Submitted by Heather Underwood, Fort Bragg, NC
Maundy Thursday 2004, I was asked by our Chaplain to prepare a fellowship meal commemorating this day. It was a unique time for research for me back then, we were stationed in Italy, and I remember it clearly because I had never heard of it. It was my first Passover dinner even though I didn‘t know that’s what it was. I had rounded up the necessary food items and the notes for the food’s meaning to do the ceremony for the attendees. Foods like a lamb shank bone, a bowl of saltwater, a roasted egg (how do you roast an egg?), matzah, parsley, horseradish, chopped apples mixed with nuts, honey and juice to make a fruit salad type mixture and a lot of grape juice.
Little did I know that the Lord was going to bring me upon a treasure, my eyes well up thinking about it. At the time, I was not as familiar with Passover (Seder), Exodus or the Feast of Unleavened Bread as I am now, however, the Lord let me see His grace and love for His people through it.
Simple foods demonstrate a beautiful story of remembrance. They let us participate in the story of God’s people from the hardships of slavery to liberation. Amazingly simple and yet very profound.
The four cups of wine (a whole lot of juice) are named after the work that the Lord was doing in Exodus 6:6-7.
- The Cup of Sanctification: Therefore say to the children of Israel: `I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage and…
- The Cup of Judgment: …I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments…
- The Cup of Redemption: …I will take you as My people, and I will be your God…
- The Cup of Thanksgiving, Consummation or the Kingdom Cup: …Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
For believers, Passover gained even more significance when Jesus celebrated the Seder just before his death, and instituted a memorial, which we call the Lord’s Supper. He used the traditional elements of broken matzah and the third cup of wine, The Cup of Redemption, to point to himself as the sacrificial lamb who was to die for our sins.2
As the sun sets on the first month of the year (Exodus 12:1), fourteen days later, God tells the children of Israel to sacrifice a lamb or a goat without blemish and place the blood on doorposts of the entrance to their household in which they eat it (Exodus 12:5-7.) Then the LORD will Passover [Hebrew: Pasach] you. (Exodus 12:13b.)
As my family prepares this year for Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, I am humbled by the sacrifice Jesus made for us; and how we get to participate during this beautiful Holy Week in remembrance of our new life in Him! One day we will share the fourth cup, The Cup of Thanksgiving, Consummation with our Bridegroom in His Kingdom!
“Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” (Revelation 19:9)
Excerpts taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version, and Celebrations of the Bible, A Messianic Children’s Curriculum
