How to Prepare for Passover
,This year, Passover falls during the last week of April, nearly a month after Easter. People much smarter than me can explain why this happened, but in my heart and in the gospels, these holidays are aligned. Therefore, I am excited to celebrate the redemption of God’s people over the course of an entire month. Because of my Jewish roots, many years ago we started a family tradition of celebrating Passover with a messianic seder.
Like other holidays, Passover includes family, feasting, and fun. However, the Paschal seder is unique; it’s a ceremonial meal celebrating a night “unlike all other nights,” as the Haggadah (the text recited at the Passover seder meal) states. If you’ve never experienced a seder, I encourage you to finagle an invite to one near you. Once reserving your seat at the table, you will find the following advice helpful for getting the most out of your experience.
What should someone expect who attends a seder?
1. Prepare your heart
As the seder host prepares the home and the seder plate, you should prepare your heart for a couple hours of connecting with God and others. Although you’ll hear the Passover story at the seder, reading and meditating on it in advance will enhance the seder experience for you. Start flipping through Exodus—you’ll find it.
2. Be curious
If you have questions about the Passover story, a seder is the place for you. The seder is all about satisfying curiosities. During the seder, a child asks four questions, and a lot of the time is devoted to answering those questions. However, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask many more questions. Plan to learn something new, even if you’ve attended seders before.
3. Be prepared for a sensory experience
Google or Siri can answer any of your questions about Passover, but a seder gives you an experience full of sights, smells, sounds, and tastes. As you eat the different foods, you’ll taste things that are salty, sweet, and bitter. You will also drink, sing, and get a little wet. You may even shed tears when you eat the maror!
4. Re ready to celebrate
The seder is a way to remember and celebrate God’s fulfilled promises. The Bible is all about God remembering his people and his people [supposed to be] remembering him. It was at Passover that Jesus introduced a new covenant while remembering the old one. The fulfilment of all God’s promises and the hopes of his people happened when Jesus became the penultimate Passover lamb and died on the cross. When he came back to life and promised his return and a new Jerusalem, he gave us something to celebrate like nothing else.
The Passover ends with the cry, “Next year in Jerusalem!” This phrase means many things to many different people. For believers in Christ, we know that the new Jerusalem is already being prepared for us, and it’s only a matter of time before we get to celebrate, remember, and satisfy our curiosities with Jesus, face to face.
For now, I hope you get to experience the joy of this year’s Passover in someone’s home celebrating with friends and family. Shalom!
