Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: RITUAL (01/20/22)
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TITLE: Our Personal Pass Over | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
01/24/22 -
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I have been enacting Passovers for years, beginning with a Vacation Bible School activity. We acted out Jesus’ Passover evening with His disciples; although I doubt the disciples giggled during the foot washing. Saltine crackers and grape juice helped the children picture the prophetic relationship between the unleavened bread, the cups of wine of the Passover meal, and Jesus’ broken, bloodied body.
Several years later my Sunday School class of fifth grade girls enjoyed enacting with me an Exodus Passover. Dressed in girded robes, we circled the church for our walk out of Egypt. In the church kitchen we roasted a lamb chop and prepared and baked unleavened bread.
The first time our family celebrated a sit-down Passover dinner (a seder) our children were elementary school-age. Hearing the story of the original passover and exodus out of Egypt, my son (the “first-born son”) was concerned that we had no plans to put blood on the door. He decided to construct a miniature doorway and apply catsup. It was during conversations about the “whys” of what we were doing or not doing that I was assured my children understood that Jesus was the Lamb and the Firstborn Son that died in our place.
My understanding and appreciation of an annual Passover celebration as a teaching tool and a personal worship experience grew as I grew in Biblical knowledge and intimacy with the Lord. A fellow Bible Study friend and I spent many delightful hours designing a seder for us to share with friends and family. The haggadah (a script for participants) evolved as our knowledge grew.
We discovered one important element had been added to the Passover meal by Jews who were followers of Jesus. That tradition was the three (trinity) pieces of unleavened bread, with the middle piece broken before being wrapped in a linen napkin and hidden for the children to seek out later. That discovery led to our incorporating readings regarding Jesus’ last Passover into our haggadah.
From that time on, we invited new friends every year to share a seder meal with us replete with hand (instead of foot) washing, blessings, candle lighting, Psalm singing, tastes of salt water (tears), bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and sweet apples and raisins.
My husband loved Passover. The hand-washing ceremony was always slightly awkward for everyone, but blessedly humbling. He loved this annual ritual of pronouncing a blessing on our family members and friends.
For at least twenty years we invited new and old friends to join us for Passover. In our experience, eating this meal of remembrance, usually on Thursday or Friday of Holy Week, greatly enhanced our anticipation and appreciation of Resurrection Day, our favorite holy day.
One year while preparing for the seder meal my husband returned early from his regular walk.
“I’m feeling funny,” he said. “Maybe it’s this new med I’m on.”
When I picked up his prescription for him, the pharmacist made some comment about a side effect that mimicked a heart attack. Preoccupied with seder preparations, I had not listened carefully.
“Maybe you should call the doctor’s office and tell them what you’re feeling,” I said, continuing to set the table.
“I did, but the nurse said the office was closing, and I should get checked out at Urgent Care or the Emergency Room.”
I had not expected that. I wanted to finish what I was doing before we took off but my husband was already in the car.
When we walked into Urgent Care, I was surprised that there was no wait and he was taken right into an examining room. What a shock when a doctor came out. “Your husband is being transported by ambulance to the ER. He had a heart attack while we were examining him.”
My husband told me later that the doctor told him, “If you’d waited fifteen minutes, it would have been too late.”
So, death passed over our house that night. When my husband heard how near he had been to dying, he actually sighed, “Darn . . ” Heaven had been so close.
Our Seder was canceled for that year, but from then on we added our own personal pass-over story to the age-old retelling of God’s deliverances.
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