Passover Promises

On Monday of this week, our Jewish friends and neighbors began

their celebration of Passover.  This celebration begins 

with a Passover Seder in Jewish homes all over

the world.  I have always been interested in the feasts

and festivals of the Jews.  God commanded his people to 

remember these special days as he tried to prepare

them to receive their Savior.   Jesus, of course,

was a Jew raised in a devout home where he would have 

observed the Passover each year.  Learning about

 the symbolism of the ritual foods teaches us about God's mercy for

 his chosen people, and  how Christ fulfilled all the promises -

becoming the New Covenant.

For our Personal Progress activity this month,

our value was Knowledge and I decided to use this

opportunity to teach the girls about Passover

and the Last Supper.  The timing was perfect, 

as this is the holy week of Easter.

 The New Testament teaches us that the Last Supper

was, in fact, a Passover meal. On the first day of Passover,

the Lord sent two of his disciples to locate and prepare

a place where they could celebrate the Passover.  The two disciples sent

 to prepare for the seder were directed to an upper chamber.

While there, they probably inspected the room to 

make sure it was very clean.  Even today,

as the eve of Passover approaches, spring cleaning

is a part of every faithful Hebrew's home.

As I reviewed the account with the girls from the Old Testament

on which the Passover meal is based, I wanted them to understand

that the Lord himself established the sacred observance, later

to fulfill it and then reestablish it as the sacrament.

The entire story of the Passover is told on the seder plate.

Seder means" order" in Hebrew.  The Passover Seder is a 

strict order of steps that are performed during the seder meal.

Certain foods are eaten at certain times and traditional questions

are asked such as - Why is this night different from all other nights?

Why do we eat bitter herbs tonight at this special meal?

More than 1400 years before the time of Christ, the chosen 

people were suffering in slavery in Egypt.  The prophet Moses

was chosen by God to be the leader that would lead them from

captivity.  Despite the hardships of nine successive plagues that

God sent to them, the Egyptian pharaoh still refused to let

the people go.  Then an angel of the Lord was sent to strike 

down the firstborn of each family; but at God's command, each

Jewish family had sacrificed a lamb and sprinkled it's blood

on their doorposts.  And the angel, seeing the blood, passed over

those homes and their children were spared.  Then pharaoh 

released the people.  In Exodus 12, the Lord commands his

people to make a remembrance of their day of delivery.

The Passover Seder is about remembering.  The most important

verse in the seder is "and you shall tell your children on this day."

At the festival table , it is customary to wash the

 hands of all present.

The Feast of the Passover begins and ends with the drinking

of a cup of wine.  The cup of wine is the cup of salvation.

When the Israelites were in Egypt, God made four promises,

all of which were kept immediately.  The promises were;

I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and

deliver you from bondage.  I will redeem you with an 

outstretched arm and I will take you to be my people.

In remembrance of this fourfold redemption, at a 

traditional Seder the wine cup would be filled four times.

We, of course, drank grape juice.

The haroset on the seder plate represents the mortar

that was used by the Israelites to build the Egyptian

cities of pleasure.  It is a fruit and nut mixture and 

is eaten with romaine lettuce.

Bitter herbs are dipped in salt water and remind the people of

their fathers who were slaves in Egypt and whose lives were

made bitter by bondage.  The salt water represents the 

tears that were shed.  Other items on the plate are an egg,

symbolizing new life and lamb or a lambshank.   We had 

lamb on our seder plate and some of the girls were brave

enough to try it.   The lamb is a reminder to Jews of the

sacrificial lamb and the blood on their doorposts that saved

their children.  Followers of Christ know this was done in 

similitude of Jesus' sacrifice.  The Savior who is also called

 the Lamb of God was perfect in spirit and body.  

Just as the blood on their doors "saved" them from the destroying

 angel, through the  blood of Jesus Christ we can be saved from our sin.

We also had unleavened bread which represented the bread

the Israelites ate as they left Egypt in haste and had no time to let

their bread rise.  The sun beat down on the dough as they

carried it on their heads and baked it into a flat bread.

The matzoh means "bread of affliction."

The girls read Psalms

and learned about Elijah and how a place is set

at each Passover meal for him.  The Jews look to

Elijah to return to the Earth, bringing with him the

Messiah.

At the end of the Seder, we talked about the timeline

of Easter week and the final hours of Jesus' life.

The Last Supper is called last because it was the last supper

Jesus had as a mortal and because it was the final Passover to

be recognized  by God.  A new ordinance had been introduced

to take its place.  Christ is the new covenant.

Understanding the symbols of Passover helps us to see how

Christ fulfilled all the promises and that only the sinless,

unblemished Messiah could redeem us from our sins.  Like

the children of Israel, we too, can be saved from the

destroyer by the blood of the Lamb if we will but

"strike it upon the lintel and upon the doorposts"

of our lives through repentance.

The scriptures indicate that before Jesus went out into

the mount of Olives, he and his disciples sang

hymns. We concluded our evening by singing  

joyous Easter hymns about our resurrected Lord.

We enjoyed Easter cookies for refreshments 

which are made with ingredients that tell the Easter story and 

when bitten into are hollow like the empty tomb was

on Easter morning.

I hope this evening will help the girls feel closer to their 

Lord this Easter and have a greater appreciation of his

sacrifice for each of us.  He loved us enough to die for us.

This weekend we celebrate His resurrection  Hallelujah! 

*Goal #22 - Study the New Testament.

Goal #44 - Give 50 hours of service.