The table was set with gilded table linens and pillows to recline.
The lamb was roasted and the Seder plate full.
Our children dressed in costume to make it a full experience.
Last year, we invited another family over with kids the same ages on the Thursday before Easter. We took all the leaven out of our house and began to decorate. We put tables on the ground with pillows to sit on so we could “recline” like Jesus did in the Last Supper. We dressed in traditional-feeling clothing for an added effect. We ate lamb, read the Haggadah, drank the “fruit of the vine” and ate the bitter herbs.
Ever since I was in my twenties, I have enjoyed hosting and attending Seder dinners during Easter week. Keeping “the ordinance in its season from year to year” (Exodus 13:10). As a mom now, we have incorporated the Seder dinner into how we celebrate the Resurrected King. So much imagery and scripture fulfillment make it a “must” for our family.
Now some of you may be wondering what is a Seder dinner?
The Seder, a festive Jewish holiday meal, actually means "order." It is called this because the meal is done in a certain order, which takes us from slavery to freedom. The Haggadah—which means "the telling"—is the book used at the Passover Seder. The Haggadah explains the foods on the Seder plate, recounts the highlights of the Exodus, and includes songs, prayers, questions and vignettes. A Christian Seder dinner shows the fulfillment of the Messiah and how Jesus is our Passover lamb.
The dinner is full of faith lessons and connects the Old Testament with the New. One can easily see how Jesus came to fulfill the prophesies of old when one participates in the Messianic Seder dinner. I love how the tradition incorporates our children by asking these four questions during the Seder dinner:
Why is this night different from all other nights?
Once we were slaves in Egypt, but now we are free. God asked us to set aside this night each year to remember—just like Jesus did at the Last Supper. We are to remember we are free, but bought with a price.
On all other nights we eat either bread or matzah, but why, on this night, do we eat only matzah?
The yeast represents sin. So we have cleansed it from our house. See the stripes on the matzah? They remind us how Jesus was beaten for us and we break the bread to cherish how He was broken for us. We were delivered from slavery and given new life.
On all other nights we do not dip our vegetables even once, but why, on this night, do we dip twice?
As they wept for their lives as slaves, so the salty parsley represents their tears. But they also painted blood on the doorposts of their home with hyssop branches so the angel of death would pass over that fateful night. They were miraculously delivered because the Passover Lamb, Jesus, has become the sacrifice for our sins.
On all other nights we eat either sitting up straight or reclining, but why, on this night, do we all recline?
Before we were slaves, but now we are able to recline as free people. The price has been paid for our lives. We are no longer bound and chained.
Can I encourage you to celebrate the Seder dinner with your family this year? You can find it at a local church or Messianic Jewish temple. You can also look online to find everything you need to create the experience at home.
I hope we can all celebrate next year in the New Jerusalem!
~Jeanna Young
When Jeanna is not writing, speaking, event planning, or homeschooling, she can be found scrapbooking her life, redecorating her home, loving on her husband, planning fun events for her kids or eating healthy to stay cancer-free!
