Beyond Passover
When I was growing up, Passover was all about relationships. Leading up to Passover, it meant spending time with my mom.
We purchased freshly baked matzah at Streitz’s Matzah factory on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, formed matzah balls for the soup, and I helped prepare her heavenly chopped liver by running the ingredients through a hand grinder. My dad, brothers, and I worked together unpacking the good china, polishing the silver, unearthing the Haggadahs (Passover booklets) from storage, and adding leaves to the table while strategizing how to squeeze in any unexpected guests.
The evening of the Passover Seder (structured meal with certain foods that serve as reminders of the Exodus story) included extended family. This meant showers of kisses and questions from adoring aunts and uncles, and the gathered cousins indulging in an unannounced competition to determine who could get into the most trouble during the seder! My cousin Howie and I won hands down the year we emptied the entire linen closet in hot pursuit of the afikomen (the piece of matzah that is hidden; the finder wins a prize)!
Yet, Passover is about much more than our most treasured human relationships.
We gathered across this millennia-long family bridge to experience Passover afresh – recalling our bitter enslavement by eating maror (usually horseradish), recounting the plagues of God’s judgments on Egypt’s gods, mourning the death of the firstborn Egyptian males, and remembering the haste of our departure by eating matzah (because there was no time to let the bread rise). At the apex of our recounting, a shank bone is held aloft. The sight transports us back to the lamb’s sacrifice, its blood marking our homes, and death’s presence passing over, leaving our families intact.
But our family seder does not end with our exit from Egypt. If it did, we would miss the most important relationship in Passover – our people’s relationship with our Redeemer.
God redeemed us for relationship; He brought us out of Egypt to bring us near to Himself.
“Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Exodus 6:6-7).
No matter how full our family Passover celebration is with beloved human relationships, if it does not lead us back to this primary relationship, we have relived only half of the story. God wants us to remember Passover night but not remain there. He wants us to enter the life to which redemption leads.
The same is true for followers of Messiah and our celebration of Holy Week. God wants us to remember the events of our redemption but not remain in them.
God chose Passover as the time of year for Messiah’s atoning work. God used Passover to bring my ancestors out of physical slavery to bring them into an ongoing a relationship with Himself in the Promised Land. So too in Messiah, God has redeemed us, Jews and Gentiles from sin’s penalty and enslavement to bring us into an eternal relationship with Himself through the New Covenant in Messiah’s blood.
This year, for Jewish people outside of Israel, sundown on April 30th marks the end of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As the Passover season draws to a close, may it find us celebrating and sharing the whole story of God’s love: He has brought us out to bring us in! Hallelujah!
“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Yeshua said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:2-6).
Written by Dan, Life in Messiah Board member
(1) This Passover and Resurrection season, have you been able to shift the focus from your to do list, to the Redeemer, the true reason for the season?
(2) Not familiar with Passover? Learn more here.
(3) Would you like to invite a Life in Messiah speaker to share Passover with your congregation? It’s not too early to book for Spring 2025. (Our calendars can fill up quickly!)