Seder Dinner

Last weekend I had the Stables girls over for a Messianic Passover Seder Supper. Seder dinner has been celebrated since the Old Testament and it is a remembering of the days that God's Chosen People were freed from slavery in Egypt (you know the story of Moses, Pharaoh, the plagues... "Let my people go!"). It is typically celebrated in the Jewish community. We're not Jewish... but our Savior is! As Christians, we believe that God has opened this freedom to anyone who accepts Jesus as their Savior*. So the Messianic (from the word Messiah) Passover Seder Supper remembers the waiting that our spiritual ancestors went through and celebrates the Messiah who has come to set us all free! If you're super interested in this, let me know and I'll e-mail you the ceremony script that I compiled.

So here's the ceremony set up:

You'll notice a pitcher of wine (and a carafe of grape juice for those who preferred), little glasses, and the middle plate which has everything we used for the ceremony-- horseradish, a lamb bone, parsley, charoset, matzoh (unleavened bread), an egg and salt water. Also... finger puppets! I found these at Bed, Bath & Beyond... there are ten finger puppets each representing one of the ten plagues. We found these to be quite fun:

(That's Lindsay with Locusts and Lice.)

Here Stephanie is pouring the wine for the ceremony:

I thought it would be fun to have the wine poured from an old-fashioned pitcher instead of a bottle.

The ceremony starts with lighting candles:

After "the four questions" we talk about the different items on the Seder plate:

Like the parsley which is dipped into salt water and eaten to remember the bitter suffering and tears of the Jews before they were set free.

And the Matzoh which, in the Messianic Seder, represents Jesus. I hid the matzoh in the house and during dinner the others went looking for it.

Stephanie was the winner!

After the ceremony we feasted:

(Brisket, asparagus, broccoli and black bean quinoa... delish!)

And I passed out party favors that I made from (gasp!) Martha Stewart's website!

Unlike everything else Martha says is "so simple" these actually were! They are carrots made from crepe paper. And inside were little goodies!

Like cute baby chic hair clips and stick-on mustaches!

We had fun with the mustaches:

A lot of fun:

A WHOLE lot of fun:

I miss seeing the Stables girls everyday... but I treasure the evenings we do get to share!

*If you're interested in learning more about my beliefs on the freedom Jesus grants... feel free to ask me! :)