Celebrating Our First Passover Supper
Last night we had our first Passover/Seder Supper as a family (plus my friend's sweet little guy who was visiting us). It took a bit of extra effort to pull it all together, as I only came up with the idea to do it on Monday, but it was well worth it!
I tried my best to come up with a proper meal for the occasion, while sticking to my "Eating from the pantry and freezer" month (I confess- at the last moment, I asked my husband to pick up grape juice, because I couldn't come up with a suitable alternative. 🙂
We began eating our Jewish Chicken Soup with Matzoh Balls, which actually turned out to be really delicious. While we ate our soup, Ryan very dramatically (if you knew my husband, this wouldn't surprise you in the slightest!) told us the story of the Exodus and how God protected and rescued His people, passing over them because of the blood of the Passover Lamb.
Next, we began to share the significance of the different foods and drink on our table:
Being fresh out of bitter herbs *smile*, I substituted some kale I had in the fridge (though I liked Michele's idea of grabbing dandelion greens from my yard and that would have been my next option). We dipped pieces of it in salty water, and discussed the bitterness of the Israelites slavery and of our bondage to sin, and the saltiness of tears.
The unleavened bread, like the Israelites would have made in haste as they prepared to leave Egypt. We reflected on the fact that our sin and pride puffs up our hearts, like yeast puffs up bread, but Jesus was sinless and pure, and He gave His body to be broken for us.
The haroset was eaten last, made with apples, nuts (which I thought I didn't have, but realized we had whole nuts for cracking in the freezer, so we spent over a 1/2 hour cracking nuts!), honey, cinnamon and apple juice. We rejoiced in the fact that Jesus gives us hope, and He is sweeter than anything else.
(Oops, I need to learn how to remove lip and finger smudges off wineglasses in Photoshop!)
Last, we enjoyed a special glass of grape juice and celebrated that Jesus became our Passover Lamb, atoning for our sins with his blood.
We all prayed together, and each person thanked Jesus for what He had done for us.
We finished the supper by reading the children the story of Jesus' crucifixion, seeing as we wouldn't be able to eat dinner together for Good Friday (my husband is acting and singing in our church's Easter production and will be at rehearsal before the play begins tonight).
It was a truly memorable evening, and one that I am so glad I went through the effort to pull together. We will definitely do this again next year, as it is such beautiful opportunity to share with our children the truth of the Gospel in a meaningful and very tangible way. I'm even more excited for Easter Sunday now, and so is my daughter especially, who understands what we are celebrating so much better than before!
I'm signing off until next week, in order to enjoy the rest of my husband's day off and a special weekend together with our family, celebrating that our Lord is risen indeed! Have a blessed Easter!
Do you (or have you ever) celebrated a Passover Supper? What did you think of the experience? How does your family celebrate Easter week and and how do you communicate it's meaning to your children?
Your dinner looks lovely. This year was our 2nd passover seder. We have a book about the Biblical Holidays and Feasts that we glean ideas from for passover, hanukkah and other Biblical holidays. Our meal was lamb, parsley salad, charoset, macaroons and grape juice. My husband reads from Exodus and we talk about the significance of each food, as you do.
Hello! I have just recently found your blog, but this is my first comment! 🙂 We also just had our first Passover Dinner ever! I posted pictures and our Seder order on my blog if you are interestd. 🙂 I LOVED IT! I am so thankful that we did it. We also homeschool and did an entire unit on Passover, I have learned so much myself about all of this and was so excited to finish our unit with this Seder Dinner.
I think you did a great job for the last minute and it is always a great time when you discuss and priase Jesus. God bless.
We’ve done a Seder every year since we’ve been married; we have lamb and matzoh ball soup with a vegetable (this year, latkes) as the festive meal and then we have the Seder tray during the ritual. 🙂 Then, at the end, my husband serves us Communion with the matzoh and the wine. It’s very meaningful (non-wine drinkers, like pregnant me, get sparkling cider or grape juice).
I am inspired to do this next year. A little late this one 🙂 Thank you for taking time to share pictures and a description. Have a blessed Easter!
My in-laws celebrate Passover every year! I missed it this year b/c I was sick, but my husband went. My MIL has Hagaddahs (sp?) that talk about the significance of Jesus in Passover. We all read from it and do all the fun stuff – like hiding the matzah and then letting the kids find it! I like the matzoh ball soup and the boiled (I think they’re supposed to be roasted) eggs. We usually eat Beef Brisket and if my MIL has some of her homemade grape juice, we drink that and it’s so yummy! We also sing praise songs at the table.
I hope to do a real Passover supper next year. This year I’m just making egg and onion matza to share with my extended family tomorrow at their Easter dinner.
I found your blog about a month ago and have been systematically reading every post till I got caught up 🙂 I’ve loved reading your posts and have learned so much from you. You should see my bookmarks list, it’s basically 3/4ths Keeper of the Home links!
I’m so blessed to see other Christian families celebrating a Passover. We have lost so much of the significance by not practicing this special meal. I’ve lost track on how many we have had in our own home, but because my husband is a pastor, Easter morning is very busy. It can make contemplative worship a bit difficult if I am not well prepared ahead of time. Celebrating the Passover prepares me spiritually and excites my soul!
I invite your readers to read my own Passover post which will be “post-passover”, BUT…now is the time for everyone to make plans and prepare for next year!
May your heart rejoice this Easter season in Jesus Christ our Lord and His sacrifice on our behalf!
We celebrated our second Passover last night. We really enjoy it, but it can be a bit trying with a 2 1/2 year old. It is so exciting to be able to tie the Old Testament to the New Covenant in Jesus. I have really enjoyed this Easter week and hate to see it come to an end. I love reading about all the Christian families celebrating a Seder meal.
It is so great to know we worship a risen, living King!! Thank you Jesus.
Many blessings!!
We just celebrated our first Passover too! It was great and will be a new Easter tradition, I’m sure…
We’ve done three years of Passover seders and each year it gets better and better. My husband is a Christian Jew and he loves how connected it makes him feel with his heritage yet blessed that he has truely been saved – not just from the slavery in Egypt but from slavery from sin. In the past years we’ve done it with non-Christian friends but this year we did it with our bible study group and it was really meaningful. We cook the lamb and I did a dish and everyone else brings dishes of food or drink. We celebrate Easter week by going to the Good Friday and Easter Sunday church – commemorating both Jesus’s death and resurrection. Our son is only 18 months but as he gets older we want to change our seder so that he can partake in it as well and come to understand his Jewish-Christian heritage! I feel so encouraged to see so many Christians wanting to celebrate passover!
First time on your site. I enjoyed reading about your passover meal.My husband and I with our five children just celebrated God’s goodness with a passover meal.It also was our first time and decided a couple days in advance. It was wonderful. I can’t believe as followers of Christ that we have never done this before.It is so foundational to our faith with Jesus at the center of passover!
I enjoyed this post. We would like to do a Passover meal one year. :0)
I am new to your site and I just LOVE it. We have five kids and we have done our own faux passover celebrations for four years now. We raise our own lambs so we get to do the whole “butcher the lamb” for the passover thing and we make unleavened bread and use grape juice. We leave a set place with an empty chair at the head of the table as a reminder that one day “Jesus will again drink of the fruit of the vine” with us in His kingdom. It is a poignant and wonderful tradition for us.
We also keep all the typical commercial easter stuff out away from our celebration of Passover/Ressurection. We stock up on all things bunnies, eggs, chocolate and spring when we can get them 50% off AFTER Easter and then we keep them for our May Day celebration (which doesn’t neccesarily fall on May 1st, but whenever we are ready for it!) and have a huge celebration of this glorious season of Spring and the new hope it represents.
This works for us since things only start greening up around here in the beginning of May.
I don’t often read back on people’s sites, but I am DEFINITELY anticipating taking this week to peruse and absorb many of your wonderful past posts.
Looks like you did a fantastic job! Our first go at Passover was rather clumsy trying to fumble through the Hagadah. Since then it has blessed our family immensely. Now we’ve jumped onto the other festivals as well!