Passover

This post is in honor of up coming Passover, a very special holiday too often overlooked by Christians. A couple years ago I read a terrific book called The Feasts of the Lord. It talks about many aspects of all the Jewish holidays and is very interesting; actually, it’s one of my favorite books. For each holiday, it discusses how the feast was ordained by God and its original purpose in the Bible, then moves on to how Jews celebrate it today, and lastly, it shows how Christ is represented in each of the celebrations. It does such an excellent job of linking God’s intentions from the Old Testament to the New, and paints a beautifully coherent picture of God’s entire plan for the redemption of mankind from The Fall all the way until Christ returns again. After I read it, I fell in love with the Old Testament and finally understood how it can be just as relevant and meaningful to Christians today as the New Testament is.

Passover is about mercy. It is about sacrifice. It is about redemption. The oldest feast in the world still celebrated today, it acknowledges how God’s judgment “passed over” the Israelites while they were held captive in Egypt. In order to be spared from the angel of death, each family was required to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood over their doorpost. This lamb had to be a perfect, flawless creature, and was even required to be kept with the family for a time so they would become attached to it and more keenly feel the sacrifice of this innocent one.

And it was on this very holiday that the disciples found themselves in an upper room with Jesus, hearing Him say strange things during the normally predictable Seder. Throughout the Seder, there are four cups at wine taken at specific times. It is the third cup, called the Cup of Redemption, that Jesus began the ritual Christians now know as Communion. How fitting, considering that through Christ’s sacrifice, all of mankind would be redeemed. The last cup of wine is called the Cup of Acceptance, or Praise, and this is the cup that Christ said He would not drink with the disciples until they drank it in heaven. In The Feasts of the Lord, the authors write that this is because Jesus knew the Jews would not accept Him yet, and so His joy would be incomplete until then.

An interesting detail:
At one point in the Seder there are three pieces of matzah in a special cloth. The middle one is broken, half is hidden and later on in the Seder, it is found again. Jewish scholars have been debating the significance of this for years, some claiming the three pieces represent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but this leaves them wondering why “Isaac” is broken and hidden. Messianic Jews believe this is instead significant of the Trinity, God the Father, the Son, the Spirit. “Jesus” is then the one who is broken (representing His death) and then later found (representing His resurrection). Interestingly, this special middle piece of matzah has a name—the afikomen. Ironically, afikomen is the only Greek word in the Seder, with Greek being, of course, the language Jesus spoke. It means “I came.” For Christians this is a meaningful reminder; for Jews, a haunting revelation they somehow manage to miss.

The theme of Passover is redemption. At the very first Passover, in Egypt, it was redemption from the angel of death, and from captivity that they celebrated. But God instituted this feast to foreshadow the greater redemption He had planned for us, through His Son’s death. It was this night that Jesus was betrayed to be later crucified, becoming the final sacrifice for Jews and Gentiles alike. Personally, I think it would be wonderful if Christians started celebrating Passover. Some may say that we aren’t Jewish, we aren’t bound under “the Law” anymore and so are not obligated to keep the feasts. This is true. However, the Seder is such a rich representation of God’s age-old plan to once again restore mankind. I just don’t see how we can pass up the opportunity to worship and praise God for fulfilling His plans through Christ, our perfect, redeeming Passover Lamb.

Final Paper

Well, I am greatly relieved that our papers are finally finished. I will not post it here, as it is so long, but here is a link if you care to read the fruit of my labors for the past few months.

Final Visual Argument

Visual argument

Visual argument - notes

I decided to create a visual argument, defending some of the decisions Donald Miller made that are a little "controversial" among fellow Christians. It isn't finished yet, and I know it is difficult to see my argument from these--there are a few important slides that aren't completed yet, so there are some gaps in the argument you see. But when it is done, I hope to communicate the idea that even though in the book Don hung out "with the wrong crowd," so did Jesus. Sometimes Christians get so caught up in our own little subculture, I think we pick on things that aren't all that important. There are different aspects of that idea that I am addressing. Once it's done, I think I will turn the slides into a movie if I can figure out how to do it.

Edit: Somehow I couldn't get it in this post, but it is in the next one.