Seder Dinner

I attended a Seder Dinner at church last night, the Host was a Jewish man who now has faith in Jesus, he walked us through the events of the passover dinner, and also the symbolism that points to Jesus.

Passover is a religious ceremony instituted by the God to memorialize the time when He delivered the descendants of Abraham out of slavery in Egypt. The word Seder refers to order, the order of events in which Jews remember their delivery out of Egypt.

On Passover, no leavened bread is to be eaten. Leavening represents sin, just as the leavening puffs up the bread, sin puffs us up. So, a week before Passover all leavened bread is removed from the house, symbolic of cleansing the body of sin.

On the table there are 3 peices of unleavened bread, or Matzah. They are stored in a 3 section container as pictured below.

This 3 section container represents the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To begin the ceremony, the man of the house removes the matzah from the middle section and breaks it in half, he wraps one half in a white cloth and hides it to be found later.  but the part we participated in began with a piece of unleavened bread

Next they eat parsely dipped in salt water to symbolize tears of the egyptians, onions or bitter root to symbolize the bitter feelings, horse radish on matzah to cause pain and symbolize the cleansing of sin, sweet apples in between two peices of matzah to symbolize the deliverence from the egyptians, and egg dipped in salt water. 

Then the children are sent to find the hiddent peice of matzah, and the kid who finds it is given a reward.

The matzah itself represents Jesus, it has stripes to symbolize the whip marks, it is peirced as Jesus was on the cross, and it is bruised just as jesus was. The act of breaking the bread and burying it in cloth represents jesus being broken and buried. Later it is brought back just as Jesus rose again.

I didnt explain the ceremony completely, but I found it amazing to see how God is so intelligent and thoughtful in all that he does. It breaks my heart that the Jewish people missed the coming of the messiah and are still waiting for Him to come. We prayed that their eyes would be opened to the precious gift that has already been given to them.

If you are interested in learning more this video is the same as the dinner I attended, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVolBDlWloQ