SEASONS - SPRING BEGINS WITH A FAMILY PASSOVER SEDER - PART THREE

The Afikkoman ritual has been a part of the Passover ceremony since Second Temple times.  

It would have been included in the Passover services during the days that Jesus walked the earth.  

Can you think of Him as a very young boy participating with Joseph and Mary and his brothers and sisters? 

The Greek word aphikomenos means  “He is coming,”  and clearly suggests Messianic overtones. 

Three matzot, one of which is broken, is an image of the triune nature of God – with the focus on the broken middle piece of matzah, which is a picture of the Suffering Servant of the LORD. 

Consider that this piece is taken, 

wrapped up, 

carefully hidden from view, 

only to be discovered at the end of the Seder by little children.  

This is an image of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  
He was taken, pierced and crucified: at His death His body was wrapped in white linen cloth:  He was hidden away in a grave in a cave; the next morning He was found by His disciples, those who had learned to come with the heart of a child before Him; He was found resurrected!

Only after partaking of the Lamb of God who was slain for our transgressions do we understand and take hold of the reward given to those who seek for Him with the heart of a child.

Even though all four of our children are now grown, they, have in the past, enjoyed looking for where the matzot has been hidden by their Father.  Soon we will have grandchildren old enough to do this!  What joy it will be to see them find and discover the mysteries of Christ!  We always give a prize to the winner.  I have come to see this act as symbolic of Our Father in Heaven giving rewards to His children when they have found Christ and are safely inside The Kingdom of God forever. 

Here I might add a word of caution to anyone planning a Passover Seder in this age and time.  The ways of the world are all around us now, and even the church is full of false worship and deception.  Mankind has made his own traditions.  Not everyone will relate to your tradition and you may often find it a struggle to carry on against so many other worldly traditions. Jesus never said following HIm would be easy.   I urge you to go prayerfully on and do what you believe, in spite of this, but do not be legalistic or try to force others to believe what only God can open up their eyes to.  A Passover celebration is only valid when people come with open hearts truly desiring to worship God in the way He has shown us through His Son Jesus Christ and His people, Israel.  If people don't understand this, just pray for them and keep living your life before them.  With many it takes time for the real truth to seep into their hearts and minds.  Often our children, even though we have taught them well, get distracted by the things of the world and do not make time for the things most precious to us.  When this happens I remind myself that it is nothing compared to what our Heavenly Father has experienced from His children for ages.    The world has quite a sway especially for young adults these days.  We are not legalistic and we accept our children's answers when they decide not to participate, yet we still hold out the invitation each year.  They seem to go through stages, like all young people do.  When they come, we welcome them with open arms and happy hearts, and often when we know the family will be small that year, we invite others who are looking for a good place to celebrate the Passover.  Last year we only had one of our children who was able to be with us, but we had a house full of other good friends who are passionate about the things of Christ.  I often think of it as another example of coming out of Egypt.  When Moses first announced the plan many were hesitant and had to consider a long time before deciding to move with God's people.  Some hesitated before sprinkling the blood over their door post.  We live in the same type of world where people are bound up in things that will not allow them to be free, yet see those things as a false form of freedom.  I pray patiently and give these things to God and we extend hospitality to anyone who wants to join us.  Usually our own family begins to think and remember what they know in their hearts and they return to rejoice the next time.  

Life is a journey.  

Life is a learning process.  

We are forever thankful for those who chose to walk along beside us on the way!

With our minds focused on “The Lamb of God” represented by the Motzah, 

we often watch a musical video presentation of “WATCH THE LAMB”, which was beautifully acted out, and sung by Ray Boltz.   You may find it on You-Tube.

I've included it in this blog for your viewing:

There is usually not a dry eye at the table after this video.  I think it is one of the most touching video presentations ever.  You can find any of the video presentations mentioned in this blog on You Tube. 

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

God commands that children are to learn from the Passover experience.  Even us "grown" children have things to learn....  

Every year a child will learn a little more of the truth.  Life is nothing but a long learning process, and we are all always learning!  

We tell our grown children:  

“This is a tradition that you will be able to pass down to your children one day, the tradition of The Asking of The Four Questions.”  It was stated in hopes that we will one day have so many grandchildren that we will have to buy a bigger table!

A child should ask each question before we begin the telling of the story.  At most of our celebrations we have let each of our grown children read one question each, being that they are four and there are exactly four questions:  One day their children will follow in their footsteps and take over their readings.

1.     Why do we eat only unleavened bread on this night when all other nights we eat either leavened bread or matzah?

2.     Why do we eat only bitter herbs on this night when all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables?

3.    Why do we dip our vegetables twice on this night when we do not dip our vegetables even once all other nights?

4.    Why do we eat our meals reclining or leaning on this night, when on all other nights we eat our meals sitting?

 The answers to all of these questions are found in the telling of the story. 

 (We pour the Second Cup at this point, but do not drink it yet.)

(To be continued in Part Four)

SEASONS - SPRING BEGINS WITH A FAMILY PASSOVER - PART TWO

Just before we began our Passover meal ,

We will show a video of a fabulous group of dancers called The Silhouettes.  They tell the story without a word, just dances that appear like shadows on the wall!   

Words could not describe the story better. 

Here is a photo of us watching a few years ago; under the photo I will post the video for  anyone who wishes to view.  You can find it on You-tube.

Everyone was spell bound by the awesome presentation of the silent story,told only through shadows that changed and formed new shadows. 

  

Isn't this an awesome way to tell the story?  Enjoy!
In many ways Passover was and is a SHADOW of  the things to come.

We always know every Passover that we will hear the same story we have heard  last year and a million times before; but in a million different little ways we have come to  realize that we will learn something new each time.  You think you know it all, then you hear the story again and God shows you something else that is totally amazing.  

It is a wonderful mystery!

We begin our meal after sunset with the lighting of the Passover Candles.  

I, as the eldest woman of our household, have the priviledge of saying the candle lighting prayer. 

"Blessed art Thou, Lord Our God, Master of the Universe, who sanctifies us with Your commandments and commands us to kindle the light of Passover."

My husband, as priest of our home, blesses the first cup - The Cup of Sanctificaton.  The cup that signifies God saying to His people, "I will take you out of Egypt."  

Sanctification here means, to set apart.

At this point there is a song we love to sing together, it is called  The Passover Song, and the You-Tube version of it is included below for your enjoyment too.  

(Written and performed by Shira)

Don't you love the words to the lyrics?  Here they are all spelled out for you to ponder:

He said this is my body as He held up the bread,

Each time you eat of it remember

That I was broken for you

Just like the bread

My body, broken……just for you.

This is my blood, He took the cup and said,

Each time you drink of it – remember –

That it is a token of the blood I shed,

Oh -

LYRICS TO THE PASSOVER SONG

  Take the cup I pour for you.

A new covenant I give to you,

Poured out my love so you could live new life,

Always remember that I died for you

When you eat of the bread and drink the wine.

He said this is my body as He held up the bread.

Each time you eat of it remember –

That I was broken for you

Just like the bread,

My body,

Broken,

Just For you.

This is my blood, He took the cup and said

Each time you drink of it remember

That it is a token of the blood I shed,

O take the cup I pour for you.

A new covenant I give to you

Poured out my blood so you could live new life

Always remember that I died for you

When you eat of the bread and drink the wine.

For I am the Passover Lamb.

The One prophesied.

I came to be the sin offering,

The final sacrifice.

A new covenant I give to you,

Poured out my love,

so that you could live my life.

Always remember that I died for you

When you eat of the bread and drink the wine.

My husband, as the priest of our home, says the blessing over the first cup and we drink together.  

We move on to the blessing of the children of the household:

This is the traditional prayer that we recite over each child, grown or not...

O Lord hear our prayer of blessing over our sons:

May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.

O Lord hear our prayer of blessing over our daughters:

May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.

This year is special, in that we have a new granddaughter to join in this blessing!  It is my prayer that her Mom and Dad always say this prayer for her as she grows each day.  The prayer has been answered for us with the new life this daughter has brought into our family!  We will express our thanks to God for this during this time.

We perfom the ceremonial washing of the hands, 
then the dipping of the Karpas.  
We remember the last supper, when Jesus washed the disciples feet.  We remember that He has washed our sins away.  
When we eat the parsley dipped in the salt water we are reminded of the salty tears of slavery.  

My husband holds up the Matzot and breaks it.  

"This is the bread of afliction that our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt.  All who are hungry - let them come and eat.  All who are needy - let them come and celebrate the Passover with us."

The service has many more elements.  I will share them with you tomorrow.  
It is too rich for just one post!

SEASONS - SPRING BEGINS WITH A FAMILY PASSOVER SEDER (PART ONE)

 

 I want to share one of the most special parts of Spring for me - Our Family Passover Celebration.  Each Passover Seder helps us to better understand the full meaning of The Passion of Our Lord. 

 Every year the Church celebrates The Resurrection of Christ on Easter Morning (I prefer to use the words Resurrection Day instead of Easter), but you can't have a Resurrection until you've had a Passosver.   At our house, we drink in the whole season and this makes The Resurrection deeper and richer for us when we arrive in that place and time 

We join together for the Passover before we begin celebrating The Resurrection.  We celebrate Resurrection Day with our Church congregation, but we also observe The 7 Days of Unleavened Bread, and celebrate the second day of Unleavened Bread as Early Firstfruits that symbolizes the early grain harvest pointing to The Resurrection of Christ.  That was the day that the priest of ancient Israel waved the loaf of barley before the Lord as an offering.  This whole ritual process has so many elements of Resurrection, and I believe it was the actual day and pattern of the Resurrection of Christ.  I've written about that in another blog though, this article will speak of what happened before that Resurrection day - The Passover. 

These are our first decorations of Spring.   They come out and are recognized at our house days before any of the little bunnies and chicks and baskets and eggs.  Aren't they beautiful?   REAL TRUTH is always more beautiful, more special, more significant than our human imaginations.  There is nothing wrong with the silly typical fun decorations of  this spring season, but first we must know and practice what we believe and find to be real and true, and always make a firm distinction between the two, thus we bring out the Seder Plate and the Haggadah and place two pretty candles on the table with our finest china.  Special dishes are selected to be used during the service for certain times. 

 I like to design the Haggadah that we use each year.  Some years they are a new design, and some years we pull out one from the past.  It is basically the same service, but I might make new covers or rearrange a few things from year to year.  I place one at each plate on the table.  Sometimes I also print (as favors for each person to take home with them) an eight part beautifully illustrated devotional booklet that gives more of the details of the stories within the story with a reading for each day of the 7 Days of Unleavened Bread that follow immediately after Passover.

My family and I were not born Jewish.  We are Christians.  Our intent is not to imitate the Jews, but to follow the scriptures.  We hold the nation of Isreal and the people in the land close to our hearts.  We know this is the custom that Our Savior Jesus Christ taught and we only wish to imitate Him.  Through Him we feel we have been ADOPTED into the Kingdom of God.  We feel that Christ has made it possible for us to be added into that old, old olive tree with the deep, deep roots.  So we pray that our observance does not cast any disrespect to our Jewish brothers and sisters.  We simply stand in awe of the wonder of their amazing history as a nation.  We also feel our God is the same and the God of ALL nations.   So it is that we gather at the table of Our Father each year to keep His traditions and honor His Word. 

We have discovered that God's family gatherings always tell us another part of His great story!  This is the way we chose to pass our Christian heritage down to our children.  They must know Our Father's stories!  If not for the Nation of Israel observing the Passover and always keeping the torah alive, we would not have been able to know our Messiah! 

He is our Passover Lamb!

He is the True Meaning behind the Passover Celebration!

The Passover Story shadows His atonement for our sins.  Leaving Egypt and the bondage of slavery is the same as leaving a sin filled life and coming into the freedom of The Kingdom of Heaven.  It all ties together, but you will not see all the details until you observe the Passover in the same manner that the Israelites observed it, adding the full meaning of knowing that Our Deliverer has come, not only as Moses leading us out of slavery, but now as Jesus Christ, leading us away from the slavery of sin.  The outcome is our freedom!   In light of the fact that we are now free, I have added a song to our celebration this year that I feel is very appropriate.  I'll attach it below for you to listen to.  It is Matt Redman singing "We Are The Free."  You may find it on You-Tube later if you wish to use it in your celebration too this year:

It is perfectly okay to open the celebration with the joy of our freedom in this song!

Though we may add a few modern touches here and there, we do use the typical Messianic Seder, keeping it as Hebraic as possible, and we add music, dance, video stories and whatever else God puts on our hearts to emphasize in the season with His story. 

We tell the story in a million different ways each year.

  
We serve a full meal, but never until we've told the story!




Passover, and life in general, is simply all about telling the story. 


 

 

  

THREE GIRLS OUT ON THE TOWN - JANUARY, FEBRUARY AND MARCH 2014

I am behind in posting about the adventures of Three Girls Out On The Town.  I am behind on everything - not just this!  This time of year always gets busy with my blog because of the numerous amounts of seasonal changes taking place.  They are articles that are timely; so I have to put off other things until I can catch up. Since Christmas I've written about New Years, Epiphany, Purim and Lent, St. Patrick's Day and Spring.  I'm working on fine tuning drafts for Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits and Resurrection Day.  I've been inspired daily to keep writing the  lessons for an on-line bible study called "Come As A Child" that I'm writing.  So far I've published 10 of these lessons and have several more in the draft stages.  They have been well received.  I've set my goal to publish one of these every Thursday.  I've also had not just a few short stories to pop into my head.  Short stories have to happen when they happen - so I have paused to quickly write them down.  The submissions of my novel "The Cupbearer's Dream, and my other blog subjects:  FUN UNDER THE SUN, THE HOUSE DOCTOR, WEEKNIGHT FAMILY MEALS (to go with their seasons) and PEN ART have all been pushed aside to meet these pressing seasonal deadlines of a timely blog about the seasons of life.  Because of all this sudden business of the seasons, THREE GIRLS OUT ON THE TOWN, a forever friendship blog, often has to wait it's turn; but that is okay because these memories stay etched in my brain and I don't ever forget them!  The pleasure of lasting friendships can be remembered off schedule and at any time that they are needed.  That is one of the things that is so wonderful about friends and friendships.   So, if you don't see my posts about these adventures right away, don't assume they are not important because they are MOST important.  I just know I can trust my friends to wait on me when I'm in a crunch.   Good friends are patient, loyal and always there just when you need them.  They don't mind waiting on you while you take care of your day to day life.  With all of that said, we've been busy!

WE MET JANUARY AT THE SUPERIOR GRILLE:  It was noted among us that our day-to-day lives have been really busy this winter!  Where do I begin?  I'll start by telling you it was cold outside that night!  In spite of the weather we sat outside in the restaurant's indoor/outdoor patio and found ourselves very warm and cozy.  

They put us at a table RIGHT next to their huge outside fireplace.  It was very charming and relaxing to enjoy sitting on a patio in the middle of winter next to a very warm fireplace.  I love the irony in that.  

Our food was delicious.

We got to catch up on each other's Christmas and New Year's fun.  TC and I hung around close to home over those holidays and had lots of family events happening.  It was TC's youngest grandson's first Christmas!  She had such cute pics of him and his brother enjoying the season.  

I got to share what a wonderful time we had at Christmas with seeing all four of our grown children and

My family minus a son, not sure where he was hiding!

spending time with them.  Our daughter from out of state brought her boyfriend with her for the holiday and he spent a week with us.  We loved being with him and it was fun getting to know him better.  He lives pretty far from her and their long-distance romance is very complicated to arrange sometimes.  We were glad to be the meeting place for this particular visit.  

I shared with Bucket and TC how much excitement was taking place at our house watching our married daughter and son-in-law entertain the idea of parenthood, as their first child is on the way.  She finally LOOKS pregnant and she is beaming and healthy and glowing.  It has been amazing watching her walk into motherhood.  

I shared how my sister-in-law and brother-in-law from out of state came for a day bringing their three teens with them.  We had a wonderful visit that was long overdue.  The kids are quickly becoming adults on us.  

Bucket finally got a word in.  She had been to the beach - of course!  She gets to enjoy the beach every holiday almost as they have a house there that they can go to whenever they chose.  She and her family had a nice relaxing Christmas spending time with their children and friends both at home and at the beach.  Bucket is the only friend I have that decorates a palm tree for Christmas.  (Now I should consider that a subject for my Christmas Season  IN SEASON blog for sure.)  

Bucket is the world traveler in our midst.  She was busy planning little excursions with her husband and several of her friends for the coming year.  I can't wait to see how they all turn out.  It is nice to get to travel through the eyes of a friend sometimes.  I find myself pretty tied down with family and work these days and it is fun listening to her care-free excursions.

I did mention to the girls that my parents had moved from my childhood home on the farm to a smaller townhouse in a rural city setting.  It was the best thing for them now that they are older and farms are very hard to keep up, but I'm going to miss the place a lot and have such vivid memories of all the wonderful family things we did there.  I love the new place they chose, and have told the girls all about it and how we are pretty much spending all our weekends for awhile helping them to get settled there.  My Mom has just turned it into a mini-version of the house they had at the farm.  

Wow, I didn't realize how much visiting we did have in January until I looked back.  A lot happened and we had much catching up to do.  I left out a lot of it!   Don't think I share everything in this blog!   LOL.

IN FEBRUARY - WE MET AT THE VILLAGE TAVERN : 

Actually,  I got to see the girls twice in February!  Before we met at the Village Tavern, they came to a Baby Party held at our house for our daughter.   I was so glad to see my two BFF's walk into my home that day.  They really put a smile on my face and it was fun introducing them to all of our other friends who showed up for the party.  

Our soon coming grand-daughter is going to be set with everything a little one could ever dream of having.  Gifts were not requested, but people kept popping in the door with more wonderful gifts.  My daughter and her husband had great fun opening everything.

 My other two daughter's helped to throw the party and they brought a pretty banner and more food to add to all the food I had cooked up.  My son showed up to give my daughter's husband moral support, as he was afraid he would be totally outnumbered by females at this party.  Wasn't so.  My husband was there and my Dad and our good friend Dr. Bob.  The male community was represented by some of America's finest!  I just wish my son had not signed the guest book "Uncle Tron."  What does that mean?   Oh well, boys will be boys.  I always suspect my son first in pranks for many good reasons that I will not go into here!   



We saw lots of people who have been so special to us over the years, but we don't get to see in our day to day lives a lot.  It was great fun!  I asked everyone to write a bit of advice on being a parent and am putting that all together in a scrapbook for my daughter to give to her after the baby arrives.  We had such sweet responses to this, and I told the girls what fun I am having putting it all together now.

A few days after the Baby Party Three Girls Out On The Town got to have our regular monthly visit at The Village Tavern.  TC surprised us and brought her son and his family.  That was a nice surprise because we had not seen them in awhile and it gave us all time to catch up with each other, plus it was sort of a birthday celebration for TC and Bucket, since their birthdays are in February.  Of course, at our age - we do tend to ignore these dates more and more.  We didn't let them do that this year.  So it was good to have TC's family join in our little birthday party.  The boys have both grown so much!  TC's son and daughter-in-law are doing a great job as parents.  It was fun hearing about the ball park adventures and the upcoming trip to Disney that they have planned.

Bucket had been on yet another trip with her husband.  They had visited the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and seen the Tennessee Aquarium.  It was nice to re-visit those places through their eyes and adventures.  They had also been back to the beach for a few days.  They say they are not going to retire there, but they seem to go at least once a month.

I was full of chatter about what a fun time we had with one of our daughters and her boyfriend at The Bill Cosby Show.  This time we met our daughter's boyfriend's son who is now five years old. He is a single Dad and a great father.  We enjoyed getting to know this energetic little five year old very much.  He won our hearts for sure.   One of our sweet daughters gladly took over the babysitting while we all went to the Cosby Show.  I have never laughed so much in all of my life!

We all loved the food and the service at The Village Tavern.

As we made our way to the car after a wonderful time TC pulled packages out of her car and handed them to us.  It was her birthday celebration, but she was giving out gifts.  That is just like TC.  It was the latest Rachael Hauck book, "Princess Ever After."  You could have heard the squeals of delight for miles!  We have been waiting for this one for a long time.  It is the last of a three part series that we have all enjoyed the first two novels from thanks to TC.  

IN MARCH WE MET AT THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY:  It had been years since any of us had been inside this restaurant.  I quickly realized as the night wore on that this was one restaurant in town that had kept and maintained its high standards over the years.  The menu was amazing - it was a BOOK, not a menu.  They certainly have more to chose from than cheesecake.  It is ALL good, wonderful, well prepared food and the service was excellent.  Their mixed drinks were very good.  Bucket ordered a Well Mannered Dirty Martini and I had a Pineapple Mojito,  TC was driving - so she did not indulge with us.  

Of course the first conversation evolved around the Rachel Hauck book "Princess Ever After."  Bucket was the only one who had actually completed it and she was smiling about the story.  TC and I have been bogged down in the drudge of tax season and have been saving it for when we have more free time without interruption.  Bucket proudly announced that she probably has more bookwork to do than either of us, and she had finished hers AND read the book.   Some people just have to be constantly showing off!

She wasn't funny.  I have learned if I pick one of these novels up I can't put it back down until I'm finished, so I decided my job at work might be important - that I needed to wait for an open window where I could absorb the story completely.  This being the case; we did not let Bucket tell us one thing about the novel.  She just kept smiling smugly - so we know chances are we are going to enjoy the book very much.

Bucket had been planning two new adventures for April - a trip to New Orleans with a good friend and a Zac Brown Band concert with her daughter.  She told us all about their plans, and I have a feeling they are going to have a blast!

TC was laughing about something that happened at her work. Really wasn't funny when it was going on - but totally hilarious when she told the story later.   I wish I could share - but it would involve talking about people I don't know.  Anyway - she made us laugh with a funny story about an "I Love Lucy" type situation in their line of business.

I had nothing on my mind but the fact that it is only DAYS until my new granddaughter arrives.  Anticipation and excitement are killing me.


I did share about a really fun weekend in March when two of my dear old friends came for an overnight visit.  One friend was from Tennessee, and one friend was from Georgia.  I had not seen the friend from Georgia for over thirty years - we had lost each other and found each other again and both of us had searched the globe to do so forever.   All three of us had been very close friends when we were single girls living in the same apartment complex.  The one from Tennessee is going to be a grandmother (a boy) about the same time that I am going to be a grandmother (a girl)!  So we all had a lot of things to say - and we said them until 3 a.m. one morning.....It was so nice to catch up with great old friends like that.  We are going to do it again soon.  TC and Bucket loved hearing about my other old friends - beyond our high school days.

So, Three Girls On the Town have been very busy!  We are meeting a Carrabba's again next month - so it may be a few months before you hear from us again, but don't worry - you will.  Keep checking.

Here's to the blessing of good long friendships and happy times!