Musing on Remembrance — the Seder Meal.
I love the idea of the Seder. When you think this same ritual has been performed for thousands of years…around tables with loved ones and family.
How can you not love that?
My church had a special guest, Janice Scott from Light of Messiah Ministries come Sunday night and lead us through a Seder.
Every table was set with all the symbolic parts...
Here’s some photographs of the event taken by Joe Cardwell.
There was the traditional table on stage.
Six ceremonial foods tell the story of Passover:
* Matzoh, symbolic of the unleavened bread, when the Israelites left in a hurry they didn’t have time to let it rise, eaten while crossing the desert;
* bitter herbs (horseradish), a reminder of the bitterness of slavery;
* roasted lambshank, symbolic of the offering of the lamb they killed and it’s blood that they put on the doorposts so the angel of death passed over their houses;
*a roasted egg, symbol of the life cycle;
* haroset (chopped apples, wine and nuts), representing the brick building material used in Egypt, when Moses asked the pharaoh many times to free them one time he said no and didn’t supply the Israelites with straw to make the bricks, the Israelite task masters were beaten when the brick quota was not made;
* and greens (parsley or celery tops) that symbolize hope/new life.
Stephanie Dickson preparing the egg for her table. How delicately she shells the egg -- she could have her own cooking show.
The feast was instituted by God for the Israelites to remember their deliverance from Egypt.
Passover was so important that the Lord commanded from that time on their year begin with the death of the Passover lamb.
1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. Exodus 12.
Janice Scott and McCormick Anderson - who found the "afikomen". The unleaven bread that was broken, hidden then returned to the table.
I didn’t know he was going to get cash. I would have been a little more assertive in my suggestions to my child where the bread hidden.
Then there was lots of drinking…four cups.
“L’ chaim.”
