Holy Week: Celebrating Passover

Well, it's been nearly 40 days of Lent, and Holy Week is almost here! It's been fun creating some special traditions for celebrating Holy Week and helping our kids follow Jesus and the days leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection. This week I'm preparing for Holy Week. One of our traditions is inviting family members over to celebrate Passover with a Seder meal! 

Most Christians are familiar with "The Last Supper" that Christ had with his disciples before going to the cross. However, I really knew nothing about a traditional Jewish Seder meal which is what Jesus was having when he ate the last supper with his disciples.
One purpose in having a Seder meal during Holy Week is to teach our kids the same things God wanted the Israelites to teach their children through perpetually celebrating Passover. Exodus 12:26-27 says, "And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" God gave children an inquisitive nature! And the first time we practiced Passover, our kids were full of questions just like I'm sure the Israelite children were! We want our kids to know the traditional Passover story that includes Moses, the plagues, the Red Sea, and God's mighty hand of deliverance for the Jews from Egypt, but as Christians we go a step further to discuss Passover as the foreshadowing of Christ and his atoning death for our salvation. As the angel of death "passed over" the Jewish homes covered by the blood of an unblemished lamb, so death passes over us who are covered by the blood of a perfect Christ who died on a cross for our sins. God has rescued us just like the Israelites; we’ve been rescued from sin and death and invited to the promise land in heaven. 


It was a bit overwhelming when I first started researching Passover and all the Christian parallels but this children's DVD was incredibly helpful! The boys and I learned a lot together! It's presented from a Christian perspective and shows why and how Passover is still important for us to remember.

Here are a few of our pictures from a Seder meal. I'm sure it was far from what a true Jewish Seder meal looks like, but we had FUN learning! We tasted bitter herbs and salt water to remember how bitter slavery was for the Egyptians. We had matzo and talked about how the Jews didn't have time to let the bread rise so they had to eat "unleavened" bread to be ready for a quick departure. We sang a song about crossing the Red Sea. Those are just a few examples; the Seder meal is full of hands on learning that engages all your senses!

The Feasts of the Lord is another great resource for understanding Passover, and it's an excellent read on all the other biblical feasts as well. It's written from the Hebrew Christian viewpoint, helping you see the feasts through Jewish eyes while at the same time seeing how Christ fulfilled every one of them! If you're interested in learning more about celebrating Passover, let me know and though I'm not an expert, I'm happy to share the simplified notes I have so far!