Shalom

This year Todd, LeNae, and I have each been studying The Old Testament. It has been an awesome experience studying this great book. I have learned so much of what the Abrahamic Covenant means, and what being Children of Israel means to us today. With the Easter season approaching us, we decided that we wanted to hold our own Passover meal, with a Christian focus. So, I pulled out our "Nativity Costumes", took the legs off the table, purchased some lamb meat, and invited over some special people - Jessica and Sister Titera, who also dressed up for the feast.
We started out by sharing the story of the Children of Israel in bondage in Egypt. The boys have known the story of Moses for some time (which is why they call their baby doll Moses -Moses being put in a basket in the river is one of their favorite stories). We talked about the burning bush, and how God told Moses to deliver His people. We told the boys about the plagues that were put on the Egyptians, ending with the plague of the death of all the firstborns. We explained how the Children of Israel were instructed to use blood from a sacrificed lamb and paint a mark on the two doorposts and lintel of their homes.
Using watered down ketchup, we painted the door frame (mostly just the storm door) of our home. The boys enjoyed this one a lot.
We then went and sat down for the meal.
We started out by removing any Chametz (leavened bread) -we only threw one piece of bread out because I cannot afford to throw all our bread out. The unleavened bread of the Exodus does symbolize that the Israelites were told to leave in haste, not allowing them time to wait for their dough to rise. But also, when food is leavened, it spoils faster, so leavened has been likened to wickedness and sin. So this throwing out of the leavened bread also symbolizes throwing off wickedness - symbolizing repentence. Roger loved going to the door and throwing the bread out.
Then we lit the candles.


Then we filled up our cups with "wine" - grape juice. (I usually don't feed my kids juice because of all the unneeded sugar and the cost, so the boys went to town drinking the juice...they kept filling and refilling their cups - William even wet the bed that night because he drank so much!)
Then we went and washed our hands (Urechatz) - it's a symbolic act of preparation for the Seder and Passover feast. I thought it correlated very nicely with baptism and the partaking of the Sacrament. The first Sacrament was given at Christ's Last Supper, which was during Passover. Christ fulfilled the Law of Moses, and therefore the Passover, and instituted the Sacrament in it's place. The washing of the hands with water could symbolize baptism and the need of baptism for the partaking of the Sacrament.
We dipped our Karpas (any vegetable that represents the arrival of spring) in the salt water - which represents the sweat and tears of the Children of Israel in bondage, and I like to add the scripture that man shall eat by the sweat of his brow, and I also like to add the sweat and tears of Christ as he atoned for us.
We broke the middle Matzah (unleavened bread), and had Mikey hide it. The middle Matzah that gets broken symbolizes the Messiah.
We discussed how this night was different from other nights. We discussed how the story of the Exodus can pertain to us in our bondage to Satan or his snares.
We presented the 10 Plagues that were put upon the Egyptians. As these plagues are presented, after each plague mentioned we dipped our finger in our own "wine" and placed a drop of the "wine" onto our own plate. This symbolizes that even though we celebrate the freeing of the Israelites from slavery, we do not take pleasure in the suffering of the Egyptians.
Mikey used his dots to circle around his plate to look like a clock.
Roger used Sister Titera's plate.Todd presented the Seder plate, and we discussed the symbolism for all items on the plate.

We then recited our Dayenus. Dayenu means that it would have been enough and we are grateful. It is a way of giving praise to God, and showing appreciation for all the blessings given us. Each person recites a line, then at the end of each statement, everyone proclaims "Dayenu".
One example is, "Had God brought us out of Egypt, but not executed judgements against the Egyptians, it would have been enough". We went around and shared our own personal Dayenus, discussing things in our lives that are most important to us.
We had an extra place at our table, but not for Elijah the Prophet. We told the boys of how Elijah has already come and has restored the sealing keys of the gospel. We then explained that there is someone that we are waiting to return to earth, and that is Jesus Christ, our Savior.In preparation for this meal, Todd kept telling me that I was having too high of hopes for the evening for the boys wouldn't be too cooperative during the meal. We were all very pleased with how reverent and involved the boys were throughout the meal. The boys were a part of the discussions and the Spirit was so strong, and I know that the boys felt it.Roger's favorite part was the Nirtzah - eating the hard boiled egg. He ate about 4 or 5 of them!

Mikey enjoyed blowing out the candles. (P.S. Can you believe that we had a meal, on the floor, with real candles, with the flame lasting the ENTIRE meal!!!)
"L'Shana Ha'ba-a B'yerushalayim - Next Year in Jerusalem"