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Sweet Release
“May the time of bondage be passing,I don’t know about most of you, but I am ready for spring! Real spring. Oh, crocuses are already blooming in front of my house, but it’s not enough, because it still doesn’t feel like spring. I’m waiting for green, the green that seems so unreal at first. And the smells which herald spring, the smell of new life and moving water. Birds are beginning to sing again, and that helps, and there’s baseball being played, somewhere. . . . Mostly, though, I’m waiting to be warm, to feel the sun warm, and the breezes gentle, against my face. As always, the poets say it best:
the wandering be over and gone,
May the dawning of truth appear on the earth,
the season of singing resume,
And may the voice of justice be heard in our land.”
--Cynthia Hirni
This ground so bare, so beaten by winterIt is no mistake that the great religious holidays of Passover and Easter are celebrated in the spring of the year, at least here in the Northern hemisphere. Both holidays are about liberation from bondage, whether by Egyptians or death, and what better metaphor than the liberation of nature from its perennial winter bondage? Archibald MacLeish captures this theme so beautifully in his poem, “The Sowing of the Dead Corn”:
Suddenly sends up delicate green,
Then blue, then yellow and red, then white:
Secrets it was saving for us,
Wealth we didn’t know we had.
Who could believe in weary March
That the dun slope, bitten meadow,
And here by the house, border and bed
Would ever again be what they could be:
Flame, flame, wonderful, wordless--
Oh, but their stillness, the standing plants,
Oh, but their coolness, the burning blossoms,
Oh, but the miracle from nowhere,
Light out of darkness, gold out of poverty,
Blessing beyond any thinkable dream.
[Mark Van Doren]
Why, it was wonderful! Why all at once there were leaves,Theodor H. Gaster, in his book Festivals of the Jewish Year, writes that,
Leaves at the end of a dry stick, small, alive
You can’t imagine. They came by the wood path
And the earth loosened, the earth relaxed, there were flowers,
Out of the earth! Think of it! And oak trees
Oozing new green at the tips of them and flowers
Squeezed out of clay, soft flowers, limp
Stalks flowering. Well, it was like a dream,
It happened so quickly, all of a sudden it happened--
The festival of Passover is known in Jewish tradition as the “Season of Our Freedom.” Its central theme is Release. On the seasonal plane, it marks the release of the earth from the grip of winter. On the historical plane, it commemorates the exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt. On the broad human plane, it celebrates the emergence from bondage and idolatry.Passover celebrates the greatest event in Jewish history, the Exodus from Egypt. Its name is taken from the Hebrew word pasah, which means “to skip,” and refers to God skipping or passing over the houses of the Israelites when he sees the sign of blood marking their doorway lintels, and sparing the plague of plagues which are visited upon the houses of the Egyptians.
The story, if you are looking for it, is found in the twelfth chapter of the biblical book of Exodus. And though much of that story is fictional, it also has a strong basis in historical fact. Beneath what my colleague John Buehrens calls “the Cecil B. Demille” version lies a kernel of truth. There were people called “Hebrews” in Egypt at the time the Bible indicates, and they were outcasts and slaves. How they escaped, we cannot know for sure; but that they did escape is beyond question, as is the fact that they ended up eventually, after long years of wandering, in what is present day Israel.
All of us long for liberation, be it only from the bondage of a seemingly endless winter, or from old habits and attitudes, and it is this universal longing for freedom which makes Passover such a powerful holiday. But as Gaster writes, this release from bondage is “not simply an escape.” It is what we do with it that counts. As Gaster suggests, “the release is accompanied by a positive achievement”:
On the seasonal plane, Passover inaugurates the reaping of the new grain; man sows the seed, but God--or the cosmic power--provides the rainfall and sunshine which quickens it. On the historical plane, it commemorates the birth of the Jewish nation: Israel was prepared to face the hazards of the wilderness, so God, in His providence, brought it to Sinai, gave it the Law, and concluded the Covenant. On the broad human plane, it celebrates the attainment of freedom and of the vision of God: man casts aside his idols and repudiates his ignorance and obscurantism, and in that very act God reveals His presence and imparts knowledge.It’s the old story of freedom meaning only what we do with it.
Passover, then, is not about freedom for freedom’s sake. It matters how we use this new found liberation. The implication is that there must be a goal and an ideal toward which our freedom leads us.
Liberation is, of course, one of the great themes of the Bible, whether in the Old Testament or in the New. Jesus, too, we remember, comes “to set us free.” But liberation is also one of the great universal themes of religion as well. What is the goal of Buddhism, if not liberation from this world of grief and suffering through the attainment of nirvana or enlightenment? In Hinduism, too, liberation is the main goal. One strives to achieve moksa, or release, from the endless round of reincarnations to which the living being is seemingly condemned.
This “sweet release” is also at the heart of all spirituality and of all religious practice and ritual. It is the goal of meditation and prayer, of pilgrimage and study. It is the mystics’ quest, and the heart of worship. That goal is to transcend ourselves, to free ourselves from care and anxiety, to get beyond all that binds us and prevents us from achieving our fullest potential and becoming our truest selves. It is about growing beyond our present, limited selves, about change and new knowledge, not only of ourselves, but of others. It is not about shirking our responsibilities, but about meeting them.
But even this is not enough, for once we are free something more is expected of us: we must work to free others from whatever it is that oppresses them. As it says in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah,
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,The freedom of Passover, then, is “freedom of a special kind”
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion--
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations,
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
[Isaiah 61: 1-4]
[Gaster]. It is also timeless, in that this freedom must be won over and over again, on the natural, historical, and personal levels. Like all great religious holidays, Passover points us toward eternal truths.
When our Jewish friends join for their Passover Seder [means simply “order of service”] meals this weekend, it is this “eternal now” that they are seeking. The Seder, writes Gaster, “is no mere act of pious recollection, but a unique and inspired device for blending the past, the present, and the future into a single comprehensive and transcendental experience.” As each Jew recites the Haggadah, or “Recital,” she or he is “performing an act not of remembrance but of personal identification in the here and now.”
The sweet release of which the Passover festival speaks is always in our own hands. It always is up to us to make it real. But just as important to remember is that this deliverance is “continual.” We never achieve it as fully and completely as we would like. Liberation for ourselves and for others is a constant and ongoing responsibility. As we Unitarian Universalists like to say of our own religion, it is “a journey, never a resting place.”
My colleague Gene Navias, who spoke to us several weeks ago, has written of Passover and Easter.
Who is to say for us what Easter and Passover are that we should celebrate this day and sing for joy? Easter and Passover are promises remembered and fulfilled, of death and life that lies therein. They are the promise of the planets in their turn, the infinite fidelity of stars and suns and seasons. Easter and Passover are winter promising to spring that earth shall yield its death to life again. They are the growth and promise of the dormant seed, the barren meadow and the naked bough. They are the birth promise of all creatures which have life and breath and being. Easter and Passover are ancient sorrows stilled and hopes remembered. They are the memory of Jesus dying in Jerusalem. They are the promise that his life shall never die as long as we still seek to dwell within his ways. They are the promise that the heart shall be reborn as hatred dies and love is given birth. They are the promise that the mind shall be renewed as ignorance is lost to newfound truth. Ea! ster and Passover are the promises to everyone who journeys from the death of prejudice to the life of understanding. Easter and Passover are promises to everyone who casts away the errors of the darkness to dwell within the light. Lo, Easter and Passover are earthly promises and human hopes that make the human heart forever young. A song of life which springs from death, a joyous human song, forever alleluia sing.All of us, we are reminded, are locked into prisons of our own making. May Passover be a reminder of that sweet release which is available to all of us, if only for a few moments out of our busy days. May we find release from all that estranges us from ourselves and others, release from the pain of loss and sorrow, release from whatever separates us from the earth which is our best and only home. May the spring’s liberation from old winter speak to us of powers which are hidden within our own hearts. And may the story of a people’s journey to freedom strengthen us in resolve to work for the freedom of everyone in this world who is oppressed or under bondage, whether to tyrants or only to stale ideas.We wish it so; so may it be. Amen.
The Rev. Harold E. Babcock
