Exodus 12:14 "So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance". The Messiah has come. His name is Jesus. This is the night we remember His dining with closest friends. Celebrating the very feast prophesying of His coming for generations. Why not do this, too, in remembrance of Him? My grandmother was a Russian Jew. Fiery. Tenacious. Precocious.
Her matzo ball soup was out of this world. She served her passover lamb with mint jelly.
Somehow she convinced her one atheist and two agnostic sons to join her each year at the Passover Seder table. I always asked The Four Questions, cringed as I tasted the bitter herbs, and barely dipped mine in the salt water.
My mother took me to church for the first time in my life at age 10. I had not heard of Jesus.
That's right.
I grew up in America.
I never heard of Jesus until my tenth year.
As a teen, the stories my grandmother told, the faith she had, came alive. Every year, our congregation celebrated Passover with a beautiful Seder. Dancing. Food. Tradition. Love. Beauty. God. Messiah. Remembering.
We prayed the traditional prayers.
We delightedly searched for the afikomen and longed to be the one to find the hidden matzah.
We gazed at one another through candlelight admiring perfectly adorned dishes of Passover items.
We realized the privilege we were granted to know Messiah and understand the culmination of this amazing Feast.
We hoped for His speedy return.
We danced until our calves burned and our eyes stung from sweat.
We sang until hoarse and then kept on singing. It was all mingled with my heritage, weaving a glorious tapestry. It makes me who I am today.
Why celebrate it today?
As I toss vegetables in with the chicken stock I simmered all day, I ponder these beautiful, cherished memories.
Some of the most tender, sensitive moments of my life.
As I chop mint leaves and toss together haroset, I long to be beside my grandmother. I yearn for her orange hair, vibrant fuschia lipstick, and stacks of bangles that clamored as she would wave her hands about.
What would she think of this woman she once helped raise? What would she say to my sons about our heritage?
I believe she would tell me to teach them. Both the old way and the new path I have found. To merge them and glean from both history and the Hope I have in my heart.
As tears stream down my face while I taste the sweet apples and walnuts from my youth, I believe with all my heart that God desires my children to see Him through the Passover meal.
Tomorrow will be small.
A meal prepared with love.
Some family.
Some friends.
I do it because I pray that they will grow up and reflect on these moments as a feast that helped them understand His timeless heart towards humanity. How He set apart a people to teach them of His great love. How He had a redemption plan, a Passover lamb in every bitter season of history. How Messiah has come and we can both rejoice and lament for His coming again.
"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise".
Galatians 3:27-29
So This is Life,
