Thursday, March 28, 2013

Sweeping the Kitchen Floor Passover 2013



Each year at Passover the Lord gives me a special meditation, beginning with the first year our family celebrated Passover in 2001. I hadn't really thought about it much this year, as we won't be hosting our usual huge, rowdy group now that we live in Memphis.

This morning I noticed how dirty the floor behind our breakfast nook was. I pulled the table and benches out and grabbed a broom. It is spring and the time of year when my dog sheds an entire other dog on every surface in our home. There was a good puppy-sized pile of dog hair back there as well as some dead flies and crumbs (TMI - its clean now if you are inclined to visit).

I remembered how Jewish families, particularly moms, clean their homes at Passover to remove all of the food items containing leaven, in preparation for the feast of unleavened bread. Every crumb must be swept out. Leaven is symbolic of sin. As I swept my kitchen floor, I realized how difficult, even impossible, it is to sweep the floor clean. The dust and crumbs want to hide in the corners or get trapped under the baseboards. I can mop and scrub, but my dog will sit down and scratch himself - giving rise to the need to do it all over again.

This ritual cleaning is a reminder to us that we cannot, despite our best effort (and mine was only half-hearted) fully clean our home. Nor can we fully purge ourselves of sin. We can make resolutions to do better. We can try very hard to live right and treat others with respect. But, we will fail. We go back to our bad habits and patterns. We become tired or frustrated or depressed and give in to temptation. We are only sweeping crumbs under the rug.

God alone has the ability to clean us and he did when he sent his son, Jesus. He became our sin and experienced the penalty for our sin by his death on the cross. He overcame sin when he rose from the dead. Don't go back to trying to live a good life. Don't go back to trying to clean things up on your own. Face it - it can't be done alone. Passover is a good reminder that we don't have to.

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