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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Why I celebrate Passover

About 8 or 9 years ago, our church invited a Jewish-become-Christian speaker to come and speak about Passover from a Christian perspective on the Thursday before Easter. This would have been the night that Christ would have celebrated the Passover with his followers in that upper room with the feet washing and where the passing of the bread and cup in remembrance of Him all began.

That night was the first time many of the connections between Christ and the Passover had been made for me. How the Passover lamb's blood that was shed and covered the doorposts of the Israelite people's homes that fateful night in Egypt was a shadow and was symbolic of Christ's blood shed for us, covering our sins and keeping us from the wrath that we deserve. This connection had never occurred to me before that night.

Also, at that Thursday evening, we celebrated the Lord's Supper. Instead of using our sterile little plastic cups that we pass around in our pretty little tray, we received small olive wood cups that were ordered from the Holy Land. By putting our... um... grape juice (yes, I'm Baptist... get over it) in these wooden cups, two things happened. 1) The wood lent a bitter taste to the juice reminding us of Christ's bitter sacrifice. 2) The juice stained the inside of the cup, also reminding us of the juice's symbolic nature of the blood Christ shed.

So, on that Thursday evening before Easter, however many years ago it was, I decided that from then on, we would celebrate our own Passover in our home. By no means a Passover Seder, but we would have lamb for dinner on that Thursday before Easter. And we would talk with our children about the Passover and what it means to us as people who believe that Christ is our Passover lamb.

So, this evening we will enjoy one of our favorite lamb dishes that is Tuscan inspired (claiming freedom in Christ to have lamb that is dressed up and not served with bitter herbs). And as we look toward Good Friday tomorrow and Easter on Sunday, we will stop and remember God's provision for the children of Israel through the lamb's blood that first Passover... and His merciful, grace-filled provision for us through Christ, our Passover Lamb.

And that's why I celebrate Passover.

1 Comments:

KindaSassy said...

How odd that I was thinking about that just yesterday, wondering if it wouldnt be a little bit odd for me to try and introduce something like a Passover meal... and here you are writing about it.

:)