The Christian Passover

Some Christians eager to connect with their religion's roots in the Hebrew Bible also fashion a Christianized seder to reflect the common assumption that the Last Supper was a Passover seder. But scholars point out that the Gospels disagree among themselves over whether the Last Supper took place on Passover or on the day before. And in Jesus' time the seder service was not set in the way we know it today.

These Christianized seders show the Passover story as merely the prelude to the advent of Jesus. This distresses some Jews and Christians. "It's deceptive to introduce Christian themes into the Jewish seder. When you start talking about Jesus, that is no longer a seder. That is a different creation altogether," a vehicle for preaching or proselytizing, says Rabbi Neil Gillman, professor emeritus of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

from the story "Is Passover the New Christmas?
by Diane Cole
The Wall Street Journal

Just when you thought it was safe for Christians and Messianics to celebrate the Passover, another monkey wrench comes flying into the machine.

It's been awhile since I've seen a good knock-down-drag-out, Messianic Judaism, One Law, Bilateral Ecclesiology free-for-all in the Messianic blogosphere. We've all been (amazingly) well behaved, blogging about actual theological and faith issues, and pretty much not stepping on each others toes. I was almost convinced that these issues were settled between Christians and Jews, at least as far as Passover was concerned. Then I read Cole's story.

The interesting part is that my wife was the person who emailed this story to me, right before Passover started (about an hour before candle lighting). Reading the article, I couldn't help but consider that my congregation, a group of Christians from my wife's point of view, were going to be having one of those "Christianized seders" about 24 hours hence (last Tuesday night, actually). My wife denied having any ulterior motives for sending me the email. She told me she just thought I'd find the article interesting, but if she wasn't trying to send me a "message" consciously, I still wonder about what was lurking somewhere in the inner reaches of her brain pan. Maybe I'm being overly concerned.

I'm also really, really surprised this issue didn't come up in our little corner of cyberspace. It seems like all of the "angst" of what I call "strict Messianic Judaism" as driven by the concept of Bilateral Ecclesiology (coined in Mark Kinzer's book, Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism and blogged about by Derek Leman and Gene Shlomovich, among others) has evaporated into a soft, gentile mist.

There was a time when, if any non-Jew did anything Jewish, the opposing comments from Jews in "the movement" would have been swift and decisive. Has everyone just gotten tired of arguing? Why no cries of outrage at Baptists and Methodists conducting their own Seders? Why no vocal protests against Gentile "Messianics" leading their own Seders and declaring themselves free from slavery in Egypt?

I'll make the situation even worse. I'll mention Jewish/Gentile intermarried couples as quoted from Cole's article:

The changing demographics of American Jewry have played a role, too. Before 1970, only 13% of married American Jews were married to non-Jews. By the turn of the 21st century, that figure was 47%, according to the National Jewish Population Survey. As a result, interfaith couples and families have had a growing presence at Passover seder tables, both as guests and as hosts.

For some of these families, the seder—which has a recognizable theme and generally takes place at someone's home, rather than at a synagogue—provides a comfortable introduction to Jewish ritual. That's one message of the recently published book by journalists Cokie and Steve Roberts, Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families. Themselves an intermarried couple (he's Jewish, she's Catholic), the Robertses have for decades hosted a Passover seder, mostly for other interfaith families.

Gentile/Jewish intermarrieds are another "hot button" issue that tends to touch a nerve in both Messianic and non-Messianic Jewish circles although, according to the statistic presented in the above-quoted statement, almost half of all U.S. Jews are married to non-Jews, so it must be the other half that's upset about it (or non-intermarried Jews in other nations, especially Israel). Additionally, the vast majority of Jews in the Messianic movement as a whole are themselves intermarried. It seems interfaith couples are not only bringing non-Jews to the Seder table, but into the worship of the Jewish Messiah as well.

In addition to Rabbi Gillman's objections to "Christianized seders", some Christian authorities are also concerned about Christians entering into the Passover arena:

Hal Taussig, pastor of Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church in Philadelphia and a visiting professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary, says that after presiding over Christianized seders from the mid-1970s to mid-'80s, he had second thoughts. He chose to stop the practice, he says, because he recognized "the ways in which such a service replaces the Jewish celebration with a Christian one." And that, concludes Rev. Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, "makes Jews invisible."

While the portion of the Messianic world of which I am aware has chosen to remain silent regarding Gentiles and the Passover, both traditional Judaism and Christianity have taken up the banner and gone on record in asking us, "just what the heck do you think you're doing?"

What are we doing? Are we making Jews "invisible"?

My family and I have had Seders in our home before. I didn't really think it was inappropriate for me to lead the Seder as a Christian husband to a Jewish wife, but a few days ago, I had the distinct feeling of being uncomfortable. This is the first Seder we've had in our home since my wife has become so closely associated with our local Chabad community. In some ways, she's becoming increasingly Jewish right before my eyes. I don't object to this in the slightest, but I am mindful that it creates something of a gulf between us along the axis of our separate (and increasingly separating) faiths. I'm not sure anymore how much of Judaism I should try to connect to and still not seem like a caricature in my wife's eyes.

Like my marriage, Christians and Jews operate on the same planet (and in the case of my wife and me, in the same home) but not always in the same worlds. More accurately put, we operate in overlapping worlds, but just how far can we go before my Christian presence in her Jewish world becomes uncomfortable to her? We've seen this question played out in the Messianic movement time and again, and the current Christian fascination with "seeing Christ in the Passover" only heightens the "experience". If the "last supper" of Jesus (Yeshua) wasn't a Passover Seder, the imagery and symbolism of the Passover is still undeniably imposed on his last meal, and on his death. It may be uncomfortable for Judaism to accept this, but Christianity has a tangible link to the Passover, thanks to the Jewish Messiah (though he's not currently recognized as such by Judaism as a whole), and now we have to decide how to respond to it.

The "sacrament" of Holy Communion is the way the church has traditionally adapted the "bread/body" and "wine/blood" aspects introduced by Jesus, but that, and Easter, may be redundant and even misguided. While they make Judaism feel more secure because Communion and Easter separate Christian observances of "last supper" events from Passover, they also (in my opinion) don't honor the original intent and context of that last "Meal of the Messiah". That said, should Christians stick to Communion and Easter and leave Passover to the Jews? Did the Jewish Messiah open the door to a Christian application for the Passover, making Easter unnecessary? Is there a mandate for Christians to celebrate both Passover and Easter, or is that making a much larger mess out of an already confused situation?

Jesus said that, "many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 8:11). If we're good enough to sit down at a meal with the Patriarchs, why can't we sit down at a Seder with them as well?

Addendum: A scientist claims to have definitively dated the last supper and resolved the conflict between the different Gospel versions of this event. I'm dubious, but have a look for yourself.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.