away and gives her a new bonnet from his cart. Then he wraps the old rags around his head. As he does this, the girl’s cuts disappear and her skin turns rosy. She dances away with laughter and returns to her friends to play. But the Ragman begins to moan, and from her rags on his head the blood spills down.
He next meets a man. “Do you have a job?” the Ragman asks. With a sneer the man replies “Are you kidding?” and holds up his shirtsleeve. There is no arm in it. He cannot work. He is disabled.
But the Ragman says, “Give me your shirt. I’ll give you mine.”
The man’s shirt hangs limp as he takes it off, but the Ragman’s shirt hangs firm and full because one of the Ragman’s arms is still in the sleeve. It goes with the shirt. When the man puts it on, he has a new arm. But the Ragman walks away with one sleeve dangling.
It happens over and over again. The Ragman takes the clothes from the tired, the hurting, the lost, and the lonely. He gathers them to his own body, and takes the pains into his own heart. Then he gives new clothes to new lives with new purpose and new joy.
Finally, around midday the Ragman finds himself at the center of the city, where nothing remains but a stinking garbage heap. It is the accumulated refuse of a society lost to anxiety and torture. On Friday afternoon the Ragman climbs the hill, stumbling as he drags his cart behind him. He is tired and sore and pained and bleeding. He falls on the wooden beams of the cart, alone and dying from the disease and disaster he has garnered from others.
Wangerin wonders at the sight. In exhaustion and uncertainty he falls asleep. He lies dreaming nightmares through all of Saturday, until he is shaken from his fitful slumbers early on Sunday morning. The ground quakes. Wangerin looks up. In surprise he sees the Ragman stand up. He is alive! The sores are gone, though the scars remain. But the Ragman’s clothes are new and clean. Death has been swallowed up and transformed by Life!
Still worn and troubled in his spirit, Wangerin cries up to the Ragman, “Dress me, Ragman! Give me your clothes to wear! Make me new!”
We know the picture. It is the one that Jesus described to the disciples that day on the road. It is an allegory of the pilgrimage he is on, the journey that is always personal, the path that cannot be watched from a distance. Jesus is the Ragman who has to touch lives, who must heal wounds, who is bound by necessity to bring relief. This is the pilgrimage of the Ragman to the center of the city, to the garbage heap of society, to the hill called Golgotha -- the Skull! The Place of Death! The Mountain of the Crucifixion! There he must go. Personally.
But so too those who are with him. Religion is no spectator sport. Harry Emerson Fosdick remembered a storm off the Atlantic coast. A ship foundered on the rocks and the Coast Guard was called out. The captain ordered the lifeboat to be launched, but one of the crew members protested. “Sir,” he said in fear, “the wind is offshore and the tide is running out! We can launch the boat, but we’ll never get back!”
The captain looked at him with a father’s eyes, and then said, “Launch the boat, men. We have to go out. That is our duty. But we don’t have to come back.”
So it is, in one of the strangest things about life that Jesus tells us here. The one who wants to protect himself, the one who wants to hide herself, the one who wishes to guard himself carefully, will never find the meaning of life. “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Alternative Application
1 Corinthians 11:23-26.Fred Craddock once flew to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to speak at a church conference. Unfortunately his arrival coincided with the worst snowstorm of the decade. When no one picked him up at the airport, Fred found a taxi willing to brave the whiteouts and drifts in the drive required to get him to his motel. There a message awaited him; he was to call the man who booked him for the conference.
“I’m sorry, Fred,” said the man. “We didn’t count on this blizzard. We’ve had to cancel the conference. In fact, we’re so snowed in here at the church that we can’t even get out there to the motel to pick you up for a meal. You’re on your own.”
The motel was not all that great. It didn’t even have a restaurant. When Fred called the office to find directions to some food place nearby, a woman suggested the coffee shop at the bus depot. It was about a block and a half away. Battling gale force winds and stinging snow, it still took Fred 20 minutes to stumble over there.
The bus depot was dirty. The coffee shop was worse. Even so, an overflow crowd had taken refuge inside its steamy windows. Everyone seemed to know the plight of those who newly entered, for when Fred saw no seats open kind strangers at a booth shoved over to make space. Soon he was eating a tasteless gray soup.
The door opened again. This time a woman struggled to find her way into the throng. Her lingered entry brought out the man with the greasy apron. “Hey!” he yelled. “Close that door! You’re letting all the cold air in here!”
Like Fred, the woman had to find sanctuary at a table of strangers. When the man with the greasy apron walked over and asked what she wanted, she asked for a glass of water. He returned and asked again, “What do you want?”
“The water will be fine,” she said.
“No,” replied the man. “What do you want to order from the menu?”
“I’m really not hungry,” she answered. “I’ll just stick with the water.”
“Look, lady!” came the response. “We’ve got paying customers waiting! If you’re not going to order anything, you’ll have to get out!”
“Can’t I just stay a few minutes and get warmed up?” she asked.
“No way!” he said. “If you don’t want to order, you’ll have to leave!”
So the woman gathered herself and stood to make an exit. Of course, these two had gotten the attention of everyone in the room. As the woman rose, everyone noticed the men on either side of her pushing back their chairs and standing as well. And the men next to them. In a flash, everyone at that table stood and turned to leave, plates still bulging with food. Something like an electric current buzzed through the room, and all at once everyone else got up and moved toward the door.
The man with the greasy apron was startled. “All right! All right!” he said, motioning everyone to sit again. “She can stay!” He even brought her a bowl of soup.
As Fred turned back to his own bowl of broth he found that it tasted better than he remembered. In fact, it reminded him of something, but he could not quite recall what. He turned to the stranger next to him and asked, “Do you know her?”
“No,” said the man. “Never saw her before. But if she can’t sit here to get warm, I wouldn’t want to stay in a place like this.”
As Fred paused to leave a short while later, it finally dawned on him that what he had been thinking about when the soup gained its taste was the last time he shared the sacrament of communion. Maybe these mixed strangers in search of shelter were only a pack of isolated bodies. But for a moment the spirit of Jesus warmed the air in the room and they breathed in something of the community and communion that Paul urged.
Papa agrees, and tells of a shepherd who brings his flock home late on a stormy night. One lamb is missing, however. So, after supper the shepherd calls for Jumper the dog, and the two of them brace for the cold and wind and rain. Out in the hills they roam, calling for the wee lamb.
Young Nellie is snug in her bed at home, says Papa, but every moaning of the breeze echoes with her father’s distant voice, and every whining of the woods is a challenge from the darkness that he must fight. She is frightened, for him and for Jumper, and for the little lamb they seek.
But this is a good story, a story of courage and rescue, Papa tells the children. Suddenly Father is home, and Jumper too! They have found the little lamb, and have returned it to safety in the fold. The tests of the night have taken their toll on Father. How weary he looks, and how torn and cut and dirty and bleeding is Jumper!
When little Nellie returns to bed, her sleeping brings a dream. She imagines that she is Jumper, and that the little lamb is her lost brother Willie. You see, says Papa, a year earlier young Willie left home. He wanted to get away because he needed his own space, he told his parents. Willie couldn’t stand the discipline of his father, and had to find his own fortune. Now Willie lives in Edinburgh and never writes. Nellie and her parents know, though, from the scuttlebutt of traders and friends that Willie has become only a shadow of himself: cruel and greedy, filthy of body and mind, constantly drunk and lost in a mad world of sex.
In Nellie’s dream she is Jumper, searching through the storms of Edinburgh’s wilder haunts for the little lamb with Willie’s face. The dream swirls around her like a mist, calling her into its phantom darkness.
When she wakes the next morning Nellie knows what she must do. She acts on her dream and goes to Edinburgh to find her brother. Through hours of struggle and pain Nellie finally reaches him. He, of course, doesn’t want to see her. Surrounded by his jeering and taunting pals, he laughs at his sister’s foolish begging.
Nellie weeps at his harshness. Then she calls him by name: “Willie! Willie!” She tells him of his mother’s broken heart. She gives him a letter of love, written in his father’s hand. The scenes of home wash young Willie’s mind, and the disease of wantonness sickens him. Before long, says Papa, Willie is led back home by his little sister.
The children enjoy Papa’s nice story, as always. But there are two footnotes we need to know. First, the story Papa tells his children that night is actually the story of his own life. His name is Willie, and it was his own dear sister Nellie who one day years before came looking for him in the shadowed dens of Edinburgh.
Second, George MacDonald gives the tale a subtitle. He calls it “A Scot’s Christmas Story.” And so it is, for the story of the Bible is not first of all a bland tale of pious peace or a study in theological ethics. Rather, it is a rescue story, always told best in the first person. Jesus came from home looking through the streets and alleys of earth’s slums for me! For you!
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
Exodus begins with a monumental conflict. Israel, once a free and honored clan of nomadic shepherds regularly in contact with God, is now a multiplied mass of slaves, servile to the pharaoh of Egypt. The young life of Moses, destined for death in the Nile but rescued to become a prince in the palace, exemplifies the strange fate of these people, especially when Moses’ dual identities come in conflict and his life is threatened. The conflict intensifies in Exodus 5:1--6:12, when Moses makes his first dramatic reappearance back in Egypt. The pharaoh’s initial reaction is disdain; why should he listen to the apocalyptic ravings of a wilderness wild man, even if he seems unusually aware of Egyptian language and protocol?
At this point, the famous plagues enter the story. While these miracles of divine judgment make for a great Hollywood screenplay, the reason for this extended weird display of divine power is not always apparent to those of us who live in very different cultural contexts, especially when it is interspersed with notes that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, sometimes, in fact, seemingly as an act of Yahweh. Could not Yahweh have provided a less destructive -- and deadly -- exit strategy for Israel?
The plagues begin to make sense when viewed in reference to Egypt’s climate and culture. After the initial sparring between Moses and the pharaoh’s sorcerers (Exodus 7:10-13) with snakes to show magical skills, the stakes are raised far beyond human ability merely to manipulate the natural order. First, the waters are turned to blood; then the marshes send out a massive, unwelcome pilgrimage of frogs; next, the dust is beat into gnats, soon to be followed by even peskier flies; subsequently the livestock gets sick from the dust, and this illness then spreads to human life in the form of boils and open sores; penultimately, the heavens send down mortar shells of hail, transport in a foreign army of locusts, and then withhold the light of the sun; finally, in an awful culmination, the firstborn humans and animals across Egypt die suddenly.
Strange. But not quite as much when seen in three successive groupings. Among the many deities worshiped in ancient Egypt, none superseded a triumvirate composed of the Nile, the good earth, and the heavens, which were the home of the sun. So it was that the initial plagues of bloody water and frogs both turned the Nile against the Egyptians, and showed the dominance of Yahweh over this critical source of national life.
The ante was then upped when Yahweh takes on the farmland of Egypt, one of the great breadbaskets of the world. Instead of producing crops, Moses shows, by way of plagues three through six, how Yahweh could cause these fertile alluvial plains to generate all manner of irritating and deadly pestilence, making it an enemy instead of a friend. Finally, in the third stage of plagues, the heavens themselves become menacing. Rather than providing the sheltering confidence of benign sameness, one day the heavens attack with the hailstone mortar fire of an unseen enemy. Next, these same heavens serve as the highway of an invading army of locusts. Then old friend Ra (the sun), the crowning deity of Egyptian religion, simply vanishes for three days. The gloom that terrified the Egyptians was no mere fear of darkness, but rather the ominous trepidation that their primary deity had been bested by the God of the Israelites.
All of this culminated in the final foray of this cosmic battle, when the link of life between generations and human connectedness with ultimate reality is severed through the killing of Egypt’s firstborn. The Egyptians believed that the firstborn carried the cultural significance of each family and species, so in a sudden and dramatic moment the very chain of life is destroyed. Furthermore, since the pharaohs themselves were presumed to be deity incarnate, descending directly from the sun by way of firstborn inheritance, cutting this link eviscerates the life-potency of the Egyptian civilization, not only for the present but also for the future. It is a true cultural, religious, political, and social knockout punch.
This explains why the plagues originally served not as gory illustration material for modern Sunday school papers, but rather as the divine initiatives in an escalating battle between Yahweh and the pharaoh of Egypt over claims on the people of Israel. The plagues were a necessary prologue to the Sinai covenant because they displayed and substantiated the sovereignty of Yahweh as suzerain not only over Israel, but also over other contenders. Israel belongs to Yahweh, both because of historic promises made to Abraham and also by way of chivalrous combat, in which Yahweh won back the prize of lover and human companion from the usurper who had stolen her away from the divine heart. Furthermore, Yahweh accomplishes this act without the help of Israel’s own resources (no armies, no resistance movements, no terrorist tactics, no great escape plans), and in a decisive manner that announces the limitations of the Egyptian religious and cultural resources.
This is why the final plague is paired with the institution of the Passover festival (Exodus 12, our reading for today). The annual festival would become an ongoing reminder that Israel was bought back by way of a blood-price redemption, and that the nation owed its very existence to the love and fighting jealousy of its divine champion. In one momentous confrontation, Egypt lost its firstborn and its cultural heritage, while Israel became Yahweh’s firstborn and rightful inheritance.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Probably sometime in late 51 or early 52 AD, a delegation of three men (Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus), all highly respectful of Paul’s apostolic authority, travel from Corinth to Ephesus, bringing to Paul an oral report about the difficulties going on in the church. They also carried with them a written list of questions that members of the congregation are raising.
Paul quickly wrote a letter of response. Although it is actually his second letter to the Corinthian congregation, because the earlier communication has been lost this one survives as 1 Corinthians in our New Testaments. Paul’s answer to the Corinthian congregation’s questions about worship practices (11:2-33) contains a reflection on two social value systems. First, with regard to differing roles for women and men in society, Paul wants to ensure that the genders are not blurred. There is a creational distinction between females and males, according to Paul, and this must not be erased, even by the freedoms found in Christ. At the same time, this gender distinction ought not to undermine the broad equality by which the gifts of the Spirit are distributed. Both women and men can and should prophesy. Spiritual leadership in the church is not limited by gender.
Second, in a review of the church’s celebration of “the Lord’s supper,” as it was becoming known, another facet of social interaction was addressed. The “differences” within the congregation were not only of the kind where parties became loyal to different leaders (1 Corinthians 1-3), but were also the manifestation of divergent socioeconomic groupings present in Corinthian society. The reason why some who attended these Lord’s supper gatherings “go ahead without waiting for anybody else” and others “remain hungry” was due to the divergent lifestyle practices of the rich and the poor among them. Wealthy people were able to come and go as they pleased, including showing up to worship services, potluck dinners, and Lord’s supper celebrations right at the start. The poor and the slaves, however (some likely coming from the same households), were often late to arrive because they had to fulfill their domestic work obligations first. Paul declared that “recognizing the body of the Lord” was necessary if the Lord’s supper was to be celebrated properly. This did not mean having the capacity to understand an appropriate theological theory of the atonement, or some other such cognitive ability. Instead, it amounted to remembering that all who belong to Jesus are welcome at his table, and none have more rights than others. If this socially and economically diverse group of society was indeed the body of Christ, each must live and act accordingly, making room at the table for all.
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The great transition in John’s portrait of Jesus happens between chapters 12 and 13. The first half of the gospel has rightly been called the “Book of Signs,” since it focuses on seven specific miracles through which the divine identity of Jesus is increasingly revealed. As the last of these miracles (the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11) is noised about, John tells us that “Greeks” came seeking an audience with Jesus (12:21). “Greeks” is a code-term John uses for “the world,” the larger designation of all peoples on earth, both Gentile and Jews (see, in this light, John 3:16-17).
When the “Greeks” come, Jesus knows that the “signs” have accomplished their goal and the world is looking for its Savior. At this point, Jesus declares that his “Hour” has come, the time of the full revelation of his glory which will take place through his Passion. So the scenes shift, and John 13-20 becomes the “Book of Glory.”
Here in John 13 we are told that Jesus knows that his “hour” has come, and so gathers his disciples for a final meal. Following Mark’s lead, the synoptic gospels clearly identify the final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples as a Passover celebration. Yet strangely, for all the other symbolism in the fourth gospel, John clearly steers away from that connection in chapter 13. Why?
The answer appears to have several parts to it. First, John deliberately times the events of Jesus’ final week so that Jesus is tried and sentenced to death on Friday morning (at the same time as the unblemished Passover lambs were being selected), and crucified during the precise hours when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple courtyard. In this way, John accomplishes a purpose that he indicated at the beginning of his gospel, to portray Jesus as the “Lamb of God” (1:36). Thus, it is important for John not to identify the Last Supper as the Passover, since Jesus must die with the lambs who were being slaughtered prior to that meal.
Second, this does not immediately mean that either John or the synoptics are telling the story wrong. Instead, there were actually several different calendars functioning among the Jews of the day, marking the celebration of the Passover with slight variations. These came into being due either to the chronological ordering of each new day (Roman: sunrise to sunrise; Jewish: sundown to sundown), or the perceived occasion of the new moon that began the month (adjusted differently by Babylonian and Palestinian rabbis).
Thus Jesus and his disciples probably ate a Passover meal together, as the synoptics identify it, but one which was tied to a different calendar than that used by the bulk of the Jerusalem population. In this way John could leverage the different schedule to communicate a particular emphasis in his portrayal of Jesus’ symbolic identity. Throughout the changes of the gospel, this understanding of Jesus girds everything. Behold the Lamb (not John’s opening reference to Jesus in this manner in 1:36)!
This is why the footwashings take place. The dust of the old expressions of God’s activity with these folks was being washed away so that they might travel with Jesus into the new age. And the badge that would mark them would no longer be circumcision, but rather a visible expression of love (vv. 31b-35).
Application
Walter Wangerin Jr. wrote a powerful allegory of Jesus as the “Ragman.” Wangerin pictures himself in a city on a Friday morning. A handsome young man comes to town, dragging behind him a cart made of wood. The cart is piled high with new, clean clothes, bright and shiny and freshly pressed.
Wandering through the streets the trader marches, crying out his strange deal: “Rags! New rags for old! Give me your old rags, your tired rags, your torn and soiled rags!”
He sees a woman on the back porch of a house. She is old and tired and weary of living. She has a dirty handkerchief pressed to her nose, and she is crying a thousand tears, sobbing over the pains of her life.
The Ragman takes a clean linen handkerchief from his wagon and brings it to the woman. He lays it across her arm. She blinks at him, wondering what he is up to. Gently the young man opens her fingers and releases the old, dirty, soaking handkerchief from her knotted fist.
Then comes the wonder. The Ragman touches the old rag to his own eyes and begins to weep her tears. Meanwhile, behind him on her porch stands the old woman, tears gone, eyes full of peace.
It happens again. “New rags for old!” he cries, and he comes to a young girl wearing a bloody bandage on her head. He takes the caked and soiled wrap away and gives her a new bonnet from his cart. Then he wraps the old rags around his head. As he does this, the girl’s cuts disappear and her skin turns rosy. She dances away with laughter and returns to her friends to play. But the Ragman begins to moan, and from her rags on his head the blood spills down.
He next meets a man. “Do you have a job?” the Ragman asks. With a sneer the man replies “Are you kidding?” and holds up his shirtsleeve. There is no arm in it. He cannot work. He is disabled.
But the Ragman says, “Give me your shirt. I’ll give you mine.”
The man’s shirt hangs limp as he takes it off, but the Ragman’s shirt hangs firm and full because one of the Ragman’s arms is still in the sleeve. It goes with the shirt. When the man puts it on, he has a new arm. But the Ragman walks away with one sleeve dangling.
It happens over and over again. The Ragman takes the clothes from the tired, the hurting, the lost, and the lonely. He gathers them to his own body, and takes the pains into his own heart. Then he gives new clothes to new lives with new purpose and new joy.
Finally, around midday the Ragman finds himself at the center of the city, where nothing remains but a stinking garbage heap. It is the accumulated refuse of a society lost to anxiety and torture. On Friday afternoon the Ragman climbs the hill, stumbling as he drags his cart behind him. He is tired and sore and pained and bleeding. He falls on the wooden beams of the cart, alone and dying from the disease and disaster he has garnered from others.
Wangerin wonders at the sight. In exhaustion and uncertainty he falls asleep. He lies dreaming nightmares through all of Saturday, until he is shaken from his fitful slumbers early on Sunday morning. The ground quakes. Wangerin looks up. In surprise he sees the Ragman stand up. He is alive! The sores are gone, though the scars remain. But the Ragman’s clothes are new and clean. Death has been swallowed up and transformed by Life!
Still worn and troubled in his spirit, Wangerin cries up to the Ragman, “Dress me, Ragman! Give me your clothes to wear! Make me new!”
We know the picture. It is the one that Jesus described to the disciples that day on the road. It is an allegory of the pilgrimage he is on, the journey that is always personal, the path that cannot be watched from a distance. Jesus is the Ragman who has to touch lives, who must heal wounds, who is bound by necessity to bring relief. This is the pilgrimage of the Ragman to the center of the city, to the garbage heap of society, to the hill called Golgotha -- the Skull! The Place of Death! The Mountain of the Crucifixion! There he must go. Personally.
But so too those who are with him. Religion is no spectator sport. Harry Emerson Fosdick remembered a storm off the Atlantic coast. A ship foundered on the rocks and the Coast Guard was called out. The captain ordered the lifeboat to be launched, but one of the crew members protested. “Sir,” he said in fear, “the wind is offshore and the tide is running out! We can launch the boat, but we’ll never get back!”
The captain looked at him with a father’s eyes, and then said, “Launch the boat, men. We have to go out. That is our duty. But we don’t have to come back.”
So it is, in one of the strangest things about life that Jesus tells us here. The one who wants to protect himself, the one who wants to hide herself, the one who wishes to guard himself carefully, will never find the meaning of life. “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Alternative Application
1 Corinthians 11:23-26.Fred Craddock once flew to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to speak at a church conference. Unfortunately his arrival coincided with the worst snowstorm of the decade. When no one picked him up at the airport, Fred found a taxi willing to brave the whiteouts and drifts in the drive required to get him to his motel. There a message awaited him; he was to call the man who booked him for the conference.
“I’m sorry, Fred,” said the man. “We didn’t count on this blizzard. We’ve had to cancel the conference. In fact, we’re so snowed in here at the church that we can’t even get out there to the motel to pick you up for a meal. You’re on your own.”
The motel was not all that great. It didn’t even have a restaurant. When Fred called the office to find directions to some food place nearby, a woman suggested the coffee shop at the bus depot. It was about a block and a half away. Battling gale force winds and stinging snow, it still took Fred 20 minutes to stumble over there.
The bus depot was dirty. The coffee shop was worse. Even so, an overflow crowd had taken refuge inside its steamy windows. Everyone seemed to know the plight of those who newly entered, for when Fred saw no seats open kind strangers at a booth shoved over to make space. Soon he was eating a tasteless gray soup.
The door opened again. This time a woman struggled to find her way into the throng. Her lingered entry brought out the man with the greasy apron. “Hey!” he yelled. “Close that door! You’re letting all the cold air in here!”
Like Fred, the woman had to find sanctuary at a table of strangers. When the man with the greasy apron walked over and asked what she wanted, she asked for a glass of water. He returned and asked again, “What do you want?”
“The water will be fine,” she said.
“No,” replied the man. “What do you want to order from the menu?”
“I’m really not hungry,” she answered. “I’ll just stick with the water.”
“Look, lady!” came the response. “We’ve got paying customers waiting! If you’re not going to order anything, you’ll have to get out!”
“Can’t I just stay a few minutes and get warmed up?” she asked.
“No way!” he said. “If you don’t want to order, you’ll have to leave!”
So the woman gathered herself and stood to make an exit. Of course, these two had gotten the attention of everyone in the room. As the woman rose, everyone noticed the men on either side of her pushing back their chairs and standing as well. And the men next to them. In a flash, everyone at that table stood and turned to leave, plates still bulging with food. Something like an electric current buzzed through the room, and all at once everyone else got up and moved toward the door.
The man with the greasy apron was startled. “All right! All right!” he said, motioning everyone to sit again. “She can stay!” He even brought her a bowl of soup.
As Fred turned back to his own bowl of broth he found that it tasted better than he remembered. In fact, it reminded him of something, but he could not quite recall what. He turned to the stranger next to him and asked, “Do you know her?”
“No,” said the man. “Never saw her before. But if she can’t sit here to get warm, I wouldn’t want to stay in a place like this.”
As Fred paused to leave a short while later, it finally dawned on him that what he had been thinking about when the soup gained its taste was the last time he shared the sacrament of communion. Maybe these mixed strangers in search of shelter were only a pack of isolated bodies. But for a moment the spirit of Jesus warmed the air in the room and they breathed in something of the community and communion that Paul urged.
