It’s my favorite holiday of the year. I like it more than Christmas and Thanksgiving all rolled together.
For my family, the resurrection celebration kicks off in earnest on Thursday night.
Wait! Thursday? What happens on Thursday?
For the last 20+ years, my family has celebrated Passover as the prelude to crucifixion and resurrection.
When people hear about this, they almost always ask “are you Jewish?” The answer is no. I don’t think I have a drop of Jewish blood in my heritage.
Then why on earth would I celebrate something as odd (and specifically Jewish) as Passover?
If you aren’t up to speed on Passover, it’s the annual celebration of the miraculous exodus of the Jews out of Egypt. In Exodus 12:14, God commands the Hebrews that they are to remember and commemorate the Passover for generations to come.
This was God’s way of reminding the Children of Israel every year of how powerful He is and how chosen they were.
I’ve celebrated Passover at home with my immediate family, together with friends and family (think dinner party) and in large settings at three different churches. This year I’ll be leading a Passover Seder for 135 people at my church.
But why?
I always give four reasons.
Reason 1: As a Christian, I leap at any opportunity to remember and celebrate the power of God. Through the Passover ceremony, we gain a whole new perspective on the story in Exodus 5-14. This is the same God we worship, and it’s appropriate to remember and celebrate this mighty work He did.
Reason 2: As Christians, it’s rewarding to see how the Passover points to the Savior. Baked into the middle of a story of redemption, are the elements of the Ultimate Redemption. This is a perspective we bring to the table and it is beautiful to see how it plays out.
Think about this…
On the night that He was going to be betrayed, beaten, mocked and eventually killed, Jesus walked His disciples through the story of the lamb that was sacrificed to purchase life.
It was only hours before He would be doing the same thing on a much, much greater scale.
Reason 3: We celebrate the crucifixion and the resurrection. We know these are things that Jesus did. But we also know that He celebrated the Passover as the last moment of calm with His disciples. It’s the only one of these items activities that we can participate in.
I cannot tell you how rewarding it has been to “walk the path that Jesus walked” as it were. To see what He was seeing and do what He was doing in the last moments before He paid the price for our sins.
Reason 4: In the Passover we learn the origin and the meanings of the elements we use in the Lords Supper (or communion as some call it). Jesus didn’t just invent communion out of thin air. He took elements of the Passover which already had symbolism and meaning and expanded that meaning for us.
- He took bread after dinner, the middle matzah, the only one that had been broken and half of it hidden away. This He declared to represent His body which was for them (and would also be broken and hidden away).
- He took a ceremonial cup of wine, the third one of the evening and declared it to represent His blood and the sign of a new covenant. The cup He chose was already known as “the cup of Redemption.”
I’m getting choked up just trying to write these words.
Every year, I wonder if I’m going to make it through the evening without completely breaking down.
In the Passover I come so close to Jesus and what He was doing that I can’t escape how much He loves me.
Because of celebrating Passover, I am emotionally awake and alert on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Thursday sets the tone for the entire celebration.
This is why Easter is my favorite holiday.
The baby in the manger is nice. So are the gifts.
The turkey on the table is tasty, and I never leave hungry.
But only on Resurrection Sunday are my sins (which are so many) paid for. No other day promises a future of life with Jesus forever.
On Easter, Jesus does far more than part the Red Sea. And He did it for me.
When I wake up on Resurrection Sunday, I will do what I do every year. I’ll play Don Francisco’s He’s Alive as loud as I can, multiple times.
Because, at the end of the day, that’s the only thing that matters.
He is risen!
