So by now you have probably figured out, we celebrate Passover! I am not Jewish,and I by no means believe we HAVE to celebrate Passover. But I do feel it is easily adapted by Christians and it is a fun tradition for our family. Not to mention it makes the Old testament come alive when you actually do the things they did as you learn about it! And I want God's Word to be alive and exciting for my children. When it comes up that we celebrate, I get a LOT of questions, of HOW and WHY, so that is what I'm trying to cover in these blogs :)
We start by reading Exodus 12. We may or may not have done activities relating to Moses and the plagues beforehand. I try to, but it doesn't always work out.
Then we pull out our stuffed lamb (verse 5).
The boys examine him, to make sure he is "unblemished and a male of the first year". We keep him on a platter on the dining room table for the 4 days leading up to Passover. On the day of Passover, at 3 pm, we pack him up and put him away for next year , then we start preparing dinner. On the menu of course, is roasted lamb!
We normally BBQ it (verse 9) and we used to have dinner outside around the firepit in the back yard while wearing our coats and shoes (verse 11). Then we'd burn the leftovers in the fire (verse 10), but housing banned firepits since then and Daddy is the only one to touch the
BBQ , so we'll be roasting it in the oven and trying to make sure we have no leftovers this year :)
We also have communion during our Passover meal (1 Corinthians 11:23, Matthew 26:26-8) because Jesus had the Last Supper as He celebrated Passover just as we are doing.
Before dark we paint 3 strips of cardboard red, and tape them around our front door (verse 13 and 22) and we stay home until morning (verse 22).
Through out the day (and week leading up to it) we talk about how why we did these things, and how each thing is symbolic. We give thanks for the Lord's goodness and mercy and grace. We also talk about how we dont need to sacrifice a real lamb, because Jesus is our Passover lamb.
So that is just a rundown on what we do in our home. I'm hoping to blog about Good Friday and Ressurection Sunday celebrations as well, so be on the lookout for those!
