Passover

Remember how we celebrated Purim not long ago? Well, it’s the time of year for another Jewish celebration- Passover! It was at Passover that Jesus was crucified and put in the tomb, and rose again three days later.

We’ve gone to two ‘teaching’ passover meals, and learnt SO MUCH about the symbolism involved in Passover. It’s just amazing how much Jesus’ death and resurection is paralled in the Passover traditions. We really love celebrating these Feasts of God that the Jews celebrate- we love jewish people, and Jesus was a jew! The bible and the things Jesus said and do make so much more sense now that we are putting them into context.

Four glasses of wine at Passover, each with their own meaning. Salt water and parsley, Charoset (sweet apple mix), bitter herbs (endive and horseradish), roasted egg. Lamb shank not seen on this plate...

It’s been a big eye opener this last few days about how much I don’t know about my own religion. Being the learning geek that I am, makes me terribly excited- So much more to LEARN!!

Anyway, I took some photos of the first passover meal we went to, for the Seder, but didn’t take any photos of the second one, or the meal I made for my family last night. This is a major bummer, because I was quite proud of what I made!!! Anyway, here are some photos…

I am hankering for a hot cross bun SO BAD, but part of passover is removing all the yeast/leaven from your house, so yep, no bread of any kind for us! Yeast represents sin. God commanded the Isralites to remove it from their houses in Exodus 13:3-7. For Jewish people it’s a reminder of the haste in which they left Egypt, after the plagues, and the very first Passover. For us, removing it is a reminder of what Jesus did for us- removing our sin.

It’s been a constant reminder, and I think I have grown more spiritually, from this passover, and this constant reminder, then I have at any other time of year in my life. I guess because I’m a ‘practical’ and ‘visual’ sort of girl, it makes it easier when there is physical reminder, then just trying to remember…

Passover doesn’t end till Tuesday night. You can be sure that I’ll be making some sort of baked bready delight on Wednesday.

(Dates of Passover, and what to do each day/night here)

The woman of the house lights the candles.

Reading from the Haggadah…

Our Haggadah.

Friends. xo
Aaron & Rachel.

Mmmm… Matzah! *jokes*- this unleavened bread that this crispy like a craker. Tastes quite bland and boring…

Luke- sick of photos probably!

Tags: celebration, feastsofthelord, jewish, passover, photos, reminder, Spiritual, yeast

Purim

I hda mentioned in a previous post that we were celebrating Purim, but hadn’t then shown you the awesome photos from the night!

The story of Purim is this: Mordecai is a bloke who does the King of Persia a favour, and then sits at the city gate. The king’s new Prime-minister, Haman has a bit of a problem with Mordecai because he won’t bown down to him when he walks past. This is because Mordecai is jewish, and yeah, he will only bow down to God. So Haman has this plot to kill Mordecai, which turns into a plot to kill ALL the jews in Persia. Esther is Mordecai’s cousin, and she is the Queen. She’s also jewish.

Haman manges to get the king to agree with his idea to kill them all (not knowing Esther is jewish) and Haman then casts lots to see when the murdering will be done. Mordecai and Esther find out about this plan, and they urge all the Jews to fast and pray for three days, and at the end of the thrid day Esther plans to seek an audience with the King.

Esther has a bit of a feast with the King and invites Haman and Mordecai. The two do not get along… but Esther invites everyone back for a second banquet the next weekend. So they have the next banquet and Esther tells the King that she is jewish, and that Haman is going to kill all her people (including her). Because the decree has already been made he can’t back out on it, but he lets Esther and Mordecai write a new decree, and they make it so that the Jews can fight back. Lots of people die, and Haman is executed by the king. Mordecai because the second in charge now, and creates an annual rememberance of the time the event, so that everyone can remember when the Jews were saved from annihalation.

WOAH. So, that is what Purim is all about. Traditionally the things you do are dress up in fancy dress, give each other gifts, gamble and drink. We did pretty well all of it except our gambling was without money (we played poker), and our drinking was minimal- everyone had to drive home!

It was a really, really fun night, and everyone got really dressed up! We did a ‘secret santa’ (for lack of a better word/phrase), and lots of chocolate went around!

Tags: celebration, feastofthelord, festival, jewish, purim