December 10 – Icon: Doorway, Story of sorrow and remembering.

I’d to step over this story. The plagues in Egypt that display the contest between Yahweh and Pharaoh are meant to prove to the Israelites that Yahweh would be their champion. But the arrogance of Pharaoh cost his nation precious lives. The final plague, Exodus 12:29-32, is the death of all the first born, children and animals. The effect is unanimous – get these people out of here. The Egyptians practically chase them into the desert to the heart wrenching cries of catastrophic loss.

Not many paragraphs later, the writer of Exodus lays out the remembrance ceremony of the Passover. Here they are to remember not just the freedom, but the cost of that freedom. Ever afterward, they were to consecrate their firstborn sons. The word used is ‘redeem’ — something must be given in sacrifice, to honour the losses and value the living. It isn’t a huge stretch to see that God was willing to follow this instruction as well. His firstborn, Jesus, was sacrifice and also redemption, for our freedom.