GOOD PESACH FRIDAY

 On Wisdom:
"She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table."

Proverbs 9:2

PESACH is Hebrew for Passover.
 This Year's Passover coincided with Shabbat and
Good Friday. Yeshua, because he was completely
Jewish, celebrated Passover with his 12 disciples the night before he was crucified. The students from Calvary Chapel Jerusalem and I celebrated it at Christ Church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem.

The Passover is recorded in Exodus 12: “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel." 




Over the years, tradition has chosen certain foods in the Passover to represent different aspects of the Exodus from Egypt. The Bible only names the lamb, as the direct sacrificial lamb, where the blood was used to make a sign on the doorposts to ward of the Angel of Death. (Exodus 12:12-13) And it mentions the bitter herbs and unleavened bread. Everything else is Tradition.

Maror

The Maror or bitter herbs that are on the Seder plate are there to symbolize the bitterness of the Jews years of slavery in Egypt. In America, this is often either thin slices of horseradish or small pieces of various varieties of lettuce.

 

The lamb is accompanied by salads and rice and soup

Zeroah

The meal itself. It is often lamb and, even when it is not, there is often a lamb shankbone on the table to symbolize the traditional sacrificial offering. In America, the actual Seder meal is as likely to be a beef brisket or a roasted chicken, as it is to be lamb.

Beitzah: A hard-boiled egg that is on the plate to symbolize the renewal of life and the Jews eternal existence as a people.

Harosset ( of Charosset or Charoses)

This compote of apples, figs, dates, nuts, cinnamon and wine (there are many recipes) is on the plate to remind Jews of the mortar they used during the endless building projects tradition says they engaged in in Egypt.

Before the meal one piece of Matzo bread is broken and half of it is hidden as a game for the children to find it.  This child found two pieces of the many sets in the room.

***

Ba-rukh a-tah a-don-ai e-lo-hey-nu me-lech ha'-o-lahm, bor-ey p'-ree ha-gah-fen.

Blessed are You, O L-rd our G-d, King of the Universe, Creator of the Fruit of the Vine.

Amen.

The Kiddush

 (above Jewish prayer before the wine

The word "Kiddush" literally means "sanctification"*)

Throughout the meal we pray for the drink from the fruit of the vine. Both for the food and for communion. It seems completely amazing to me to discover that when the Lord Yeshua Meshiach instituted the Communion, he didn't separate it from the Passover. And if he was Jewish, you think he may have said the Jewish prayers before drinking the wine and the bread and then saying:

 "Do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19)

Yeshua Meshiach. Worthy to be praised!

This prayer is recited before the 4th cup is drank. It is the closing blessing and ends with a song that we pray to be in Jerusalem next year again!

" La-Sha-nah  ha-bah-ah

                                                                  bi Yer-ush-ah-lah-yim!"

And Jesus said:

Matthew 5:17
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

Sources: 

*http://judaism.about.com/od/judaismbasics/g/whatiskiddush.htm

**http://www.shaddai.com/feasts/docs/passover-haggadah.pdf

***http://www.jewfaq.org/prayer/shabbat.htm

http://debbie-kwiatoski.suite101.com/the-meaning-of-passover-foods-a50646