Passover Meal 2014

Topic: Celebrating what God did and has done!

Scripture(s): Exodus 1 - 14:4

Notes: The story of the Passover (and indeed all of Israel’s history) is incredible and riveting to adults and children. There is so much to learn about what they did (and how we do the same), the consequences they suffer (which we do too) and God’s character of love and forgiveness despite our constant bad choices. As there is a lot to this story it is not a lesson you can give in a short time. As a frame of reference, I estimate that we as a family have read, studied, listened to and acted out the story of the exodus for well over 100 hours over the years. We’re not close to finished - but the more we go through it, the more we see amazing things in it.
I would suggest that you use Exodus 1 - 14 as a daily family reading for a while. You will find that the older children will start to pick up deeper aspects (such as types & shadows, character traits of God etc) as the younger ones are simply learning the good and bad of being on either side of God.


Description:
This year, Sharmini has been extremely sick for weeks so the planning was, shall we say, non existent!

We came in at 6pm after finishing building a bird aviary, and all ran around getting things ready. We had about 30 minutes to figure out what to do, make it & eat!
We had no lamb, but mum had made us some veal parmigiana which had been thawing. That was put in the oven, the Charoset was made by the J man - apples, pears, honey, almonds, sultanas and honey. Cold re-heated chips from two days earlier(!) was a perfect stand in for the baked potato cakes. We had Brahmi in the place of parsley for the bitter herbs, lettuce in place of vegetables and tortilla wraps in place of Matzo bread.

The kids had listened to Exodus (audio Bible) the night before and this morning we had been through the story and background of the Exodus and the plagues in sections. I had told the kids that tonight we would act out part of the story - and go for a hike ending up camping without tents…they were very excited as you can imagine!

The passover meal was a prelude to our little trek. We followed the Roses ‘Christ in the Passover’ leaflet short Cedar meal which is a great start and very cheap. It also has recipes for some of the meal items (it is available in the Bible Study App [Olivetree] for your iPhone / iPad or as a pdf online). We just changed a few bits here & there.

A rough outline:
There are different phrases & blessings you all do together, with the leader reading out different passages & asking questions. A few of the main points below:

• To start the kids (usually the girls / hong women) light candles
• Everyone lifts the first cup (Sanctification) and says together:

• Time for the bitter herbs which represent life that God gives and the salt water to remember the tears of the Israelites as slaves. Everyone dips & eats
• One of the children asks questions about the herbs & bread etc (the Haggadah)
• Time for the Afikomen - the middle piece of Matzo bread which is broken and represents what Jesus went through for our sins. Then one piece is hidden and later the children get to look for it - whoever finds it must be paid in order to redeem it for the next part of the meal.
• Horseradish is next eaten on the Matzo bread and then the Charoset. The Charoset reminds us of both the mortar used by the slaves, but it is sweet to remind us that no matter how bad things are God is with us, giving life!
• The Passover story is read / summarised then the Second cup (Plagues). This is fun everyone dips fingers into the wine & the says the plagues 3 times will shaking the wine from their fingers onto the Matzo!
• Then the lamb shank reminding us that a lamb had to die in order for the blood to be splashed over the door frames of the house to avoid death and that Jesus is the Passover Lamb.
• The first part of the Hallel where everyone recites(!) Psalm 113 & 114 - we read it as don’t know it off by heart (yet?!)
• The meal is next followed by the children looking for the Afikomen.
• The Third cup is next (redemption) and is the cup Jesus used when He said “this cup is the new covenant in my blood”
• Elijah’s cup is next - a place is set for him before the meal starts. The jews are expecting him to come, but we know He has already been in John the Baptist. The door is opened for his return but we open it for the second coming of Jesus!
• The second part of the Hallel leads with the Forth cup (praise) and a verse and Psalm are read together.
• The end is celebrated with the phrase “Next year in Jerusalem!” - we used Zion (a term symbolising Heaven) as that is where we’d like to be next year…