Passover 2000
by Stephen Eastman
Many Christian families and churches are adding Passover to their annual calendars of events celebrating it as loyally as they do Christmas. More experimentally, Christians are celebrating Sukkot (Festival of Tabernacles), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), Shavuot, Hanukkah and other Jewish holidays. Many are also learning and practicing other customs such as the M’zuzah (Scripture on the door frame of the home) and observing dietary laws.
My family has been celebrating Passover and Sukkot for many years now. Since 1993 our church, Maple Hill United Brethren Church, has hosted large carry-in Passover dinner events that constitute a shortened version of a family Passover. These celebrations are creative worship events, but also train families how to have their own Passover dinner at home.
Maple Hill Church also has been regularly celebrating the fall holiday Sukkot – The Festival of Tabernacles. We have a particular affinity with that holiday, because it teaches us how God provides for our needs today as he did with the Children of Israel who had temporary dwellings in the wilderness. Our church burned down in September of 1997 and we have learned that all physical things, like our building, are temporal – temporary dwellings, but people are eternal and our true house of worship awaits us in heaven. We built the traditional Jewish Sukkah (a temporary dwelling) on our new property prior to the beginning of our building project.
On Sunday, April 16 (four days before the actual Passover begins) Maple Hill Church will present a complete demonstration of the Passover Dinner for Christians. It will include an explanation of the Jewish symbols and how they apply to our faith. Some of the traditional foods of the Passover dinner will be there for sampling after the presentation and recipe cards will be available. This event is designed to both teach the truths of Passover and train families for having their own personal family Passovers.
Maple Hill Church is meeting Sundays at 9:30 am at Huntington Woods Elementary School on Byron Center Avenue just north of 44th Street in Wyoming, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan.