Passover 2007

Well, we celebrated our traditional "Christ in the Passover Seder" last night. We were glad we hadn't invited too many people over because Richard had a bad cold this week. It's hard for him to slow down when he gets sick (sometimes it seems like everything's hard in this country). I didn't expect it, be he managed to get us a lamb shoulder so we could have a lamb bone for our seder plate. So, yesterday I had off from teaching and Richard got to take a 4 hour nap. And, then, as you can see "Rabbi Richard" was in fine shape for the seder.

Our friends Kerline and Lesly came over for their first Passover celebration. They enjoyed it....Even if it doesn't look that way in the pictures! :)
By the time we realized that Joy wasn't in any of the pictures, our batteries wore out. I have to get copies of Kerline's pictures to show that Joy was there. :)

Some of you have heard me say that it seems like every year when I prepare for Passover, God shows me something new...well, it happened again this year! I was reading an old booklet that we had in our stuff packed away in Haiti called "The Meaning and Importance of the Jewish Holidays" and I found 2 new things. First, I learned that in the time of Jesus, people went to the temple in Jerusalem to get a lamb for Passover and when they did, the priest would indicate an appropriate (without defect) lamb by pointing to the animal and saying "Behold the lamb." Isn't that amazing since, when John the Baptizer pointed to Jesus he said "Behold the lamb...the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?"
The second thing was that the word "Afikomen" is actually a Greek word and that the tradition of hiding the afikomen began after Jesus died for us. Afikomen means "the one who came." That makes a lot of sense for those of us who believe Jesus is the Messiah because the Afikomen is the "middle matzah" that is taken from the matzah plate, which has three matzah, one on top of each other, broken (like the Messiah who was "crushed for our iniquities" Is 53:5) then wrapped in linen and hidden away until the children joyfully find it (reminding us of Jesus dying, being wrapped in linen and being found alive on the third day).
I really didn't expect to learn new things about Passover this year because we've been celebrating it for more than 10 years now...hmmmm....or maybe I'm so old I forget stuff and then learn it again! Well, if that's the case, just think of what a happy old lady I'll be going around saying "Guess what? I learned something new today!"