[0:00] Sam Wilson, when I saw that he was available for the night, I was so excited. He travels so often, and I just appreciate his ministry so much. Even though he's around often, we don't get to see it. And as a church, as all churches, ought to be concerned about our Jewish neighbors and be reminded this is not just something for Jewish people.
[0:19] This is for all of God's people as we see the picture that's going to be presented here in front of us. And so now I just got to figure out where did Sam Wilson go? That's the only thing we need.
[0:30] I'm going to go look for them, and you see if you find them. So I'm a shepherd here in Midian, 40 years.
[0:49] And one day, I was just watching my sheep as usual, and I saw a bush burning. A bush burning?
[1:05] So I went to see what that would be about. And God spoke to me from that bush. And he said this.
[1:16] He said, I have seen the affliction of my people Israel. I have heard their cry. And now I've come down to save them.
[1:31] And he said to me, go to Pharaoh. Go to Egypt and tell him to let my people go. Maybe you know.
[1:45] Maybe you don't. Our people were dying. They were slaves. The Egyptians were beating them and abusing them and starving them.
[2:00] And they were working from morning to night. And then it got worse. The Egyptians told our ladies, whose job it was to help the Jewish ladies give birth, said, you have to kill the babies.
[2:22] They were going to wipe us from the face of the earth. They were going to destroy us. And our people cried out to God. There was no hope.
[2:34] We were slaves. We had no weapons. We had no strength against the most mighty nation in the world. We could do nothing. So we cried out to God.
[2:46] And God from heaven saw our affliction. He heard our cry. I wasn't there in Egypt.
[2:57] I'd left 40 years ago. But he found me with the sheep in Midian and sent me. What can I do against Pharaoh?
[3:10] I went to Pharaoh and I said, Pharaoh, God says, let my people go. And Pharaoh said in his arrogance and pride, I know not the Lord.
[3:24] Neither will I let the people go. You won't believe what happened. God so punished Egypt.
[3:38] God went after Egypt with 10 terrible plagues. 10 times he sent terrible plagues to destroy the Egyptians. The 10th of them was the most horrible of all.
[3:54] God said, I will come through the land. And everyone who is first born will die. If you are the first born in your family, please stand up.
[4:13] All of you would die that night. You may be seated. But God said, there's one thing you can do.
[4:26] He told us, the people of Israel, he told us, you can take a lamb, a perfect lamb, a male lamb of the first year. And you can sacrifice it.
[4:39] And its blood can be poured out. And applied to the doorposts of the house. And if you do this, then when I come through the land to bring judgment, to bring death to the firstborn.
[4:54] When I see the blood, I will pass over that house. And that's exactly what God did. What a terrifying night.
[5:07] As we all sat in our houses with the blood on the doorposts. Still somewhat terrified. And all around us, we heard the screams, the agony, the cries of the Egyptians.
[5:22] As they wailed, as through the land, every firstborn died. And in the morning, Pharaoh called us and said, get out of our land.
[5:33] Get out now. Don't ever come back here. And we, slaves, we went out free. Do you understand? We had been hundreds of years slaves.
[5:45] And God freed us from this. We went out rejoicing. We went out with singing, with dancing. With our hearts overflowing with joy.
[6:01] And God told us that day. Every year. Every year. You must have a holiday.
[6:12] A day of great joy. And it will be called Passover. Because it's when judgment passed over your home.
[6:26] And so every year from that day. Until your day. My people celebrate Passover.
[6:37] They remember. The slavery. The pain. The agony. The death. And they remember with great joy.
[6:47] How God. Delivered slaves. And gave them freedom to worship God as they should. Amen. Tonight we're going to.
[7:14] Experience. In a very shortened sense. The Jewish Passover. Passover. But before we even begin. You need to have a sense.
[7:28] Of what it means to the Jewish people. Because the Passover. Isn't just some ritual. That they go through. Although. Frankly. For many of them. It really.
[7:38] Has become just that. But the Passover. Is a time. When the Jewish people. Remember. How they became a nation.
[7:49] How a people. That was. Teetering on the edge of extinction. That were suffering genocide. Were wonderfully delivered by God. And God saved them.
[8:03] And made them a people. And made them his people. And so the Jewish people. Celebrate this. And they have. Every year. Since Moses. So about.
[8:15] 3,500 years. Give or take. 3,500 years. Jewish people. Have celebrated the Passover. And the beautiful thing. About it.
[8:25] Is that the Passover. Is full of symbols. Of our God. As you're going to see tonight. And so. What I would like to do. Now. Moses. If he was to tell you. In fact. You can read it.
[8:36] In the book of Exodus. Very easily. You can read the story. Of the first Passover. And you find that. He said. There would be a roasted lamb. You must not break. Any of the bones of it. There must be a roasted lamb.
[8:47] It must be. Roasted with fire. It must be eaten. Completely that night. That there would be bitter herbs. That there would be unleavened bread. That's what God said. The traditions have grown somewhat.
[9:00] No. They've grown enormously. And so tonight. What we're going to do. Is not explain. The first Passover. But we're going to explain. How our Jewish neighbors. Wednesday night.
[9:13] Celebrated Passover. Now Passover is an eight day thing. And it started last Wednesday. At sundown. And it'll go through. I should know this. Thursday. At sundown. And so it's ongoing right now.
[9:25] Right now is still Passover. And I'm explaining to you about this. Because you can. This week. Go to your Jewish neighbors. And talk to them about this. Because this is an ongoing thing. In the Jewish community.
[9:36] Here in Alpharetta. Tonight. So. So. Let's go on. The Passover. I think I'm going to need my Bible. In my notes. The Passover. Ceremony. Is called the Passover Seder.
[9:48] Now. Very often. People suppose. That something as important. As this. Would be done. By the rabbi. In the synagogue. With a congregation.
[9:58] But it's not. This whole thing. Is done. Can you help me. For a moment brother. I want to move this table. Up a little bit. It's. You know what. I can do that myself. Probably without breaking anything.
[10:10] Voila. I think I got it. Thank you brother. Sorry. Asked you to help. Then did it myself. If you talk to my wife. She'll find I do that all the time. Sorry Miguel.
[10:23] So. The Passover Seder. Isn't done in the synagogue. This is done at home. It's not led by the rabbi. It's led by dad. It's not the whole congregation. It's the family. Although probably.
[10:34] The extended family. Okay. Now. Here I have a setup. I have. The Passover dish. Some of you came up and looked at it. I hope that you had the opportunity to do that. The bone goes here.
[10:44] But if I do that. It'll fall. This is the Seder dish. And I have glasses. I have candles. I have some. Grape juice.
[10:55] In case you're worried. And unleavened bread. It's grape juice. Trust me on this. You can look at it afterwards. And so. So we have all of these things.
[11:05] And these are all elements. But if we were doing this for real. It wouldn't look like this. We'd have a table. It would be covered by a special Passover tablecloth. As we have here. All of these things would be here.
[11:16] But the thing is. If there were. We would have many of these plates. And many of these cups spread all around. Because each person at the table. Is going to have their own plate. And their own cup. Okay.
[11:27] However. Since this is just a demonstration. I'm the only one that gets it. And you don't. Ha. That worked out good for me. And. When they do it. It takes all evening long.
[11:38] They'll start at five. And finish at ten. Okay. Pastor asked me if we could do it quicker than that. So we're going to try. Okay. And so. So that's the way it is. One of the things I love about Passover.
[11:49] Is that it includes. The children in the family. Too often. When we do. Religious stuff. It's all about the adults. I like it. That they include the children. And they do that quite a bit.
[12:01] And. People sometimes say. Why are we doing this in a Baptist church? Well. There are a variety of reasons. One of the reasons. Is that this interacts with our scriptures.
[12:14] Okay. You will understand the scriptures. In the Old Testament. And the New Testament. Better by the end of the tonight. Than you do at the beginning. Okay. And so that's good. But to me.
[12:25] The thing that I'm passionate about. I'm not up here to tell you that. You need to know all about the wonders of Jewish culture. So there's some great moments in Jewish culture. And there are some not great moments in Jewish culture.
[12:37] Just like American culture. Latvian culture. And everybody else's culture. Okay. The thing that I want to do. Is show you. That the Jewish Passover Seder. Is full of symbols of the gospel.
[12:50] And we can use it in witnessing to our Jewish neighbors. And so that's what we're doing here. Now before we even get to this place. Where the table is all set. Mom and the kids. Have worked their fingers to the bone.
[13:02] They have. First of all. Gone all through the house. Top to bottom. End to end. Stem to stern. And they have done this. Huge. Enormous. Very. Very detailed cleaning of the house.
[13:13] To make sure that. Every bit of leaven. Has been removed from the house. There's not allowed to be any leaven. Of any kind. Anywhere in the house. That's strictly. And so they've done this. Huge cleaning. And then second of all.
[13:24] They have cooked this enormous meal. I like enormous meals. That's a good thing. So we have our big meal on Thanksgiving. They have theirs on Passover. And they've cooked this enormous meal.
[13:35] Strangely enough. With no leaven in it. Which is really hard to do. And so they are all ready. And now it's time for the Passover Seder. And the first thing of the Passover.
[13:45] Now I said that dad leads the Passover Seder. But there's something that I really love about this. Because the rabbis say. I'm not making this up. The rabbis actually say.
[13:57] That without a woman to bring light. The story of redemption cannot begin. Let me repeat that. Without a woman to bring light.
[14:08] The story of redemption can't begin. And so since we need mom to come and light the candles. Mom would you come and light the candles? And so she would come.
[14:23] To light the Seder candles. And then she would say the prayer.
[14:34] Baruch atah Adonai. Eloheinu melech haolam. Asher kidishanu be mitzvotav. V'tzivanu lehadlik nershel yom tov.
[14:45] Blessed art thou O Lord our God. King of the universe. Who sanctified us with your commandments. And commanded us to kindle the festival lights. Thank you. Now. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too obvious.
[14:59] Without a woman to bring light. The story of redemption can't begin. I'll go with that. Without a Jewish woman.
[15:09] Mary. To bring into the world. The light of the world. The story of redemption can't really begin. Can it? And so it all. It all starts with a woman. To bring the light.
[15:20] And so I think that's beautiful. And that is a way. By the way. That you could start speaking to somebody. About the gospel. The next thing they would do. Is that they would read. That dad would read.
[15:31] Exodus 12. Verses 1 through 14. And so we've asked dad to come. And read Exodus 12. Now. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Before we do this. How many of us think.
[15:42] That if dad's going to read Exodus 12. 14. Take prayer out of the Seder. That he really needs to wear a kippah. There you go. All right.
[15:55] All right. Exodus 12. 1 through 12. 1 through 14. 1 through 14. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron. In the land of Egypt. Saying. This month shall be unto you. The beginning of months.
[16:06] It shall be the first month. Of the year to you. Speak ye unto all of the congregation. Of Israel. Saying. In the tenth day of the month. They shall take to them. Every man a lamb. According to the house. Of their fathers.
[16:16] A lamb for an house. And if the household. Be too little for the lamb. Let him and his neighbor. Next to his house. Take it in according. To the number of the souls. Every man. According to his eating.
[16:28] Shall make you count. For the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish. A male of the first year. You shall take it out. From the sheep. Or from the goats. And you shall keep it. Until the fourteenth day.
[16:38] Of the same month. And the whole assembly. Of the congregation of Israel. Shall kill it. In the evening. They shall take. Of the blood. And strike it. On the two side posts. On the upper door posts.
[16:48] Of the houses. Wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh. In that night. And roast with fire. Unleavened bread. And unleavened bread. With bitter herbs. They shall eat it. Eat not of it raw.
[16:59] Nor sodden. At all with water. But roast with fire. His head with his legs. And with the pertinence thereof. And you shall let nothing of it. Remain until the morning. And that which remaineth of it.
[17:11] Until the morning. You shall burn with fire. And thus shall you eat. With your loins girded. Your shoes on your feet. And your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night.
[17:24] And will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. From both man and beast. Against all the gods of Egypt. I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you.
[17:35] For a token upon the houses. Where you are. And when I see the blood. I will pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon you. To destroy you. When I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial.
[17:47] And you shall keep it a feast to the Lord. Throughout your generations. You shall keep it a feast. By the ordinance forever. Amen. Thank you pastor. I appreciate that.
[18:02] So I want to stop for a minute. And I want to take a. We're going to pause the Seder for just a moment. I'm going to comment on something. There are several different places in here.
[18:12] Where we see the gospel pictured in the Seder. And in the story that pastor just read. We see one of them. Very very clearly. Okay. Now we already talked about.
[18:23] Without a woman to bring light. The story of redemption can't. Can't begin. And we see part of the gospel. In that in that phrase. That the rabbis themselves say. But. But in the story that pastor just read.
[18:34] We see the gospel. I was several years ago. Visiting our son in North Carolina. And I knew I was going to be doing a Passover Seder. But I didn't have a bone. And you have to have the.
[18:45] A shank bone of a lamb to do a Passover Seder. And so I asked my son. I said. Look is there a meat market anywhere around here. And he said. There's one in the next town over there. And so I called over there.
[18:56] And I said. Do you guys. Do you guys have lamb. And they were like. Yeah we have lamb. I said I'll be right over there. So I got in the car. And drove over there. And when I got there. Luckily there. It was quiet. They didn't have very many customers. Standing around.
[19:06] I walked. I walked in. And guy comes up. He's wearing a white apron. With some like messy. You know. Butcher stuff. And. And I said. Hi. I said. I have a strange request.
[19:17] I said. I actually don't need meat. And he's like. You know. This is a meat market. Right. And I'm like. Yeah I do. I said. But what. I need a bone. And he said. You got a dog. And I said. No it's not that.
[19:27] I said. The bone of the lamb. And he said. Oh. You must be going to do. A Passover Seder. I was shocked. I said.
[19:38] I'm amazed. He said. What are you amazed for? I said. I didn't even think. You'd know the words. Passover Seder. He said. And the one. Oh. I'm Jewish. Well. I was double shocked.
[19:49] At that point. I was amazed. And so. I asked him. I said. So. So. Tell me. What is your favorite part. Of the Seder. And he said. Ah. The. Athikomen.
[19:59] Is my favorite part. Almost everybody says that. You'll know what that is. In a few minutes. And I said. That doesn't surprise me. Everybody loves. Zafikomen. I said. And so. We talked about that. For a little while. I said. He said.
[20:09] So you're Jewish. I said. No. I'm a Baptist preacher. Why is a Baptist preacher. Doing a Passover Seder. And I said. Because we love the Jewish people. We read the Jewish Bible. We rejoice in how God delivered.
[20:21] The people of Israel. From bondage. So I want our people to know. How your people celebrate. He said. That's beautiful. I'm so happy about that. And I said. Can I tell you my favorite part. Of the Passover Seder.
[20:33] He said. Yes. And I told him the story. That pastor just read. I said. You know. The people of Israel. Were in bondage. And they had no way. To free themselves.
[20:45] They were going to die. And they cried out to God. And God sent a deliverer. Moshe. Moses. And Moses came. And said to Pharaoh. Let my people go. And Pharaoh said.
[20:55] No. And ten plagues. And Pharaoh sent them out. And they went out. You know. Death of the firstborn. The blood on the doorpost. You know. The lamb was slain.
[21:07] The blood was put on the doorpost. Death passed over the people of Israel. But the Egyptians lost their firstborns. And the people of Israel went out. And I just told the story. He said. Yeah. That's our story. Yeah.
[21:17] That's it. And I said. The thing is. I'm in that story. And he looked at me. And he's like. What do you mean? And I said.
[21:27] I am in the story of the Passover. And he said. I'm sorry. I don't understand. And I said. So. I was a slave. Not in Egypt. But I was a slave to sin. And I had no way out.
[21:40] And I cried out to God. And God sent a deliverer. Not Moshe. But Mashiach. Not Moses. But Messiah. And Messiah.
[21:52] Came. And there was a great Jewish prophet. At the same time. His name was John. And he said. Look. The lamb of God. That takes away the sin of the world. When he saw Messiah.
[22:03] He identified him. He said he was the lamb. That takes away the sin of the world. And Messiah came. And he was that Passover lamb. And his blood was shed.
[22:14] He willingly gave himself. His blood was shed. To pay for my sins. But you know. Just like back in that day. It wasn't enough for the lamb's blood to be shed. It had to be applied to the doorposts.
[22:27] And Messiah's blood had to be applied. To my heart by faith. And I by faith received him. And he forgave my sins.
[22:38] And when the day of judgment comes. Judgment will pass over me. Because I believe in Messiah. I told this Jewish man that story. And he was shocked.
[22:51] He didn't seem at all offended. He said. I've never heard anything like that before. That's amazing. I. I need to think about that. And so.
[23:01] The easiest way. The simplest way. The best way perhaps. To witness to a Jewish person through Passover. Is the Passover lamb. I mean it's. It couldn't be more clear than that. And so.
[23:13] We have. Number one. The story of redemption cannot begin without a woman to bring the light. And number two. The Passover lamb. This is another thing that speaks of the gospel.
[23:23] So. After they get done reading the scripture. Then it's going to be time for the first cup. Now. The Passover famously has four cups. Now. When I began this. I thought there would be like four cups.
[23:35] But there's not. There's one cup. And you fill it. And refill it. And drink out of it four times. So when they say four cups. They don't mean four cups. They mean four times you're going to drink from one cup. That's probably was obvious to everybody but me. And each of these four cups has special meaning.
[23:50] And it's all taken from Exodus chapter 6 verses 6 and 7. Where it says. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel. I am the Lord your God. And one.
[24:00] I will bring you out. From under the burdens of the Egyptians. And two. I will rid you out of their bondage. And three. I will redeem you with a stretched out arm. And with great judgments.
[24:10] And four. I will take you to me for people. And so those four phrases. Are the. They lead to the meanings of the four cups. The first cup is called the cup of sanctification.
[24:21] Now if you know anything about the word sanctification. To be sanctified means to be set apart. To be set separately. Okay. We usually use it to say. Set apart from sin. Set apart unto God.
[24:34] So we're set apart from one thing. From sin. And to something. To God. And so. It comes from this phrase. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. God said.
[24:44] I'm going to set the people apart. From the Egyptians. And so they call their first cup. The cup of sanctification. And so at this point. Dad would say. It's time for the first cup. The cup of sanctification.
[24:55] And they would read this passage of scripture. And talk about how God sanctified them. He set them apart. As a special people unto God. He set them apart from the Egyptians. And then they would go around the table.
[25:07] And in every cup. They would pour. The juice. Now I'm sad to report to you. That they don't use juice. We however use juice.
[25:19] Okay. And then. There would be. Certain discussions made. Certain things said. And then they would pray. The special prayer. For the Jews. Baruch Atah Adonai. Eloheinu melech Aulam.
[25:30] Borei piri agafin. Blessed art thou. O Lord our God. King of the universe. Who has created the fruit of the vine. And then. They would drink of the cup. That's the first cup.
[25:46] Now after that. They have a ceremonial hand washing. Now most of you would say. Shouldn't you wash your hands. Before you come to dinner. But it's not like that. It's not because our hands are dirty. And we want to wash them.
[25:56] This is a ceremonial thing. That they do. Two or three times. During the Seder. And it's not so much about being clean. As it is. Following the ceremony. And the rabbis. Have got a special kind of vessel. They use. It's got two handles.
[26:07] And you have to do one hand. Before the other. And it has to be poured in a certain way. For a certain time. And everything has to be done. In very neatly. And cleverly. Prescribed manners. To meet all of the traditions. That we're not going to bother with tonight.
[26:18] And then. The next thing is. We have the carpus. Now. All of these things here. Have a special. A special word. The bone is called. Zeroya. This is called. Charoset. This here is.
[26:30] The hazeret. The maror. The betza. And the carpus. And so. We come now. To the place. Where we're going to deal with. The carpus. And the carpus. Carpus. Carpus is.
[26:42] It's going to be either parsley. Or the leafy part of the celery stalk. And so. The carpus. Is greens. And they take it. And I have a bowl here.
[26:52] Of salt water. Okay. And so. What they will do here. Is they will take the carpus. And they'll dip it. In the salt water. And then they'll eat it.
[27:06] Like that. Of course. There are prayers to be recited. And things to be said. As they do that. And they say that. So Passover. Is a springtime holiday. Okay.
[27:17] And it's a time when. You know. The trees are greening out. The grass is beginning to come up. And the mowers are beginning to run. And. And so. They're. They're saying. You know. The green of the carpus.
[27:27] Reminds us of new life. The salt water. Reminds us of the tears. That our forefathers shed. In the land of Egypt. And so. The idea is.
[27:39] There's a time of great sorrow. But after the sorrow. There's a time of new life. And so. That is what the carpus. Is telling us. And so. They do the carpus. And they.
[27:50] They talk a lot about that. And then. They come to the place. Where they're going to. Where they're going to break. The matzo. Now this gadget here. Is a matzo tash. Okay.
[28:01] Which means a matzo pocket. What actually this is. It's this fabric gadget here. And it has. Three different pockets in it. You'll have to trust me on that. I'm sure you can't see it from there.
[28:13] But in each one of those pockets. There's a piece of unleavened bread. Okay. And so. The tradition is this. That. The dad does not reach into the first pocket.
[28:23] He doesn't reach into the. This third pocket. He has to reach specifically. Into the second pocket. That's important. And he pulls out. The matzo. From the second part. Compartment. Okay.
[28:36] And then. That matzo. Is broken. And after it's broken. Obviously. I mean. In something that goes all evening.
[28:46] They're going to have. Lots of words and prayers. And traditions to go with it. But then. They're going to take that matzo. And they're going to wrap it up. In a napkin. Okay. Now the broken part of the matzo.
[28:58] Is called the afikomen. If you're taking notes. That's a. F. I. K. O. M. E. N. Afikomen. That's a weird word. And they're going to wrap it in this napkin. And then they're going to give it to Chase.
[29:11] Because the afikomen. Has to be taken to another room. And hidden away. Okay. So. So Chase is going to take the afikomen. Out in the foyer. And he's going to hide it.
[29:22] Now. People are like. Why is he going to hide it? Kids. You're going to like this part. But you're going to have to wait. Okay. Now we're going to talk more about. The afikomen. And the matzo. After a while.
[29:33] The dad is going to take the matzo bag. And the matzo. And he's going to hold it up. And he's going to talk about it. He's going to say. This is the matzo.
[29:44] The unleavened bread. This is the bread of affliction. That our fathers ate. When they lived in the land of Egypt. It's hinted in the scriptures. That one of the reasons.
[29:54] They use unleavened bread. Is when the people of Egypt. Finally when the Egyptians let them go. After 400 years. They drove them out. In a great rush. And there wasn't time. For bread to rise.
[30:05] And so they ended up eating unleavened bread. That may be true also. The other thing is. Is that leaven in the scriptures. Often is a symbol of sin. Okay. And so this is.
[30:17] This is bread. But it's. It's bread without leaven. So it would be the bread without the sin. And so. That's the. So he would talk about that. About the bread of affliction.
[30:28] One of the things I love about the Jewish people. There are a lot of. There are stereotypes about Jewish people. And I would really encourage you. Not. To participate in those.
[30:39] You say. Well some of them are good. You know what. Stereotypes really by their nature. Just really aren't good. And even the ones that seem like. They're. I mean. Some people say. Well. Jewish people are greedy.
[30:51] And. And mean. Well that's not a good thing. Okay. And it's not generally true. And then other people say. Well they're all smart and rich. You say. Well that's good. I'd like that stereotype. Jewish people don't like that stereotype either.
[31:03] You say. Why not? Because people are jealous. And accuse them of things. Really. People like to be treated. Sort of like. People. And so. I would encourage you.
[31:13] Not to. Not to do the stereotypes. Good. Bad. Or in between. But one of the things you often hear. Is that they're very greedy. And grasping. My experience has been the opposite. Now. I'm not saying.
[31:23] There are no greedy grasping. Jewish people. Certainly. There are. There are greedy. And grasping people. In every culture. In every land. That I've ever been in. That's. That's part of humanity. I guess. But most of the Jewish people.
[31:34] I know. There's been a. There's a thing. Where they have suffered. Their people have been strangers. They have been foreigners. They've been refugees. In other people's lands. For 2,000 years.
[31:46] They have suffered. They have a. Terrible history of suffering. And because of that. They have a soft heart. For those who suffer. And. And one of the things. At this point. Where they're talking about the bread.
[31:57] The dad says. To those who are needy. And hungry. We say. We understand your suffering. We want to help. We invite you to join us.
[32:07] And in fact. It's very common. At Passover time. As the family prepares their feast. If they meet somebody that's needy. They'll say. Please. Would you come. And celebrate the Passover with us.
[32:19] We invite you to come. And I think that's. I think that's kind of a beautiful thing. And I really appreciate that. The next thing is. Four questions. And so. At that point. One of the sons.
[32:30] I don't know if it's usually. The favorite son. But we'll pretend it's the favorite son. One of the sons. Is commissioned. To ask four questions. Now he doesn't get to ask any four questions he wants. The four questions were written down.
[32:40] And decided. Centuries ago. But we. But my favorite son. Is going to come now. His name is Stephen. Stephen. Come on. And Stephen's going to come. And he's going to ask me.
[32:51] These four questions. That are a part. Of the Passover Seder. Here. Why is this night. Different from. All other nights. On all other nights.
[33:02] We eat. Either. Leavened bread. Or. Matzo. Unleavened bread. But on this night. We eat only matzo. Tonight is different. Because on this night.
[33:13] We celebrate. Our people's. Going forth from slavery. To freedom. We eat matzo. Because our fathers. Had to leave Egypt. Very quickly. And there was no time. For the bread to rise. On all other nights.
[33:25] We eat vegetables. And herbs. Of all kinds. Why on this night. Do we eat. Better herbs. Especially. We eat bitter herbs. On Passover. To remind us. That our fathers.
[33:35] Were slaves. In Egypt. And that their lives. Were very bitter. On all other nights. We never think. Of dipping. Even once. Why on this night. Do we dip twice. Okay.
[33:46] And so. The dipping. I just dipped. The carpus. In the salt water. And then later. We'll dip again. We dip the. Partially. In the salt water. To remind us. That life. Blooms again.
[33:57] In the spring. We dip the maror. The bitter herbs. In the sweet haroset. As a sign of hope. Even in bitter suffering. Their lives. Were sweetened. By the hope of freedom. On all other nights.
[34:09] Everyone sits up. Straight at the table. Why on this night. Do we all recline. Now I need to explain. I'm standing. But in a Jewish Passover. They're eating dinner. And they're not standing. They're sitting at the table.
[34:21] Okay. Except for that. By rule. Dad's going to have. A little pillow. And he's going to be. Leaning on the pillow. Reclining. And the son asks.
[34:32] Why is it. That we normally sit up. Why is it tonight. You're leaning over. And laying on the pillow. And the answer is. Back in those days. Slaves had to stand to eat.
[34:44] But the rich man. The free man. Was allowed to recline. At the table. And since this is the day. That we commemorate. Our freedom. We recline.
[34:54] Because we are free men. Thank you Steve. I don't need that. You can take that back. I came to shake your hand. Thank you for your help. Good work. I'll take that too. Yeah. I'll need that again someday. Okay.
[35:05] Excellent. Thank you so much Stephen. Stephen by the way. You're going to have to help me. Again at the end. But I'll tell you when and what. Okay. Now. Then they're going to have a narrative. Okay. Now.
[35:15] When you say the narrative. They're going to explain the details. Of the entire story. From the beginning. To the end. In vast detail. And it would take a long time. And we're going to just skip it. Because we've already kind of covered it briefly.
[35:27] And so we're going to skip it. The next thing they're going to do. Is they're going to have. Something that I love. It's called dayenu. Okay. And let me explain. Dayenu is a Hebrew word. And it means.
[35:39] It would have been enough. Like. You're going to sing a song called. It would have been enough. Sometimes it's done as a responsive reading. And sometimes it's done as a song. That they sing. And so.
[35:50] The whole idea of dayenu. It's a thing of thanksgiving. So. So let me explain. They say. You know. If God had delivered us from the death at the hand of the Egyptians. Dayenu.
[36:03] Dayenu. Let's hear it. Dayenu. That would have been enough. But. He let us go out into freedom. If God had let us go to freedom. Dayenu. It would have been enough.
[36:14] But. In addition to that. He opened the Red Sea. If you'd opened the Red Sea. It would have been enough. But. In addition. He let us cross on dry land.
[36:25] And then they go on and on and on. He destroyed the Egyptians. He provided a cloud to go before us. And. To lead us. He provided manna in the wilderness. He provided water for us in the desert.
[36:35] And they go on and on and on. Remembering the blessings of God. Now sometimes this whole thing is done like as a responsive reading. But what's really fun is it's done sometimes. As a song. The problem is I have absolutely no ability in music.
[36:48] I've always wanted to do the song. And tonight we're going to do the song. And you're going to sing it. In Hebrew. Brother I hope we have slides up here. Yeah. Alright. So.
[37:00] I've got the Hebrew up here. It's in English letters. And the translation. So you'll be able to sing the Dayenu song with Ben. Did you guys know that he's a famous Hebrew scholar.
[37:11] And he can sing songs in Hebrew. Hebrew. I need those Hebrew words.
[37:27] Alright. Thank you. So this song has four. Four verses. There's going to be a chorus after each verse. And no. I don't speak Hebrew. So I really will need y'all's help. So I'm going to do the.
[37:38] I'll do the chorus first. You listen to how it goes. And then just jump in on those verses as you're able to. If you can't. Then jump in on the chorus. The chorus is super easy. Just the word Dayenu. Alright. So here we go. I'm going to sing the chorus for you.
[37:54] Day, Dayenu. Day, Dayenu. Day, Dayenu. Dayenu. Dayenu. Pretty easy. Right? Here we go in the first verse.
[38:05] Here we go. And the chorus.
[38:17] Day, Dayenu. Day, Dayenu. Day, Dayenu. Dayenu. Dayenu. Dayenu.
[38:45] Dayenu. Dayenu. Dayenu. One more time.
[39:11] Day, Dayenu. Dayenu. Day, day, day, day, day, day, day, day. Good singing, everybody. Thank you so much.
[39:26] I have been dying to do that for the longest time. I love it. From now on, when I do a Seder, I'm taking Ben with me. Okay. They're going to stop now.
[39:37] And we talk about the different symbols of the Passover that we have here on the table. We're going to talk about the Zer, the bone.
[39:50] Now, I'll be honest with you. I don't know exactly what they say when they talk about the bone. I know what I'm going to say, what I'm going to talk about the bone. I suppose they say the bone represents the lamb.
[40:03] But here's what I want to say about the bone. Do you remember when Pastor read the story of the Seder? There's supposed to be a roasted lamb here. Does anybody here like me?
[40:14] Yeah, me too. Does anybody here see a roasted lamb? There is no roasted lamb. In the scriptures, the roasted lamb is central to the whole Passover.
[40:26] That's the thing. It's the lamb. There's no lamb up here. There's no longer. This is all that's left of the lamb.
[40:45] Folks, God gave the Jewish people this tradition. The lamb was central. The lamb is gone from their religion.
[40:57] Do you think this can nourish you? Do you think it can help you? Do you want to chew on it? There's no nourishment in this.
[41:09] Do you know what they do with this during the Seder? Nothing. Because what can you do with the bone? That which is supposed to be central is gone.
[41:23] And that reminds me of the religion of Judaism. Hey, look. Judaism is great for teaching people to be good.
[41:34] It's great for maintaining Jewish culture and identity. But as far as saving the soul or meeting the needs of the heart, it's as good as this.
[41:48] It's a dry bone. You know, it seems to me that there's a prophecy about one day, dry bones coming back together. So they're going to talk about the bones.
[42:01] Where's the lamb? That's a serious thing. They're going to talk about the unleavened bread. They're going to remind them about the bread, the unleavened bread, the bread of affliction that our fathers ate when they were in Egypt.
[42:16] They'll probably talk about bread of affliction. They'll probably talk about leaving in haste. Can I add some things about the bread? So, matzo is bread.
[42:28] Now, this is my own commentary. This is not from the Passover Seder. But matzo is bread. And for those of us who believe in Jesus the Messiah, we can't help but forget, we can't help but remember that he said that he is the bread of life.
[42:42] And so, so this bread reminds me of Jesus. Doubly so in that it's unleavened bread. Okay, now the Jewish people often use leavened bread.
[42:52] They have something called challah, which is a beautiful and very tasty sweet bread. It's great. I like challah. Okay, this is not that tasty. But it's a better symbol of Jesus Christ because leaven is a symbol of sin and this has no leaven as he has no sin.
[43:09] Now, just for fun, I'm going to press the point a little bit. I'm going to press the analogy. If you can see, I don't know if you can see, there are stripes in it. And the scriptures say that with his stripes we are healed.
[43:21] And if you hold it up to the light, you can see that there are tiny holes all through it. There's all these little tiny holes in the matzo. If you can't see it, come up afterwards so you can see it.
[43:32] And the Bible says that they're going to look on him whom they've pierced. And so the matzo is a beautiful symbol of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. So they would talk about the bread, the unleavened bread and all of that.
[43:46] And then they're going to talk about the maror. Now the maror is here in the center of the plate. I'm going to move the bone again. This is the maror. It's just like yellowish looking stuff.
[43:58] And the maror is the bitter herbs. In the scriptures, it says that they're supposed to eat bitter herbs. Now what kind of bitter herbs do you think they're going to eat? Well, maror is horseradish.
[44:13] And it's bitter herbs, okay? And so they're going to talk about the bitterness of their servitude and the bitterness of being a slave and being mistreated. And they're going to talk about all of that.
[44:26] At this point in the thing, and I need to really hurry because time's just going by really fast. But at this time, they're going to do the halel. Now halel is a Hebrew word.
[44:37] It means praise. And you know that word. Maybe you didn't know you know that word. But there's another word, Yah, which is a shortening of Yahweh. We get Jehovah, Yahweh.
[44:47] And Yah stands for God. So like in Jeremiah, Yah, that's God at the Yah or the Isaiah. Okay. So if you take the halel and the yah, you have hallelujah, which is praise God.
[45:01] And so the halel means praise. And they're going to stop and they're going to read two of the Psalms. Psalms 113 and 114. Honestly, I would love to do that. But tonight, we're going to hurry on. And so then they get to the second cup.
[45:14] And they would say, we're now at the second cup, the cup of praise. Okay. And so they would, everybody, they'd go around the table and everybody would pour a second cup of, of, of the, the wine or the juice.
[45:28] And, and it's called the cup of praise because it's based on the phrase, I will rid you or deliver you out of their bondage. And so they're praising God because they're being delivered from bondage.
[45:39] They have the prayer that they would pray again. Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech al-lam, barei piri agafin. Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe who has created the fruit of the vine.
[45:51] And they would go on and on and then they would drink of the second cup. And, then they would have the blessing over the matzo.
[46:04] They would take, they would take, the matzo, you see they do the matzo, they go back to the matzo over and over. They would take actually the first piece of matzo out of the matzo taschen.
[46:19] And, aha, here it is. And they would break it and they would distribute it and everybody would have a piece of it and there would be special words and special prayers and so on.
[46:32] Then they would get to the bitter herbs. Okay? Now, what they do then is they take each person's piece of matzo. So, we have a piece of matzo like so.
[46:43] and dad takes a spoon. Everybody has a spoon. And he goes around to each plate and he takes the spoon and he dips it in the bitter herbs and the horseradish.
[46:55] Okay? And then he dips it in this goop over here. Now, I need to show you this goop. There's this brown goopy looking stuff called haroset. Okay? Now, honestly, if you ask me to put something that's brown and goopy and it's called haroset in my mouth, yeah, yeah, people are making faces.
[47:12] Yeah, I wouldn't, yeah. You'd want to be really careful about doing that but relax because haroset is made of shredded apples, honey, raisins, cinnamon, a little bit of grape juice and some other stuff.
[47:26] So, it's delicious. Okay? And so, you take your spoon and you dip it in the bitter herbs, the horseradish, then you dip it in the haroset. Remember, the question that Stephen asked about why do we dip twice?
[47:42] We're dipping again, dipping in this and dipping in that and then, and then we eat it. Now, it's kind of odd. You heard of sweet and sour, right? So, this is horseradish with this sweet mixture.
[47:53] It's an odd thing. And so, we eat that.
[48:07] Obviously, there would be special prayers and so on and so forth with it. And the idea of it is that life brings both good and bad, both bitter and sweet into life and so we should be willing to go with that.
[48:21] Okay? Then we have the betsa. It looks like an egg but in Hebrew, it's a betsa. And so, you have the betsa. Now, people are like, why is there an egg in it?
[48:33] Did anybody see an egg in Exodus? No. So, where did the egg come from? Some people are saying, well, there's no lamb so they put an egg in there anyway. I guess we needed some protein in the whole thing. Not sure why.
[48:44] They say it kind of stands for the lamb but they take it and once again they dip it in the salt water. I suppose that represents again the tears that we shed in Egypt or maybe they just wanted a little salt on the egg.
[48:55] I'm not sure but so they partake of the betsa. Now, everything they do is done with much discussion, many prayers and a lot of ceremony.
[49:09] We're hastening through and then at this point, it's everybody's favorite time in the Passover Seder because this is where mom brings in the meal. And so, we pause all the ceremonial stuff and mom starts bringing dishes out of the kitchen and she piles them high and then we eat until we're stuffed.
[49:28] Okay? Everybody has this great wonderful meal and they have a wonderful time and when they get done with the Passover meal, we get to the moment of high drama.
[49:39] Okay? So, children, pay attention. Keep paying attention. Okay. So, here's the thing.
[49:51] Do you remember that Chase hid the athakoma? Okay? So, in a minute, I'm going to tell you to go and when I do, only kids, adults, you're not allowed.
[50:02] Only kids are allowed to go and all the kids have to go and whoever finds the athakoma gets this prize. Ready, set, go! All right. Chase has been commissioned to try to keep them from disassembling the church.
[50:18] All right. All right. And so, this is why the man at the butcher shop told me that the athakoma was his favorite part.
[50:30] Most Jewish people will tell you their favorite part of the Passover is the athakoma because they remember their childhood. Come on, bring it up! They remember winning, getting the athakoma.
[50:41] All right. All right. Come on up here. Now, I should know who you are. I have no idea who you are. Tell me who you are. Hudson. You're Hudson. Hudson. Did you find this or did you take it from some smaller child?
[50:52] I found it. You found it yourself. We have to make sure of this. There are sometimes nefarious things go on in the search for the athakoma. So you found it. So the deal is is that Hudson has found something of great surpassing value and he probably is not that willing to give it up and so I have to negotiate with him and redeem it.
[51:11] So what do you think? You're willing to make a trade here? Okay. All right. Don't go away. Say right there. Okay. Okay. And so he gives me the athakoma and he gets the prize. Now, this is not a gift for you.
[51:24] Just for the next little bit because you are the winner, you get to wear the official athakoma finder t-shirt. All right. So here we go.
[51:35] Put this over here for just a moment. Miss Christian won't kill us and you get to put on the athakoma finder t-shirt. Mom and dad, we have to get a picture of this here. It goes that way. Yeah. You probably know how to put t-shirts on better than I do.
[51:49] All right. There we go. There we go. All right. Wow. I'm impressed. Now, if I don't get that back, I'm coming to your house to get it.
[52:01] Okay. So give it to me before you leave tonight. But for the rest of the evening, it's yours. All right. Let's get a picture here. All right. We got pictures. We're good. Way to go, Hudson. You're good. You can go there. All right.
[52:11] Now, the athakoma is very important. Now that we found it, the rule is that everybody at the table has to receive it.
[52:26] They have to take part. And so everybody is given a piece and they get to eat it. Now, it's not communion, so you don't have to wait for everybody else. You can just munch down when you get it. And all you back row Baptists lose out because only the people in the front row are going to get some because I don't want to be here until next Thursday.
[52:43] Okay. And it's not gluten-free. Ron is not having any. And so, so everyone has to take part.
[52:55] Now, I don't know if you've been following this athakomen thing or if you've been missing it, but can I talk to you about the athakomen for a minute? Because to me, this is the most beautiful thing.
[53:08] So, look, it's, it's bread and Messiah is the bread of life. It's unleavened bread.
[53:20] He is the sinless bread of life. It was taken from the second pocket. Not the first, not the third, the second because God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, he's the second member of the Trinity.
[53:35] Okay. It was broken as his body was broken. It was wrapped in a cloth as his body was wrapped in a cloth.
[53:48] It was hidden away out of sight by Chase, symbolically buried as he died and was buried. and then much later in the evening, thanks to Hudson, it wonderfully reappears symbolically being resurrected and when it does, everybody has to receive him.
[54:14] Everyone has to take part. This is the most incredible symbol that you could find of the gospel. Oh, I'm not done. The word athakomen, all these other words I'm using up here are Hebrew.
[54:25] Athakomen is not a Hebrew word. It's Greek. Jewish people have no idea how a Greek word got into their Seder. There's a lot of confusion about that. They don't know. Okay.
[54:36] If you ask a rabbi, well, what does athakomen mean? He says, well, we usually have the athakomen right after the supper so it probably means dessert. Did it taste like dessert to you?
[54:50] No. It's a cracker, okay? It's not dessert and besides that it doesn't mean dessert. Greek scholars tell us that the athakomen probably means I am coming.
[55:03] Okay? Folks, if the head rabbi came to you, a believer in Jesus Christ and said, tell you what we're going to do. We're going to give you the opportunity to insert a symbol of your beliefs in our traditions you couldn't have thought of anything this good.
[55:21] I mean, this is mind-blowing and here's the thing, on Wednesday night around the world and every year at Passover Jewish people around the world enact the gospel of Jesus Christ not knowing what they're doing.
[55:43] If you can't witness to somebody with an athakomen, oh, I'm just like, it's, mm-hmm, I'm not, okay, stopping. Let's move on. It is an incredible symbol of the gospel that thrills my heart.
[55:58] Third cup, cup of redemption. Okay, dad says, now it's the time for the third cup, the cup of redemption. It's taken from the phrase, I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments.
[56:08] And so, they're going to talk about how they remember how God redeemed them from Egypt with a stretched out arm and with great judgments, how his power did it, how God in his great power redeemed them.
[56:19] They're going to fill the cup. They're going to say all of the prayers that they normally say and then they're going to drink of the cup. But we're not going to.
[56:31] We're going to put it back down because I need to tell you a story. I've said that the Jewish people have been celebrating the Passover for around 3,500 years, roughly.
[56:42] Long, long ago, on one of those many, many, many, many, many Passovers, there were some Jewish people that gathered together to celebrate the Passover as they do every year.
[56:56] And on this particular day, they were going through the thing, just as we're going through, they probably, their traditions may have varied a little bit, but not by much. They were going through all the traditions, following the rules, following the procedures.
[57:09] You say, Brother Sam, you have a cheat sheet, yes, because the Jewish people also don't have all of this memorized. They have a Haggadah. It's a book that leads them step by step through it and you follow the procedures step by step to get it all right.
[57:23] Well, or try to get it all right. They don't always get it all right. Anyway, and so on this particular Passover, that I'm telling you, that happened a long time ago. They were going through step by step, procedure by procedure and everybody there, they do this every year.
[57:38] They know how, they know, it's very familiar, they know how it works and they were all, yep, now it's time for this, now it's time for that, now it's time for that and they got to this place, the third cup and the guy leading it changed it.
[57:54] Okay, you don't change it. He changed it. He broke the tradition and he did something completely different. Now, he did get the cup and I'm sure he did talk about how God redeemed them with a stretched out arm and I'm sure he did fill the cup but then when it was time to have the prayer, instead of praying the normal prayer, he looked at the other people in the room and he said this, he said, and he took the cup and he gave thanks and he gave it to them saying, drink ye all of it for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
[58:32] You see, was it last Sunday night that we had the Lord's table? When they were doing the Lord's table, they were celebrating the Passover Seder.
[58:47] Jesus told the disciples, go prepare a room for the Passover and so they gathered to do the Seder and they were doing the Seder. what we did last week, they were, we were enacting a small part of the Passover Seder that Jesus and the disciples did in the upper room in that day and when he got to the third cup, which cup?
[59:09] The cup of redemption? Then he broke through tradition and he said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood.
[59:20] And so, the third cup is very special to us and Jesus and the disciples drank of the third cup, the cup of redemption.
[59:37] Now, you may have noticed that there's a chair down there and there doesn't seem to be anybody in it and there's a cup down here and I filled it the first time but it's just sitting there empty.
[59:52] What's that about? Well, in Malachi it says at the very end of the Old Testament it says that before the coming of the day and the Lord, before the coming of Messiah, that Elijah is going to come.
[60:05] The forerunner is going to come and he will herald the coming of Messiah. Okay? And so, this is Elijah's chair and this is Elijah's cup.
[60:17] At every Seder table all around the world every year there's a chair set for Elijah, a plate and a cup set for Elijah because the thinking is that if Elijah shows up that means the Messiah is nigh and I think the Jewish people believe that probably when Elijah comes he's probably going to come to Passover and so, every Jewish family sets a place for Elijah in the hopes that he'll come.
[60:46] Where did Stephen go? Stephen. Okay, I told you I needed him. Come here, come here, come here. Okay. So, at this point we take the favorite son oh well, maybe the worst son I'm not sure. Anyway, we take the son and we say I want you to run out to the front door.
[61:00] I want you to open it. I want you to look left. I want you to look right. Check and see if Elijah's coming. Come back and report. Go. Okay? And so, the son is literally sent to go out and check to see if Elijah is coming.
[61:12] My friend Stan Skrilloff was an Orthodox Jewish man who is now a preacher of the gospel and Stan said this was his least favorite part of the Seder that he was terrified when he had to do what Stephen is doing and I said, Stan, why were you terrified?
[61:25] And he said, I was afraid Elijah was going to be there. Did you find Elijah? Is he coming? No. Okay.
[61:38] Once again, he's not coming. Once again, we wait.
[61:53] For thousands of years we've been waiting for Messiah and once again, no Elijah, no Messiah.
[62:05] we'll have to keep waiting. In fact, one of the very prominent rabbis wrote this. He said, he said, I believe with a perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah and though he may tarry, nevertheless, I will wait for him every day until he comes.
[62:28] folks, the Jewish people in Alpharetta are looking for the Messiah, are waiting for the Messiah and don't know that he came 2,000 years ago.
[62:48] Do you understand the tragedy of God's chosen people looking, looking, looking for the one that came 2,000 years ago and they missed it?
[63:05] What will we do? Will we take the gospel to him? Will we tell him? Time for the fourth cup, the cup of acceptance.
[63:16] God said, and I will take you to me for a people and I will be to you a God. He said, God's going to accept us. He's going to take us as his people. We're going to be his God and they pray and they talk about it and they drink.
[63:36] It makes me think of Romans chapter 11 where it says that, it says, and so all Israel shall be saved. There's a day when there will be a cup of acceptance.
[63:49] There's a day when they will turn to him and where he will receive them. fourth cup, the cup of acceptance. Then they do more psalms.
[64:00] They read more psalms or perhaps they sing them. They're getting to the end. They always say, L'shana Abba Be'erushalayim.
[64:12] Next year in Jerusalem. Next year, maybe Messiah will come back. Maybe next year our Seder will not be here. Maybe it will be there in Jerusalem.
[64:23] And do you remember that in the story of the Lord's table that when they left the upper room it says they went out singing? And that's what they do. At the end of the Passover, there are songs that they sing and they go out singing.
[64:37] And so that's how the Jewish people celebrate the Passover. And as we've seen tonight, there are incredible symbols of the gospel there in the Passover.
[64:50] And so I share these with you in the hope that you will be able to talk to your friends and neighbors. If you don't know a Jewish person, I beg of you, pray, God send me a Jewish soul.
[65:01] God, if you send a Jewish soul into my life, I promise that I'll witness to them. I'll love them, I'll pray for them, I'll share the gospel with them, and I will keep doing it no matter how they react.
[65:12] I'll just keep at it for as long as it takes. Would you pray that God would send a Jewish soul and would you witness to him? We've got to get the gospel to the Jewish people of Alpharetta and of the world.
[65:24] There is all sorts of literature on my table just outside the doors. Stop and get away. I have Passover tracks that you can use this week that you can grab and use those this week. I have all sorts of literature.
[65:34] And by the way, if somebody would like to know a lot more about ministering to Jewish people, in June we have a conference two hours up the road in Chattanooga called Four Day Focus. I would love for you to come and spend four days with us learning how to minister to Jewish people.
[65:47] Pastor.