Monday, April 4, 2011

Does your church's celebration of the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, resemble the Jewish passover described here? How are they similar or different?

There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.
~Exodus 11:6

The verse above and the next two paragraphs I will post below come from a study section in my Bible titled "Independence Day: An Unusual Way To Celebrate Freedom".  The two paragraphs come from the sub section titled "Passover's New Meaning":

Much later, Passover night would take on an even broader experience.  During one particular passover feast, as thousands of Jews were bringing there choice lambs to Jerusalem, one man was selected as the Passover Lamb for all humanity (I Corinthians 5:7).  The words "When I see the blood, I will pass over you" ([Exodus] 12:13) come to convey a whole new meaning.
Today, though Jewish people still celebrate passover, most Christians do not.  Rather, that ceremony has been incorporated into a new one called the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper, with Christ representing the passover lamb.  Although much of the ceremony's content has changed, one thing has not.  The Lord's Supper, too, memorializes a time of pain and of bloodshed, a time of freedom and deliverance.  It, too, was God's act alone.  He gets the credit.
I wouldn't say that it would exactly resemble the Jewish passover.  The similarity would be that it is a rememberance of God's work in history.  I think the way that it could be seen as different is that , in the Jewish tradition, unless I'm wrong and I do invite comments to correct me, kindly of course please, that the passover is moreso a celebration of how God was in the past, where as the Chrisitan tradition see God ever-present in the Eucharist. 

Again, please leave any comments as to how your church's Eucharist might be resembled, and if you might agree or disagee with me!  All I ask is that the coments are clean.

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