The Oddly Scheduled Passover

“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do. -Exodus 12:14-16

On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”

The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. -Mark 14:12-16

I hadn't planned to blog about Passover. This time of year in the Jewish and Messianic blogospheres, you'll find an abundant amount of material on the subject, so I thought whatever I chose to contribute would be redundant. Then a couple of things happened.

Last Sunday, my son David asked if we (as a family) were going to have a Seder. Sadly, we don't always have one. I attend the community Seder at my congregation and my wife usually attends the Chabad Seder. Schedules being what they are, we don't always have the "bandwidth" to organize and conduct a private home Seder as well. David hasn't been to a Seder in a number of years and particularly since he joined the Marines and then got married (he was honorably discharged about eight months ago), and his wife and son have never experienced a Seder. Seizing the opportunity, I asked my wife if we could have a family Seder this year and yesterday evening, I got my answer.

As I was getting ready to leave home to teach my class, my wife and daughter pulled into the garage and unloaded supplies of wine and matzah (kosher for Passover, of course). As a husband and father, I'm often "out of the loop" as to what the family is planning so I asked when we would be having our Seder.

Sunday.

What?

As most of you reading this know, this year, Passover officially begins at sundown on Monday, April 18th. My wife just told me we'd be having our Seder exactly 24 hours early.

There's a practical reason for this. We usually have the kids (and my grandson) over for a family dinner every Sunday evening. It's something we all look forward to, and we get to enjoy some good food and good company, and it's a fine way to end the weekend. Sunday evening fits into everyone's schedule. So my wife's logic told her that it would be a good time to have our family Seder.

It bothers me.

OK, despite the fact that some people might think I have a few goofy theological ideas, I'm something of a traditionalist. I like attending Seders during the week of Unleavened Bread. I believe it is what God intended.

At this juncture, you may well ask yourself what I'm worked up about since, not being Jewish, the various commandments regarding Passover observance don't specifically apply to me. To answer, I've been attending Passover Seders for decades, long before I became religious. I've had Jewish friends all of my adult life and have always appreciated and enjoyed being invited to their Seders. There's something about the Haggadah and the essence of the Seder that weaves its way into the fabric of my being. Also, while I may not be commanded to observe the Passover, I'm married to a Jewish woman who is, I have Jewish children who are, and although a Goy, I'm head of a family where all of the "nuclear" members are Jewish. We should celebrate the Passover "on time". Beyond all of that, I'm a Gentile disciple of the Jewish Messiah. The Jewish Messiah observed the Passover each year. Some say his last meal was a Passover Seder.

But my family will be observing the Passover a day early. Has this ever happened before?

Maybe.

Depending on which Gospel you read, Jesus (Yeshua) and his inner circle had their Passover Seder either on the first day of Passover after sundown or the day before. It's impossible to resolve the differences between the different Gospel versions (to see what I mean, read Derek Leman's blog posts: Passover, Last Supper, Crucifixion: 2011 Notes, Part 1 and Part 2).

If you read Mark's version (Mark 14:12-26), then Jesus and his disciples conducted their Seder on the 14th day of the month of Nissan (which began at Sundown in the traditional and religious way of counting days in Judaism). In this version, the sacrifices of the Passover lambs at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem wouldn't occur until after the following sunrise and would be happening at the same time that Jesus was slowly and painfully dying on the cross. That's Mark's version, at least as rendered by D. Thomas Lancaster at First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ). You'll understand what I mean by that last comment in a moment.

Every Passover, at my congregation's community Passover Seder, I read part of the chapter "One Long Day" from Lancaster's book King of the Jews. It recounts in exquisite detail, the day Jesus died, based on Mark's Gospel. It is a heartrending rendition, juxtaposing the trial, torture, crucifixion, and death of the Jewish Messiah against the virtually endless stream of Jews offering a vast sea of Lambs as sacrifices at the Temple, in accordance with the commandments. As thousands upon thousands of Passover lambs were bleeding and dying at the hands of the Temple Priests, the Lamb of God was bleeding and breathing his last at the hands of a faithless humanity.

There isn't a dry eye in the house by the time I'm finished reciting the chapter.

There are many scholarly opinions about why the timing of the "Last Supper" and the crucifixion don't line up in the Gospels, but I'm not here to address, let alone "solve" this mystery. However, to resolve my own "timing" conflict, I'm choosing to consider my family's early Passover Seder as a connection to Mark's telling of the Messiah's "Haggadah"; the speaking and relating of the Messiah's journey and the Passover, if you will, that results from his suffering, death, and resurrection; the Passover that can be accessed by all human beings if we believe and declare God's Lamb as Lord.

When I lead my family's Passover Seder at the start of the 14th of Nissan, I will have Jesus on my mind. One justification for Jesus and his disciples having their Seder a day early was that he desired anxiously to celebrate the Passover with them and knew that, the next day, he wouldn't be consuming the Lamb, he would be "consumed" as the Lamb. Next Sunday evening, during our telling of the Passover, I will choose to accept for that day, how Mark told of the Messiah's last Seder. I will envision breaking the matzah with him, drinking wine with him, and when I eat the maror and charoset, I will experience the bitterness of his suffering and death, and the sweetness of his resurrection,and the life we all have in him.

Chag Pesach Sameach. Happy Passover.

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