The Jesse Tree:Passover and Exodus: Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

THE JESSE TREE:

What does Tuesday of the Second week of Advent entail for our Jesse Tree:

PASSOVER AND EXODUS 

SCRIPTURE:

Chapter 12 of Exodus is the story of Israel's pasch.

Two feasts originally distinct were continued into a single celebration. In Israel a pastoral feast where it was the custom to offer a lamb: for the renewal of the flock, and an agricultural feast of which unleavened bread was eaten. In what took place at the exodus, this single feast took on a still deeper significance.

 In the springtime feast Israel celebrated in a spiritual of thanksgiving the deliverance from slavery and its freedom as God's people.  Nor was it just a remembrance of past events without any importance for their present life.  It was a memorial which enabled them to relive in a certain  way the deliverance of bygone days, it procured for all the generations of Israel Yahweh's salvation of which the deliverance from Egypt was the prototype.  And at the same time the pasch contained the promise of a complete arid definitive deliverance at the end of time ( the messianic time).  The situation of Israel and its deliverance from slavery resembles the situation of sinful humanity and our redemption by Christ, 

The New Testament presents Christ, as a new Moses, but greater than he.  The deliverance of Israel was indeed only a figure of Christ savng, work, and all the wonders, that God did under the old covenant of behalf of his people were only feeble foreshadowing of what he will do for his church. Israel was saved by the blood of the pascal lamb, the blood of Christ saved the new Israel.  Christ the true paschal Lamb who was immolated for us and who took away the sins of the world.  By dying he destroyed our death and by rising again he gave us back life.  The paschal meal is the prefiguring of the Eucharistic celebration, when we eat the body of Christ which was broken for us and when we drink the blood of the new and everlasting Covenant. 

Chapter 13: The night of the deliverance.

When the tribes of Israel were celebrating the pasch, Yahweh passed over by striking down the first-born of the Egyptians and sparing the children of his people.

Chapter 14: The crossing of the Red Sea. 

The crossing of the Red Seas remains in Israel's traditions as the most wondrous manifestation of their God and Saviour.  To acknowledge the part which epic plays in this incident is by no means to weaken the religious meaning.  The Red Sea ends in marshes across which fords are from time to time accessible.  The pursuers must have been caught by a tidal flow of this water and the chariots remained stuck in the mud.  In this incident the tribes of Israel saw a direct intervention of Yahweh.  This night of deliverance and the crossing of the Red Sea became the foundation of Israel’s faith and it hopes of definitive salvation.  The Fathers of the Church and the liturgy see in it a symbol of baptism and the passage is read each year during the Easter Vigil.

THE PERSON: THE ISRAELITES.

The Israelites were God's chosen people.   However, as Scripture shows they were a headstrong people at times, choosing their own way and complaining when things did not turn out as they wanted.  However, God is faithful always and provided their day of deliverance which the Israelites finally recognised.

THE EVENT/THEME: GOD'S LEADERSHIP: During our reflection time today, let us ponder on the Passover and the exodus as described in the above-mentioned scripture passages and our own deliverance
We may wish to

We may wish to

1.            Offer a prayer of gratitude for our faithful God who is close to us and desires our deliverance from sin.

2.            Rediscover the role of God's leadership in our lives.

3.            Make a practical commitment: As today's theme is God's leadership , we may wish to:

o        Reinstate God as the leader in our lives- examine the areas of our life where we still cling to our own power/will and refuse to allow God to enter. Name one area and ask God to take over leadership during this coming week of Advent and Advent Season.

o        Experience God's deliverance and leadership in the Sacrament of Reconciliation this Advent.

SYMBOL 10: THE LAMB

Let us recall the image of Christ, our protector as the Lord Our shepherd. This image is constant throughout scripture especially psalm 23. Let us call the link between victory for us through the blood of Christ - the Lamb of God. as we prepare our tenth symbol (ninth cut out symbol) and place it on the tree.