Ask any rabbi, & you’ll learn that there are 613 commandments in the Hebrew Bible – our Old Testament. That’s 613 rules that can be broken or kept. 613 ways to please or displease God.

Others make sense. “Don’t stand idly by when a life is in danger” (Lev. 19:16).

But some are strange. “Don’t cast spells on scorpions & snakes” (Deut. 18:11).

A few make you think. “Don’t let the king have too many horses” (Deut. 17:16). And “Don’t destroy fruit trees in battle” (Deut. 20:19-20). (One is about getting too much power. The other is about fighting fair.)

No ifs, ands, or buts about that last one. “All who touch a corpse & do not purify themselves … shall be cut off from Israel.”

Now, remember, Numbers was written while Israel was in the desert between Egypt & the Promised Land. And God had decreed that no one who escaped Egypt would enter the Promised Land. All that generation had to die on account of their sins before a new generation could go in.

That’s a lot of corpses out there is the desert. Presumably, they weren’t just left in the dust. Somebody had to touch them & give them a proper burial.

One day, after leaving Egypt, God also decreed that the people should prepare a Passover.

Guess what? Those who had touched a corpse wondered, “What about us? Can we share the meal too that marks our redemption, if we’re already outsiders?”

It’s a question we all might want to ask. Am I worthy to come to God’s table?

Does any of us think we’ve kept all 613 Commandments? (Emily Dickinson said the only Commandment she’s sure she never broke was “Consider the lilies of the field.” But I know I’ve blown it.)

With 613 Commandments, we’re all bound to fall short one way or another. Can any of us even pretend to earn a place at the Passover meal – the meal Jesus shared with his disciples, that became the Lord’s Supper?

Maybe you never ate a worm in an apple. But the Apostle Paul had a point when he said, “All have sinned & fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). All. No one is sinless. No, not even one.

To Moses’ credit, when the corpse-touchers came & asked, he didn’t try to answer their question. He turned it over to God, saying, “Wait, so that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.”

Moses spoke to God. And God spoke to Moses saying, It’s okay. “Anyone … who is unclean through touching a corpse … shall still keep the Passover …”

God did. Not Moses. It’s important to notice what Moses didn’t do. He did not decide the matter himself. He did not offer up his own opinion. And he didn’t put it up for a public vote.

That’s good. When left on our own to decide, we humans are sticklers for rules. We tend to be strict & unbending. Especially with God’s rules (though some more than others). We build walls around God’s holy things so that nothing is disturbed.

But God pokes a hole in our walls with one breath. God reminds us what truly matters. Not walls or rules, but people – people who tell the story of how God saved them, & who keep celebrating it, year after year. “You or your descendants who are unclean … shall still keep the Passover.”

It’s not far from what Paul says elsewhere in Romans: “Nothing in all creation can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” No matter who we are or what we have done, God wants us to know we are still loved.

What saves us is not our ability to keep 613 commandments, but God’s ability to stand us up when we’ve fallen, dust us off, slap us on the rear end, & sit us down at the table of redemption & thanksgiving.

Jesus did that for people too. Maybe that’s how come we recognize him as the God’s Son.

He ate his last meal – the Passover – with twelve guys. One would betray him. Another would deny him before the rooster crowed. All would abandon him. Being near him toward the end was like touching a corpse. They were contaminated by association. For all intents & purposes, he was already a dead man.

“All fall short of the glory of God.” No one is worthy, not even one. That was true of the disciples. And the rest of us too.

Yet, no one is excluded. No one is denied a place at the table! The same God who makes the Commandments also offers the invitation: 

“From east & west, north & south, they will come to sit at table in the Kingdom of God.”

It does not matter which commandments you have broken, or how many, or how often. God still invites you to share the Passover – Jesus’ last supper – & experience your redemption.

Even before Jesus is crucified & raised from the dead God’s mercy is revealed.

Right this minute, God’s love is at work in us.

God leaves no one behind, not even the corpse-touchers, or the lily-ignorers, or the worm-in-the-fruit carnivores.

Taste & see. Touch & know. Rejoice & be glad. For soon the darkness will fall. And you’ll want to know beyond doubt that you are not alone.