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| Our little Seder grew to 54 people. Despite the size, all of us still had a great time. |
I feel clean, spiritually. After a week of studying Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits, meditating on the Word, praying and worshipping with my MP3 player—I feel clean. In preparing a sermon for Pesach Shabbat, I began to look into the historical, typological and eschatological significance of Passover and their implication on our lives today. I imagined myself delivering a profound message on the typology and symbolism of the Seder; but, as I prayed, this was not the direction that I was led go. Throughout the week, a simple refrain kept coming to mind, “You're mine; live like it.”
The Passover Haggadah and the foods eaten during the Seder serve as a mnemonic devices which are designed to remind us of Who God is and what He did for the children of Israel. During the Seder, 4 Questions are asked by the youngest person present. These 4 Questions, which were developed by the sages as a response to Exodus 12:26-27, are the backbone of the Haggadah and the Passover story. The 'youngest person' who asks the 4 Questions represents the next generation who will take this ritual and pass it along to their children who will, likewise, pass it along to their offspring and so on. Once again we see the importance of a multigenerational faith in the preservation of the ways of God.
Because of the nature of the Moedim, no one festival can stand alone. They are all inextricably connected, in other words—they cannot be separated. Since Passover is the first festival in the cycle of the Moedim (Leviticus 23), it's significance and relevance to the other festivals cannot be easily overlooked. During the Passover Seder the story of the redemption of God's people is told as we follow the Haggadah. We are reminded of their freedom from Egypt where they were slaves to Pharaoh. We recount their deliverance through the signs, miracles and wonders of Yahweh. In their freedom, we can make a connection to the spiritual freedom from the bondage of sin that we experienced through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, Yeshua. Because of this, the Seder also serves to remind us of who we are—Children of God.
During the Seder dinner and throughout the seven days of Unleavened we are commanded to eat matzah, unleavened bread. During the season of Passover leaven is symbolic of 'sin'. Before the Passover Seder, we are commanded to rid our homes of leaven and likewise rid our hearts of spiritual leaven, or sin. This is an important principle to catch during this season because a sinful person cannot come into the presence of a holy God. At the Passover Seder we are reminded that God brought us out of Egypt, He delivered us, redeemed us and made us His people. During the seven days of Unleavened Bread we are reminded of the 'unleavened' life we are now called to lead as His chosen people. A life submitted to His Will. A life lived righteously based on the standards found in His Torah. We are His, we need to live like it.
As a symbol of rededicating our lives to Messiah during this season, we 'took a mikveh' on First Fruits. We immersed ourselves in the water and came out new 'clean' people. Like my son said, "we are being re-charged, like a battery" ready for another year and another cycle of the Moedim. During this Counting of the Omer season leading up to Shavuot, we purpose to continue to examine our lives and to continually rid our hearts of the 'leaven of malice and evil ' when we discover it. We want to be more like Messiah. We want to be vessels that the Ruach can dwell in. We understand that we are Children of God. We want to live like it.
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