Happy passover everyone! Or as you might say in Hebrew, Chag Sameach Pesach! Tonight begins Passover at sunset and it is a great time to celebrate the Messiah Jesus, Yeshua. “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” I am holding a Seder tonight and wish you could all be there. I have been celebrating the Lord’s supper as a Passover for about 30 years now and have had the privilege of presenting this to many church groups over the years. If you have the opportunity to celebrate a Messianic Passover somewhere tonight or tomorrow - do it! You will not regret it I promise! This time of year is all about deliverance and salvation and truly calls our attention to God’s ability and willingness and desire to save and deliver us! I always look up this time of year knowing that God might just use this great day once again for our deliverance in the rapture. I so look forward to celebrating Passover every year, but I also wonder if this will be the year that I will not make it to the Seder or be whisked away by the rapture in the middle of it - I wouldn’t complain! So happy Passover everyone, may we all sanctify the Lord in our hearts tonight and remember what He did for us. If there was not a Passover, there would be no Good Friday! I’m curious of why the Seder is observed vs. just doing church Communion with bread & wine or grape juice for those who don’t like wine? I Corinthians 11:20-31 20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. 21 For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. 22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? what shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. 23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. 30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. 31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. Hi Geri, There is so much to say about the Seder, that I can’t do it justice in this short reply - the obvious symbology of the lamb is there, but there is symbolism in almost every element of the Seder. - So I’ll just give you one example. Here’s a good one - in the Seder there is a linen container called a “matza tosh” it is a little cloth bag with 3 pockets sewn into it. There are 3 pieces of matzah and the middle one is taken out, broken in half and half is placed back in the container with the other 2 pieces while the other half is hidden away wrapped in a linen napkin. This piece is called the “afikomen”. By the way the orthodox, or traditional Judaism offers no explanation for why this tradition started. It is thought to have started in the first century. (Gee, what else happened around then?). Christians/ Messianic Jews have a great explanation for this. The 3 matzah united in the matzah tosh represent the trinity, Father Son Holy Spirit. The middle matzah, the “Son” was taken and broken and the “half” of Him that represents His human nature was “hidden” away for 3 days and 3 nights wrapped in a linen shroud in the tomb. In a Messianic Seder, this “afikomen” that was hidden away to be “resurrected” becomes the bread that is used for Holy Communion along with the 3rd of the 4 passover cups of wine (grape juice). (Jesus only drank the first 3 cups and the 3rd was used for communion - He never drank the 4th, but said I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it anew with you in the kingdom of God) Now please don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the traditional church communion and I personally take communion at least once a week with simple bread and grape juice and without going through the whole passover production, but as you can see from the example above - there is just so much there to love! I’ll try to check back on this thread later to answer any other questions but I’ll bee getting things ready for the Seder soon so I might not be online much. Blessings! Chag Pesach Semeach. I will be attending a Seder tonight and tomorrow. I am doubly blessed. Yeshua is our Passover Lamb, slain for us. Even better, He then conquered death and rose from the dead. All those who have applied His blood to the lintels of their heart will have the death angel pass over them. ❤️ It has also been noted that like the matzah like Christ is perforated as was Crist through beatings and scourgings! TR It has also been noted that the matzah like Christ is perforated as was Christ through beatings and scourgings! TR I did a Seder with a friends family who are Messianic Jews. I found it interesting but it also seemed a bit ritualistic to me, similar to the practices of Catholicism. To each their own but for me I just prefer spending time focusing on Him and giving Him my unworthy love, which is a pathetic effort at best. I do understand the Seder and all of the other Jewish feasts but I will not practice them. They are from the Old Covenant, which is directly attached to the Law and by the Law I will always perish in Hell so I tend to shy away from anything that brings my "doing" into it. For me, the best I can "do" is be available for Him to use as the tool that I am. (insert smiling emoji since the emoji systems seems to be broken). But as I said, to each their own. I am no judge of what is in men's hearts. I've experienced the same Yohanan. Missionary friends were deeply in to it over a few years time, and wanted myself and another friend to participate in it with them, as a "life-style" so to speak. Beautiful and meaningful, but to share in those things with them felt ritualistic. Well we finished up our Seder last night and it was great! I’m just now waking up and catching up with the comments. Yohanan and Kolleen, I totally feel you on the ritualistic thing. I have also been to Seders that are very ritualistic and “dry”. There are as many different kinds of Passovers as there are presenters I suppose. There is a little book called a “Haggadah” which is supposed to guide you through the service but I tossed that years ago and came up with my own so to speak. I have been presenting Seders for almost 30 years and this is my personal experience. My goal is the beginning was, and still is Jewish evangelism “to the Jew first” but I also realized that the majority of my audience/participants were of the mainstream Christianity flavor and that a lot of the Jewish tradition is meaningless to them. We have the same things on our side of the aisle too, if we were talking to any other person other than a Christian about Easter, and we tried to explain bunnies and eggs, of course they really don’t have anything to do with Easter they are just traditions. So when I do my Seders, I try not to focus on the traditions unless they can be related to Christ in some way since apart from the historical exodus - really all I am concerned with is elevating Christ. I’ll give one good example. At a traditional Passover there is usually a burnt egg. This is purely tradition and the traditional reason for it is that is represents the destroyed and burnt temple to the Jews. Again, what interest would a Christian have in this, what does Christ have to do with this in any way? In my Seder, I use this opportunity to talk about Daniel 9 and how Daniel prophesied that the Messiah would come BEFORE the temple was burnt and destroyed - so to any Jewish listeners, if Jesus was not the Messiah was Daniel a false prophet then? And if Jesus was the Messiah and you have not accepted Him as such then you have a lot more to worry about than a destroyed temple. That’s just one example of how I take the traditional Seder and make it my own so to speak. But I understand what you are saying - I have also experienced those that promote the “lifestyle” and some get pretty upset if you don’t celebrate all the feasts of the Lord or call Him Jesus instead of Yeshua and so forth. I don’t subscribe to any of that - the Holy Spirit convicted me a long time ago that whether you call him Jesus “Heysoos” (as our Spanish speaking friends pronounce it) or whatever your mother tongue is - its like talking to a friend with a pure heart. If you have a friend called Robert and you call him Bob, does he take offense of course not! So I was convicted a long time ago to avoid this type of nonsense, but I have clung on to many of the Hebraic elements that have given me a greater intimacy with Messiah. I just can’t help but think that if either of you had attended my Seder you would have had a good ol time because for me, its all about HIM. But I suppose everyone would say that lol. In any case, to each their own, none of this has any bearing on salvation, and if its not your cup of tea, that is totally ok - what I am really looking forward to is the day when He presents His version of Passover to us in the kingdom, I think we will all enjoy that one! Here’s the thing the church is under Grace not the Law and we are under a New Covenant. Was the Last Supper even a Seder meal? The church is only instructed to have …. What did Jesus do and instruct us to do? Luke 22:19-20 And Jesus promises this … He will not drink again of the fruit of the vine (grape juice or wine) until that day in the kingdom of God (millennium kingdom) Mark 14:22-25 John 6:35 John 6:33 John 6:51 What did the early church do? Acts 20:7 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 1:29
I Corinthians 5:7
Communion … with bread and wine (or fruit of the vine grape juice)
And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."
For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
