Meaning of the Passover Seder
Soon, I will sit down with my family to enjoy our annual Passover
seder dinner. It's one of the joys of being Jewish—commemorating
God's protection and deliverance when Pharaoh demonstrated his
anti-Semitic attitude and refused to let the Jewish people go
and worship the Lord.
I will make the blessing over the fruit of the vine four times.
The first cup, the kiddush, or Cup of Sanctification, sanctifies,
or sets apart this night as special. The second cup, the Cup of
Plagues, recalls the ten plagues with which God punished Pharaoh
and his people for not letting the Jews go, an act of unmitigated
faithlessness to God. The third cup, the Cup of Redemption, will
remind us of the blood of the Passover lamb, slain as a sign of
trust in God. Those who did put the blood on the doorposts of
their homes had the angel of death pass over them; those who didn't,
died. The fourth cup, the Cup of Hallel, reminds us of the Hallel
psalms, Psalm 111-118, especially the last verse of the last psalm,
"Give thanks to Adonai, for he is good, for his grace continues forever."
The ceremony of drinking the fruit of the vine has been part
of Jewish tradition from well before the coming of the Messiah.
Enjoying this ceremony gives us a chance to think about the many
ways God blessed our ancestors... and us.
We also eat matzah, the unleavened bread of Passover, for the
week. Admittedly, eating this rather tasteless bread gets somewhat
old after awhile; but with creative cooking, it's not too hard
to come up with recipes to make following this commandment more
palatable. Yet, the point of eating the bread was to commemorate
the fact that our ancestors were told to be ready to leave Egypt
at a moment's notice, so the bread did not have a chance to rise.
So when we practice this ancient custom, it has modern meaning
to me—be ready to follow the Lord as soon as he calls; don't
put off what we are called to do.
Furthermore, the act of getting leavened bread out of our home
for the week of Passover has great symbolic significance to us.
Since leaven was often a symbol for sin and corruption, our people
start the spiritual calendar (Passover is the first day of the
religious year) with an act that says, "get the leaven (sin) out."
Yeshua, the Messiah, gathered his "family" for his last seder
meal. There he communicated some critically important messages,
using the context of Passover to do so. He took the Cup of Sanctification
and declared, "I will not drink the fruit of the vine until the
Kingdom of God comes" (Luke 22:18). This statement made it clear
to his followers not only that he was going to die, but also that
he would live again. Words of comfort, yes, but more than that—a
clear teaching of resurrection.
He also expanded the meaning of the unleavened bread: "Also,
taking a piece of matzah, he made the b'rakhah [blessing], broke
it, gave it to them and said, 'This is my body, which is being
given for you; do this in memory of me' " (Luke 22:19). To Jews,
the matzah had already become a symbol of the Passover lamb. When
it was eaten, the Israelites were to meditate on their deliverance
from slavery to Pharaoh. Here, Yeshua focused on the fact that it
was in him, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, that
his people could find deliverance from slavery to sin... and that
they were to "do this in memory of me." Whenever his talmidim
(disciples) ate matzah at their Passover seders, he wanted them
to remember him.
"This cup is the New Covenant, ratified by my blood, which
is being poured out for you," he went on (Luke 22:20). His friends
were to understand that the cup of wine that had come to symbolize
the Passover lamb's blood was now to symbolize Messiah's shed
blood. This precious sacrifice would bring the New (or Renewed)
Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31) to Israel, and ultimately to the rest
of the world.
One of Messiah's shlikhim (apostles) urged his readers
to "Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump of dough,
for Messiah our Passover has been sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. 5:7).
The rabbi from Tarsus grasped well the significance of Messiah's
sacrifice, equating it to the sacrifice of the Passover lamb that
shed its blood that death might pass over the children of Israel
in Egypt. As an Orthodox Jew, he was comfortable with Passover
and drew on its deep meaning to apply it to his experience with
the Messiah.
It was at a Passover seder in 1973 that I became a believer.
Sitting at the Passover table, next to Dr. Henry Einspruch, a
distinguished scholar and founder of The Lederer Foundation, listening
to Dan Rigney explain these things, it became clear to me that
the picture had been painted some 1500 years before Messiah's
time. The most central event in the history of Israel—Passover—was
picked by Yeshua the Messiah to communicate the most central event
in mankind's history—God stepped in, and through the sacrifice
of the Messiah, redeemed mankind, Jew and Gentile.
So as my family sits down to celebrate our annual Passover
seder, we will remember the Messiah. For the message of physical
deliverance, as important as it is, pales in comparison to the
spiritual redemption we have if we are in the Messiah. Yes, we
will enjoy all the varied and delicious foods; we will rejoice
as we sing the Passover songs; we will be awed by all the other
symbolism in this ceremony. But most of all, we will remember
that Yeshua, the lamb of God, willingly sacrificed his life to
redeem us from slavery to sin.
"Give thanks to Adonai, for he is good,
for his grace continues forever."
Shalom,
Rabbi Baruch (Barry) Rubin
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