Reserved Seating
Reserved Seating
Exodus 12:9, 11a & 15
“Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and inner parts. … In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. … Seven days you shall at unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”
It should come as no surprise to us that the very Engineer Who programmed the human brain with all its range of functions, that the Architect Who fashioned a solar system complete with orbital motions, gravitational pulls, and precise planetary alignments, that the Designer Who thought up eagle wings for flying and dolphin flippers for swimming and bear paws for climbing and horse hooves for running is as precise and meticulous in His lawgiving as He is in everything else. That’s just Who He is. For Him, every little jot and tittle matters. He doesn’t just hold the infinite universe in His hand; He holds all the infinitesimal molecules and atoms too. And if I don’t rest my mind in that wondrous truth as I approach Scriptures like the one above, I can quickly develop a demeaning idea of God that He’s just a stickler for rules and regulations, that He doesn’t care whether we understand the symbols or see His goodness through them, but that we better just do them or else.
Friend, don’t forget that when Christ, the incarnate Lord, celebrates this very Passover meal thousands of years later, He does so with fishermen and tax collectors who haven’t exactly done a great job keeping the law, rather than with Scribes and Pharisees, who’ve made it their vocation to keep the law down to the letter. So today, obey the Lord out of love, not fear. Serve Him with joy, not with grumbling. Partake of the riches of His bounty afresh, and never forget that it was grace that brought you to the Lord’s Table and grace that holds your place.