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Although Holy Week and Easter are past for this year, we are pausing before
pushing forward to consider a growing trend in Christian churches: the hosting
of Passover seder celebrations, sometimes with the assistance of Jewish
neighbors.The original Easter -- when Christ arose from the dead -- occurred during the Jewish Passover festival. Passover is an annual observance for Jews, just as Holy Week is for Christians. But with Easter not being on the same weekend every year, the two celebrations overlap only once every three or four years. This year, 2015, was one year when such convergence happened.
Passover commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, where they had been enslaved for several hundred years. The seder (pronounced SAY-der) is a ceremonial dinner during Passover that commemorates the meal the Israelites ate the night before their departure. The seder includes the reading of a special liturgy and the eating of symbolic foods.
One of the churches that hosted a seder this year was Baltimore's Vincent de Paul Catholic Church. They used the event to tie the Jewish holiday to the story of Christ's resurrection.
"We're not the only generation or the first generation to be followers of Christ," said the Rev. Richard T. Lawrence, the Roman Catholic priest who conducted that service. "We take our place in a tradition that goes all the way back to ... when God created man, to when he gave the commandments to Moses."
Many other Christian denominations also offer a seder meal during Holy Week. The modern custom began several decades ago with an outreach from Messianic Jews to Gentile Christians, helping to educate both Jews and Gentiles about the relationship between the Passover and Jesus' death and resurrection. There are several Christian Haggadahs (an order of service for the seder meal) that are widely used.
Evan Moffic, a Chicago-based rabbi who says he has "a passion for helping Christians learn about Judaism and the Old Testament in a way that makes their faith stronger and deeper," took note of the trend of Christian churches hosting seders and decided to write a book to help people understand the seder. When he went looking for a publisher, he found one in Abingdon Press -- a United Methodist publishing company.
Moffic says that was no surprise to him, since these days, more Christians than ever are open to the Jewish roots of their Christian faith. "Knowledge of Jewish texts and traditions can bring Christians closer to their faith," said Moffic. "It can deepen the experience of prayer, expand the meanings of biblical passages, and open our eyes wider to the role of God in our lives."
He admits that this openness to Jewish traditions among Christians does not mean all religions are the same. Moffic noted that the founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, is credited as the first person to use the phrase "agree to disagree." "As people of faith," said Moffic, "we will not always agree, but we can agree to disagree. And we can continue to learn from one another."
More on this story can be found at these links:
Believers Seek Common Ground as Passover, Easter Converge This Weekend. Baltimore Sun
How a Rabbi Found a Methodist Publisher. Ministry Matters
The Big Questions
1. What role has the Old Testament played in your coming to faith and/or your spiritual growth as a Christian?
2. Is it important that Jesus was a Jew? In what ways, if any, did his Jewishness help his gospel message to be understood? In what ways, if any, did his Jewishness hinder understanding of his gospel message?
3. How should Christians view the Jewish religion? How do the various definitions of "the Jewish religion" affect how you answer?
4. How much of your devotional reading comes from the Hebrew scriptures? Whether your congregation uses a lectionary or not, what percentage of sermons come from an Old Testament text? What is your favorite Old Testament verse or passage? Why?
5. How do you see the Old Testament and the New Testament to be related? Why?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Isaiah 42:6
I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations ... (For context, read 42:5-9.)
These words in the book of Isaiah are generally understood as saying that God chose Israel to be in righteous relationship with him, and then Israel would be "a light to the nations" -- the channel through which God's word could be conveyed to others and all might come to recognize the true God as their God. Thus, being chosen by God meant not privilege, but responsibility.
Questions: Is there a sense in which the Old Testament is a light to us today? Give examples. Given that most Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, where do we as Christians intersect with their faith practices today? Do you (and/or your congregation) cherish the light shared by Jewish people? Is your faith life illuminated by it?
John 4:9
The Samaritan woman said to [Jesus], "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (For context, read 4:5-29.)
Matthew 15:24
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (For context, read 15:21-28.)
We cite the verse from John simply to show one of several places where Jesus is clearly identified as a Jew.
In the Matthew passage, Jesus tells a Gentile woman who has come seeking healing for her daughter that he "was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" -- that is, to the Jews. It's not clear from the passage whether Jesus was saying that his mission had to start among the Jews or whether he was verbally sparring with the woman to test her faith. In either case, it's certain by the end of Matthew that Jesus' message was for "all nations" (Matthew 28:19).
Still, it does seem that Jesus understood that initially, he needed to bring his fellow Jews on board with the gospel and that they, in turn, would take it to the world. And indeed, that's what happened. Virtually all of the early Christians -- including the apostles -- were Jews, and at its start, Christianity was, in effect, a Jewish denomination.
In any case, in John 12:20-24, Jesus recognizes that his hour has come precisely because some "Greeks" (probably Greek-speaking Gentiles who are attracted to monotheism but who do not join the Jews because they view circumcision as mutilation) wish to speak to him. It's not clear that Jesus speaks with them, but somehow, their presence means the crucifixion is upon him.
Question: Why do you think Christianity did not remain within Judaism?
Matthew 5:17-18
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. (For context, read 5:17-20.)
The "law" and "the prophets" referred to the Jewish scriptures -- essentially what we call the Old Testament. Jesus makes this statement in the Sermon on the Mount, and he clearly means that he has not come to undo any of that scripture. In effect, he's saying that scripture has lasting authority, and even its smallest elements will not disappear until God's kingdom "is accomplished." Thus, those scriptures apply to Christians today.
In several sections of the Sermon on the Mount that follow, however, Jesus interprets how the scriptures should be lived out, using as examples the laws regarding murder (5:21-26), adultery (5:27-30), divorce (5:31-32), oaths (5:33-37), retaliation (5:38-42) and enemies (5:43-48).
We should also note that Jesus' preaching echoed themes first stated in the Hebrew Bible. When, for example, he told his followers, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37), he was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5. And when he added, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39), he was quoting Leviticus 19:18. Jesus brought fresh applications and energy to those commands, to be sure, but his teaching was in continuity with what God had already revealed to the people of Israel through their scriptures.
Questions: Why do you think Jesus felt it necessary to explain his position on the scriptures? How did he fulfill the law and the prophets? How does your life of faith fulfill the law and the prophets?
Luke 24:44-46
Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you -- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day ..." (For context, read 24:36-49.)
This is from Luke's account of Jesus' first post-resurrection appearance to the full group of his disciples. They, of course, are quite startled that Jesus, who died, is now alive among them. But Jesus uses the opportunity to show how "the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms" (that is the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament) spoke about the Messiah suffering and rising.
Probably Jesus was referring to such verses as Isaiah 53:3 ("He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity"), Psalm 16:10 ("... you won't abandon my life to the grave," CEB) and Hosea 6:2 ("... on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him"). But if we can imagine not having the New Testament, would we recognize those Hebrew Bible verses as predicting the resurrection of Jesus? Probably not. It's not surprising that none of the disciples initially made that connection either, on that first Easter.
Later, however, it became a common practice in the early Christian community for believers to read the Old Testament with eyes opened by their experience of Jesus, discovering him on pages where they had not previously seen him. They continued to read, preach and quote the Hebrew Bible (often in the Greek Septuagint translation) and considered it the Word of God (remember, the New Testament didn't yet exist), but they quoted it most often to show that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah whom those scriptures prophesied. As the verses above show, Jesus himself started that practice.
J.B. Phillips, the British scholar who produced an especially effective translation of the New Testament, once said that while he was working on it, it sometimes seemed to him as if he were working with bare wires without the electricity turned off. Later, when he undertook to translate four of the Old Testament prophets, he nearly despaired of the task, finding every letter of the Hebrew alphabet to be "a tensed muscle." But he persevered, discovering that the Hebrew prophets touched "the very heart of the matter -- the way in which [people] behave towards each other and the way in which they worship God; and all of these prophets ... see that the two things are inseparable. They are thus ... clearing the ground for the revolutionary teaching that was to come with the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
That's pretty good reason to read and study the testament Jesus read (the Hebrew Bible), as well as to read and study the one he lived (the New Testament).
Questions: Why did the disciples have so much trouble believing what their eyes were seeing? Why do we often find new learnings when we reread passages we've read previously? Are you one of those who does more rereading than reading? What would be more surprising -- that you learned something new each time you encountered a scripture, or that you got it complete and right the first time?
Acts 8:30-35
So Philip ... heard [the Ethiopian eunuch] reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" ... Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
"Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth."
The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. (For context, read 8:26-39.)
Here's an example of an early follower of Jesus, the deacon Philip, using a passage from the Hebrew Bible as an instrument of evangelism to bring the Ethiopian eunuch to receive Christ. The Ethiopian was reading from Isaiah 53, where it speaks of a suffering servant. We Christians quite naturally apply that passage to Jesus, but before Jesus came, people read those verses quite differently and likely applied them to the situation of Judah in exile.
If we could read the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament without prior knowledge of Jesus, we would not immediately expect a Messiah who would come humbly and die on a cross. It requires interpretation to see that kind of a Messiah predicted in the Hebrew Bible.
Philip, however, was ready, and provided that interpretation.
This text demonstrates how important it is for us to interpret scripture together, and not assume that with a bare reading we immediately understand everything. As one pastor says, "We're not born knowing this stuff."
Questions: If you were Philip and using Isaiah 53 to explain about Jesus to someone who had no knowledge of him, what would you emphasize from that passage? How was God himself active in the encounter between the Ethiopian and Philip? In what ways is God present when you read scripture?
Ephesians 2:11-14
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called "the uncircumcision" by those who are called "the circumcision" -- a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands -- remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (For context, read 2:11-22.)
Hebrews 1:1-2
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son ... (For context, read 1:1--2:4.)
In the Ephesians passage, Paul is addressing Gentile Christians, explaining how Christ has brought them into the covenant of God, which already includes the Jews. Note especially verse 14: "For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us."
The main thrust of the letter to the Hebrews is that Jesus Christ is the final mediator between God and mortals, fulfilling the mediation God had provided as testified in the Old Testament. Jesus is "the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (12:2, NIV).
Questions: How do you see Jesus as both the author (the originator) and perfecter (the one who completed and fulfilled) our faith? How does this tie Christianity with biblical Judaism?
For Further Discussion
1. Respond to this, from TWW team member Stan Purdum: "Prior to being confronted by Jesus, we may have valued the scriptures for their literary or moral significance. Once we commit ourselves to Jesus, however, the Bible becomes something far more important -- a place to rendezvous with the risen Lord.
"The literary quality and the moral impact of the Bible are significant, but they are also secondary to the Bible's main purpose. The Bible is not for literary enjoyment or mere moral guidance, but for nourishment and sustenance for the journey of life and also as a signpost to point us to God. The poorly educated person who has to point to each word in the Bible with a finger in order to read it but who reads it faithfully nonetheless is actually using the Bible for its intended purpose more than the scholar who delves into it as a source of ancient history.
"Part of the Easter experience is welcoming the risen Lord into our hearts. Another part of Easter is the ongoing discovery that the risen Lord speaks to us through the words of both testaments -- in ways we were unable to hear before we invited Jesus in."
2. Discuss this, from TWW team member Frank Ramirez: "The ancient historian Josephus tells that the brother of Jesus, Jacob (known as James), had been murdered the previous decade and says that the general population of Jerusalem lamented his death. This suggests that there was little distinction between Christians and Jews by the general population in those early days. What we call Christianity was a Jewish denomination, and there were many different brands in that era.
"The Hebrew scriptures were the Christian scriptures exclusively into the second century, after which some books of the New Testament began to take on a stronger canonical status. Among the Oxyrhynchus papyri taken from the trash dumps of that Egyptian city, there were plenty of Greek versions of the Hebrew scriptures that seem to show signs of belonging to Christians (abbreviations for Lord and God exclusive to Christian use, bound as a codex instead of a papyrus roll, etc.).
"Suetonius, the Roman historian, writes in the second century about an event in the first century -- that the Jews were expelled from Rome because of the riots instigated by Chrestus. There's a reference to this event in Acts when Priscilla and Aquila have been expelled from Rome and run into Paul. Roman authorities may have been color blind at that range, seeing Christians as a Jewish sect."
Responding to the News
While each testament can be read alone, many Christians maintain that it is only when taken together that their meaning is made whole. Thus, when we Christians describe ourselves as "people of the book," we mean the whole Bible, not just the New Testament. Nonetheless, there is value in respecting the Hebrew scriptures for their own merit and not only as something that points to Christ. And since we're all part of one family, it behooves us to read Jewish materials.
Recognizing the Jews as God's chosen people helps us to understand how all Christians "are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people," as Peter declares in his first letter (1 Peter 2:9).
Discover if any Jewish people live in your community, and learn about contemporary Judaism. While the Bible exposes us to Judaism as it existed centuries ago, it is helpful to remember that just as Christianity has developed over the last 2,000 years, so has Judaism. And as with Christianity, Judaism has never been homogenous or monolithic.
Finally, it's helpful to remember that while there is a connection, the history of the Jews as God's chosen people is not identical to the development of the modern state of Israel. The theology and the politics are not that well aligned.
Closing Prayer
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