Lessons from Passover

I celebrated the Jewish feast of the Passover last week. It reminded me once again of the wealth of wisdom stored up in this festival of remembrance.

I think there is much Christians can gain from going through a full Passover meal. A demonstration Seder is helpful, but nothing beats forgoing a lecture to take in the full service, which is also about fellowship—breaking bread together.

If for no other reason, experiencing the Passover for yourself is worth doing for the window it opens up into Jesus’ own life. Luke 2:41 gives us a rare glimpse of Jesus’  childhood. In telling us about an incident when Jesus was 12, it begins, “Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover.”

The pattern was meaningful for Jesus and John’s Gospel tells us of Jesus going with his disciples to Jerusalem for the Passover three times in his three years of ministry (John 2:13, 6:4, and 11:55).

In Luke 22:15, Jesus tells his disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you….” So we know that the Passover was an important part of Jesus’ life. I want to share just two of the many things I have learned from leading Passover meals these past five years.

First, in the Passover service the story of God’s saving acts in history are retold so that each generation can reclaim them as their own. A Passover meal should always have children present, as part of its very reason for being is to share the story of God’s love with future generations. But one does not just share an old story. Instead, each person is challenged to feel as though he or she were personally redeemed from slavery in Egypt by God. This is exactly what Moses told the people in Deuteronomy 6:21. Each generation should say, “We were slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand.”

In remembering the story of what God has done for humanity in the past as if it were done for us, we reclaim God’s salvation through time as our own. Jews say in the Passover that if God had not brought them out of Egypt they and their children would be slaves to this day. In that same way, all Christians can see that if God had not acted in history in the past, we too would be slaves to sin and death. What God did for our ancestors was also for us.

A second lesson of Passover comes from the Passover hymn Dayenu (pronounced dye-A-new, with the a in the middle being a long “a” sound). Dayenu means, “It would have been enough.” During this popular hymn fifteen mighty acts of God are recalled. After each of these acts of God is named, everyone sings, dayenu, meaning that the one thing alone would have been enough.

For example, “If God had only taken us out of Egypt” is one verse followed by the refrain, dayenu—it would have been enough. The hymn goes on to recount in small steps, the way in which the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt, passed through the Red Sea, given the law at Sinai, and fed for forty years in an uninhabitable land, all by God alone. Each of these mighty acts is declared as enough in and of itself.

This hymn dates from at least the second century b.c.e., and was in common use in Jesus’ own lifetime. What a wonderful switch in emphasis from asking God, “What have you done for me lately?” or, “What will you do for me next?” Instead, you look at your own life and say, “Lord, if you had only done this one thing for me, it would have been enough.”

One of my favorite parts of leading a Passover meal is to ask people to add their own dayenus, their own examples of something God has done in their lives which alone would have been enough. Last week we heard from someone thankful for a church home, from a mother of five healthy, grown children, and other examples of things for which people present were thankful. Two cancer survivors said that their healing from cancer is dayenu—that alone would have been enough.

Consider for yourself. What has God already done in your life, which alone would have been enough. It is a great gift to look at the ways in which God has already blessed you.

Learning that what God did for previous generations was for us and that some of what God has already done for us would have been enough are two of the many gifts of celebrating Passover.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is Pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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