Substitution

Passover is tonight but tonight is the first night of our dog advanced handling class, so we celebrated the Passover Seder a night early. I hope that God will not mind this substitution. I am a master of substituting as that one simple dinner gave multiple examples of.

First of all, the Passover celebration requires the Jewish mama to clean and scrub all week long so that not a speck of dust or leaven, symbolic of sin, remains in the home before the Seder dinner. I have developed an extremely painful tendonitis in my dominant left arm, such that even wiping down the countertops hurts. But I did manage to vacuum. So technically I did not find every speck of dust, or maybe not even most, but I am hopeful that God will look at extenuating circumstances and forgive this slight variation on cleanliness.

Next the table is to be set in all its finery, with the best dishes and silverware. I have two nice tablecloths. One is red and is my Christmas tablecloth, and one is covered with hannukiahs and is my Hanukkah tablecloth. I don't really have anything that is a Passover tablecloth, so I used my Hanukkah tablecloth. While not the proper holiday, it is Jewish, and therefore I think God would approve of the sentiment behind this substitution.

Next, I am to set an extra place for Elijah. Now as a Jew who believes Elijah already returned in the form of John the Baptist to herald the arrival of the Messiah, this little symbol of the Seder meal is just plain extra work with no meaning for me. However, I did set a plate, and cutlery, though not a cup. I knew Elijah was not going to be showing up anyway, and it hurt my arm to set the table at all, let alone put out a plate for a certain no-show. I think God would appreciate my economy of energy. Similarly, at the point in the Seder when I am supposed to rush to the front door and call out to Elijah, in case perhaps he is hiding in the bushes, I just instead called out from my seat at the table. Elijah, who is spirit anyway, could hear me with his celestial ears just as easily from the dining room as the front door.

Then, I prepare a Seder Plate. This is where my art of substitution is the finest. We use horseradish once a year.... that's it. Only at Passover do I ever buy horseradish. It is the "maror" or bitter herbs, symbolic of the years of slavery in Egypt of the Jewish people. Do you know how expensive horseradish is? However, oh happy day, I did have a bottle of Wasabi sauce in the fridge. Wasabi is the green stuff you put on sushi, and I don't know if there are many Japanese Jews, so I may be stretching the cultural divide here....however, the main ingredient of Wasabi is horseradish. So our maror this year was wasabi. I hope God appreciates my frugality in this one.

I did buy the parsley, representative of the hysop that the Jews used to spread the sacrificial lamb blood over the doorposts so that the angel of death would "pass over" their homes and not slay the first born in the ultimate plague against Egypt. I bought the Parsley even though I needed just 3 little sprigs and had to buy the whole bunch for $1.79. This symbol was just a little too scary for me to tweak.

Then there are minor substitutions really almost too inconsequential to list- we use a plastic egg instead of a hard boiled egg and instead of a 4 hour full ceremony, we boil it down to one hour of the essentials. Asherel adds some things to the traditional ceremony, such as hiding a dog biscuit afikomen for the dogs to find. Yet we have done the Passover Seder in our home for 15 years faithfully and every single time when we blow out the Seder candles, I feel a fullness of spirit, a cleansing sense of obedience to an ancient call.

Honestly, I don't think the substitutions hurt our ceremony. In fact, in a way they embody it. The Passover is a memorial of God's provision for His people, but the central purpose is the reminder of how the sacrifice of a perfect lamb covered and protected His people from the plague of death. It was the atoning substitution of innocent blood. Without understanding the Jewish sacrificial system, it is impossible to fully understand the necessity for Jesus' sacrifice. He was the ultimate substitution. He died in place of us, satisfying the call of Justice in penalizing sin, but especially Mercy in giving us all an out.

Thus when our Seder ends, we add one last substitution. Instead of raising our glasses and calling out, "Next year in Jerusalem!", we claim "Next year in the new Jerusalem!", or the new heaven and new earth that will rise clean and pure from the ashes of sin and redemption, a place where there will be no more suffering, no more tears, no more death, no more tendonitis......

Revelation 21

The New Jerusalem

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ²I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.