Thank you to all of you who shared your own experiences in the last post about Lent! I appreciate your comments and feedback so much. Continuing this series of my own search for celebrating the truth of the resurrection more fully, today I want to take some time to look at Passover.

If you are a more recent reader of my blog, please take a few minutes to read The King of kings and Lord of lords, which deals with the significance and meaning of the Passover in Exodus.

If you are familiar with the Biblical account of the passion week, you know that it takes place at the time of the Passover feast. This was no accident! Jesus was the fulfillment of this story – He was THE Passover lamb! In 1 Corinthians 5:7, Paul is urging the believers to rid their lives of the “yeast” of sin (during Passover the people were commanded to eat only unleavened bread and they would completely clean their houses in order to ensure that all the yeast was removed). His reason for that? “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” He IS the Lamb!

The annual celebration of Easter is historically tied to Passover, as well:

“At some point in the first two centuries, it became customary in the church to have a yearly celebration of the Lord’s death and resurrection called “Pascha.” It is the same word used for “Passover” in the Greek version of the Scriptures. Our Easter season has grown out of the old Pascha celebration. In time, the Pascha became observed throughout the church.

The early church saw the direct symbolic continuity between the slaughtered lamb of the Passover and the crucified Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. When Paul speaks of Christ as “our Passover Lamb” (Greek, pascha) in 1 Corinthians 5:7, he is affirming that the God who acted mightily in ancient Israel’s release from Egyptian bondage, typified by the Passover, is the same God who has acted in Christ to free us eternally from all spiritual prisons of sin and death.”
(Quote from Christianodyssey.com)

Because of these reasons, I have a great desire to incorporate our own version of a Passover dinner into our celebration of Easter. The two go hand in hand! Sadly, I think our illiteracy when it comes to understanding the Old Testament and tendency to overlook everything God did to prepare the way for Christ has contributed to our abandonment of Passover celebrations.

I found a fantastic article about the symbolism within the Passover meal – this is a must read! It will deepen your understanding of the entire passion week! At the bottom, there is a link to an article that explains step-by-step how to observe your own Passover meal. I love that the author suggests you use it not only as a teaching time with your own family, but even as an outreach to curious friends and neighbors.

Personally, I think one of the great bonuses of incorporating a Passover meal into our family celebrations will be the ease of involving children, as traditionally children played a key role in the Passover meal.

Have you ever been to a seder where the symbolism of Jesus was explained? What are your thoughts on incorporating a Passover meal into our Christian observances of Easter? Why isn’t this more common?