Eucharistic meditation

Exodus 12:42: “It is a night to be guarded for Yahweh for having brought them out of the land of Egypt; this night is for Yahweh, to be guarded by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations.

Exodus 12 cannot remind us often enough that the Passover took place at night. Eat the flesh the same night; Yahweh goes through Egypt on that night; Pharaoh arises in the night, and calls Moses in the night, and when it’s all over, Yahweh has made it a night to remember, a night to be commemorated at night throughout the generations of Israel’s history.

Six times in this chapter we’re told that it was night, and over the next two chapters, we find the word six more times – the night goes on and on and on until Israel crosses the sea and day breaks. Between chapters 12 and 14, the word “night” appears twelve times. Draw what conclusions you will!

We think that light begins, and that darkness comes in the end. We record our days from sunrise to sunset, and we record our lives from the bright vitality of youth to the gloom of old age. In Scripture, it’s the opposite. Evening leads to morning, darkness to light. Darkness is always at the beginning. Light is eschatological. What we look forward to is not the Night of God. What’s coming is the Day of the Lord.

And that illuminates (pardon!) what is happening here today at this table. We call this a Christian Passover, but here we are gathered around this table in mid-morning, in the light. That can only mean that this meal is the meal of the last day; that can only mean that the feast of the Day of the Lord has already come on the Lord’s Day.

You share in the daylight feast. Therefore, walk as in the day. Walk in the light. You are Light in the Lord, so walk as children of light. If we walk in Light as He is in Light, we have fellowship with one another and cannot hate our brothers. And in whatever darkness you find yourself, wait in hope not for deepening darkness but for the breaking day, wait in hope for the Feast of Light that has already begun.