“Mah nishtanah ha-lailah hazeh mikol ha-leilot?”
Recognize it? If you were Jewish you would recognize it instantly. It is the question that the youngest child or person at the table asks at the beginning of every Passover or “Pesach” ceremony: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” The celebration of Passover, as we heard, was decreed by God. The child’s question begins the telling of the Jews’ liberation from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. The answer to the question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”, includes a brief review of early Jewish history, a brief narrative of how Abraham rejected idolatry and entered into a covenant with God, a description of the suffering imposed upon the Israelites, a listing of the plagues visited on the Egyptians, and an enumeration of the miracles performed by YAHWEH, the LORD Almighty, to redeem His people (Chabad.org).
This annual celebration centers around a meal and is called a “seder” … which is the Hebrew word for “order” … and there is an order to the celebration or meal … one that has been followed by thousands of generations of Jews since God first called for its institution. Every meal involves the sharing of four cups of wine. The wine represents “freedom” and the four cups can represent a number of things:
The four promises of God to liberate the Jews: (1) “I shall take you out” … (2) “I shall rescue you” … (3) “I shall redeem you” … (4) “I shall bring you.” They represent the four evil decrees of Pharoah: (1) slavery, (2) his order to murder all the male children born to the Hebrew slaves, (3) ordering them drowned in the Nile River, and (4) his command that the Jews collect their own straw to make bricks. They also represent the four exiles of the Jewish people … the Egyptian exile, the Babylonian exile, the Greek exile, and the current exile … and the promise that God will send a messiah … a great king … to bring them together and create a great nation (Explanations for Four Cups of Wine at Passover Seder, learnreligions.com) … or they could represent each of the four letters that make up the unpronounceable name of GOD … Y H W H. A fifth cup of wine is poured and set aside for the prophet Elijah in the hopes that this is the year that he shows up, heralding the arrival of the next and final messiah or king.
Remember … the name “seder” represents an “order” of worship that centers around a meal or plate that contains six symbolic ritual foods:
• The “zeroah” or roasted lamb shinbone … which represents the lambs that were sacrificed and eaten on the night that God passed over the Hebrew slaves. It also represents the blood of the lambs that were smeared with a hyssop branch on the lintel and door posts of the Jewish homes. The word “zeroah” means “arm” and also represents the outstretched arm of YAHWEH.
• The ”baytsah” or roasted egg. It stands in place of the sacrificial offerings that were performed in the days of the Second Temple. It also represents the Jewish people who get tougher the hotter things get for them. The baytsah, or roasted egg, is not eaten.
• The “maror” or bitter herbs. Any bitter herb can be used but the most common is horseradish. The purpose of the bitter herbs is to bring tears to the eyes and recall the bitterness of slavery. It is a call for the participants to remember their own bitter enslavement, whether through addiction or habit.
• The “charoset,” which is a salad or paste made up of apples, nuts, wine, and cinnamon. It represents the mortar used by the Hebrew slaves to make bricks.
• The “karpas” … which is a green leafy vegetable, typically parsley, which represents the freshness of springtime.
• The “chazeret” is the name for the second round of bitter herbs, typically romaine lettuce or the leaves from a horseradish plant or carrot, and represents the same thing as the maror or first round of bitter herbs.
• Salt water represents the tears shed during their time of slavery. The traditional practice is to dip the “karpas” … or parsley … into the salt water, followed by dipping and eating a hard-boiled egg in the salt water … but not the baytsah or roasted egg. As I said, that one is not eaten.
• Finally, we have the three pieces of matzah, unleavened bread … recalling the haste with which the Jews had to leave Egypt. (The Symbolic Foods at a Passover Seder. Dummies.com.)
The reason I’ve gone into such detail is to show you the “story” behind the meal or ceremony. The ceremony begins with the telling of the story of God’s powerful display of power in liberating the Hebrews from Pharoah and Egypt. Each item, each piece of food during the meal also tells the story … the roasted lamb bone, the bitter herbs, the salt water, the unleavened bread. The goal of the meal is to not only remember but to feel like you are actually there … to not only “hear” the story but to see it, touch it, and taste it. “As we eat the bitter foods of affliction and poverty,” said one author, “the Exodus becomes a reality” (What is a Seder (Passover Meal)? Chabad.org). The meal ends with the celebrants thanking God for having set His people free from Egypt and a prayer for God’s final redemption of His people.
The Jews also celebrate “Pentecost.” Actually, their celebration of Pentecost precedes ours by many centuries. The Hebrew word for “Pentecost” is “Shavuot” and it means the same thing as “Pentecost” … which is “fifty” … signifying that it occurs 50 days after the first day of Passover. Not as well known among gentiles as, say, Passover, it is considered to be of equal importance as Passover because it commemorates the single most important event in the history of Israel next to their liberation from Egypt … and that is the giving of the Law … with a capital “L” … the Torah … or first five books of the Bible … to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Shavuot is one of three “pilgrimage” festivals or celebrations in which Jewish males were required to observe at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem before it was destroyed (What is Shavuot – The Jewish Passover? International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, June 1, 2022; ifcj.org).
Originally, Shavuot was a “harvest festival” commanded by God in Exodus 23:16 in which the people brought the first fruits of their harvest and presented them to the LORD at the Temple. With the destruction of the Second Temple and the expulsion of the Jewish people from their land in 70 CE, the celebration of “Shavuot” focused more on the anniversary of the giving of the Torah to Moses at Mt. Sinai … which fell 50 days after the first day of Passover.
“Shavuot” is also called “Atzeret,” which is Hebrew for “completion” and is called that because it completes the work that God began during Passover. “The two holidays, Passover and Shavuot, are linked by more than just [temporal or chronological] proximity,” wrote one author (ifjc.org). The exodus from Egypt, which Passover celebrates, marked the beginning of physical freedom for the Jewish people, but Shavuot is a reminder for the Jews that their physical liberation was incomplete without their spiritual redemption … represented by receiving and obeying God’s Law … again, with a capital “L.” “The Jews gained their freedom from Egypt on Passover in order to receive the Torah on Shavuot” (ifcj.org).
There is no prescribed “seder” or religious order to the observance of Shavuot. Aside from the traditional festival observances of attending special prayer services and refraining from work, it is customary to adorn homes and synagogues with flowers and foliage as a reminder that Shavuot was first and foremost an agricultural harvest festival and that it serves as a reminder that we, like our ancient predecessors, are to feel indebted to God for our material blessings.
Like Passover, Shavuot involves a meal … two meals, actually … a dairy meal and, after a short interruption, a traditional holiday meal. “There are a number of reasons given for this. On the holiday in ancient times, a two-loaf bread offering was brought to the Temple” (ifcj.org) something that they can’t do today because the Temple still doesn’t exist. The dairy meal usually features such dairy treats as cheesecake and cheese blintzes. The two meals also symbolize Israel … a land flowing with milk and honey. Since Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah to Moses, which happens to fall on Shabbat … or the Sabbath … no cattle can be slaughtered for Shavuot and no utensils can be prepared as kosher as specified in the Torah, so the people are allowed to eat dairy (ifcj.org).
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel, one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, wrote: “Much of the Bible’s demands can be comprised in one word … Remember” (Burghardt, W. Seasons that Laugh or Weep. New York: Paulist Pub.; 1983; p. 7) … which is why, I believe, that God commanded us to set up special days and special celebrations and activities … to “remember.” Celebrations, along with their attendant activities, makes God’s loving presence in our past real within our present. “The past breathes again, in such a way,” says author and speaker Trevor Hudson, “that the present is injected with new life. … Our sense of who we are and to whom we belong is nourished and sustained” (Hudson, T. Discovering Our Spiritual Identity. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books; 2010; p. 36).
Jesus understood this … obviously … since He was Emmanuel … God Incarnate … at the time that He commanded His Disciples to “remember” Him every time that they sat down together at the Passover meal and shared bread and wine. The elements of our traditional Communion meal are a “seder” … it has an “order” to it … and each of the elements, like the food served during a Passover seder, has a specific and special meaning. Just as the bitter herbs, the bowl of salty water, the charoset … or sweet mortar … remind the Jews of their suffering, the broken bread reminds us of the pain and suffering that Jesus physically experienced on our behalf. The cup of wine represents the beginning of a new covenant, sealed with Jesus’ blood, just as Shavuot represents the beginning of the covenant between God and the Israelites on Mt. Sinai. “Obey My voice,” says God, “and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you” (Jeremiah 7:23) … and the same can be said about our Communion seder … the cup reminds us that all will be well with us when we walk in the ways which God commanded and the ways in which Jesus lived and breathed and walked while He was with us here on earth. Like the Passover seder, the Communion seder … the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup … is a celebration of our freedom … freedom from sin and the hope of an eternal life with Him.
Now … this isn’t official. Didn’t see this in any commentary or articles that I read … but I feel that our Pentecost … the one that we’re observing and celebrating today … serves the same “completion” that that Shavuot or Atzeret does for the Jews. They received the “Law” from God at Mt. Sinai. We received the Holy Spirit. The Torah or the Law showed them the requirements for a relationship with a holy God … the Holy Spirit makes that relationship possible. Like Passover and Shavuot, Easter … which is what we are celebrating and remembering every time we gather at the Lord’s Table … is connected by the same span of time … 50 days. Shavuot used to be a harvest festival in which we brought the first fruits of our labor and harvest to the Temple and offered them to the Lord … whereas today we remember that God sent His first born as an offering and a sacrifice for our sin … a “harvest,” if you will, of righteousness on our behalf by God.
Pentecost also represents a completion … a kind of “book end” to Jesus’ ministry. If you look at what happened just before the Holy Spirit descended in the upper room, Jesus “presented Himself alive to [His followers] by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This,’ He said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not too many days from now’” (Acts 1:3-5) … echoes of what John the Baptist said at the very start of Jesus’ ministry … “The One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I have baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7-8) … and this is what we see happening at Pentecost.
In order for the Hebrew people to receive the Torah and enter into a covenant with God on Mt. Sinai, they first had to be liberated from Egyptian servitude. In order for Jesus to send us the Holy Spirit, He had to first accomplish His mission here on earth and then return to His rightful place in Heaven. Just as the conditions of the covenant at Mt. Sinai were based on the people agreeing to keep the Law as a sign of their love for God, so Jesus commanded that we show our love for Him and for the Father by keeping the Law and following His teachings. “If you love me,” says Jesus, “you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth … I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me” (John 14:15-18) … something that we also celebrate at this table, right? “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” (The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 10) … “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them. … I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:21, 25-26).
At one point, the Apostle John wrote: “Now [Jesus] said this about the Spirit” … with a capital “S” … “which believers in Him were to receive” … “were” to receive because “as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). The Disciples would not understand what Jesus meant when He said that Temple would be destroyed but that He would build it again in three days until after He was raised from the dead and His disciples “remembered that He had said this” (John 2:22). When the crowds greeted Jesus as He entered into Jerusalem for the final time in the Gospels, Jesus said to the crowds: “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt” and John reported that the Disciples “did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of Him and had been done to Him” (John 12:15-16). This is that moment. Like the two followers on the Road to Emmaus, their eyes and hearts and their minds had been opened to the truth by the Spirit of Truth.
Jesus also warned His Disciples and His followers that they would be arrested and brought before the synagogues, the rulers, and authorities because they were His followers, but He also told them not to worry because the Holy Spirit would teach them what to say at those moments (Luke 12:11-12; Mark 13:11; Matthew 10:19-20). It is shortly after they receive the Holy Spirit that Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin and we see Jesus’ words come true.
Before Jesus left His Disciples and followers to carry on His mission without Him, He commanded them to go and “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19) … and they couldn’t do that without first being baptized, as Jesus had promised, with the baptism of the Holy Spirit themselves. What a glorious beginning to their mission … speaking in dozens of different languages so that a crowd gathered outside and heard the Disciples and followers speaking in their native language (Acts 2:6).
Passover … a time for the Jews and a time for us to remember when God was with His people in the wilderness … guiding them, providing for them, protecting them … after He liberated them from Egypt and led them to a land flowing with milk and honey just as He had promised them. Communion … a time for us to remember, in the words of Jesus, that “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) … and Pentecost to remind us that He is with us always through His Holy Spirit, amen?
Let us once again remember and experience the grace, the love, the sacrifice, and the forgiveness of God by reaffirming our faith and what we believe [refer everyone to page 7 in the hymnal].
