A few months ago, like many others, my family and I were preparing for Passover. The thing I enjoy most about Passover is the physical demonstration of spiritual problems. When you sweep your kitchen, you can see all the crumbs that have fallen since the last time it was swept. We can see all of those crumbs in a physical setting, but do we take the time during Passover to sweep our spiritual environment along with our physical one? Everyone is carrying around their own emotional baggage, but do we ever stop to purge that too? Passover is the time of year to go through physical and spiritual trash and throw out the things that we do not need to carry or store for another year.

There are two areas of the Bible that I would like to explore for this concept. The first, not surprisingly, would be in the book of Exodus explaining Passover. The other, however, would be the book of Jonah. The concepts discussed in both are unique when considered separately but can also be helpful when considered together. We’ll cover the Passover concepts today, and Jonah in a future blog post.

In the book of Exodus, our story begins when the Israelites became slaves to Pharaoh. Sometime after Joseph died, Pharaoh became afraid of the Israelites which led to him persecuting them and then throwing Israelite baby boys into the Nile. Those events then lead to Moses being placed in a basket in the Nile where Pharaoh’s daughter saves and adopts him. Moses is raised in the palace until he kills the Egyptian, and after that, he flees into the desert. God eventually tasks Moses with going back to Egypt to save his people. Moses argues with God, but eventually caves. He goes back to Egypt and argues with Pharaoh, which leads to the Ten Plagues and the Passover where the Israelites escape slavery and flee to the desert.  

Passover is the time of year to let go of those things that are keeping us enslaved and to flee from it, so that we don’t have to carry it for another year. The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert circling the same mountain because they couldn’t let go of their bitterness and trauma. The pattern that repeats often in the Bible is the fact that God makes us face the things that haunt us. To quote a friend, “Can I just get an F and fail?” And the answer is no, God doesn’t give out F’s, He just makes us circle the mountain again. He makes sure that we’ve learned whatever lesson it is we need to learn. 

We have to recognize our faults to get rid of them. If they gather in a corner untouched, there will be no change. I, personally, don’t want to circle the mountain an unnecessary number of times. Hopefully, when this appointed time comes around every year, we can spend the time collecting all crumbs, mental and physical, so we can start new again.  

Blog post by Emma Shaff

Photo from Unsplash by Tijs van Leur @tijsvl