As a Christian, I have wanted to celebrate Passover with a Seder dinner for a long time. I wanted to better understand what Jesus life was like and better understand my Jewish friends’ religion. The first house I bought was an upstairs condo that I bought during construction. At move in time, I quickly ran down to meet my neighbors: a grumpy elderly couple. I was nervous. Over time, we grew to LOVE each other. They were Jewish and I asked questions about their faith and listened to them tell so many stories. They asked about Jesus and I loved pouring my heart out about the love and relationship I experienced with our Messiah. They invited me to their Seder dinner over the years, and while I was working in fashion, I never got off early enough to attend.
I was determined to create a Seder someday, but it seemed wholly overwhelming. My friend Kate posted about hosting their Seder dinner this year and shared some resources – I was encouraged. And while on COVID-19 quarantine, I thought, “no better time to dive in”! We set low expectations for ourselves, prepared the necessities, and ordered Whole Foods delivery for what we were able to get (hint: most things were sold out, and TMI we’re running low on TP ;).
I’ve had several friends who are believers ask for some tips to create a Seder for their families, so I’m putting this together for all of us to use as a resource – I’ll be referring to this post next year for all the links and info! Pray about it and see if you feel you would like to host a Seder dinner of your own!
An overview
I used this document for a shopping guide and a visual outline of the Seder plate – though in the picture, you can see we used what we had and did not include the lamb shank bone.
The Haggadah
This is the order of things you’ll follow. It essentially is your guide. I am so incredibly grateful for Chosen People Ministries providing all of these things – check out their website (& I’m sure they accept donations if you have means and would like to support their ministry efforts). Here is their Haggadah which does an excellent job pointing to Scripture and highlighting where the Seder points to Christ and the differences we can discuss as Christians in our Seder celebration.
Recipes
I had NO CLUE what was served at a Seder and what was required for the ceremonial portions of the Seder plate. This guide of recipes is excellent – they are easy to prepare and tasty! For our Seder meal, we had salad, Brisket (I used their recipe, but used a grassfed Chuck roast, and I added a hefty seasoning of garlic salt on both sides of the meat), Noodle Kugle (Kaydam called this Noodle Tootle and I hope no one ever changes that name!), and roasted root veggies (I took inspo from the Tzimmes), and finished with Macaroons. Everything was delicious!
A few notes
Matzos were sold out and during these days of social distancing, we did not go out to buy any. I planned to make some unleavened bread but ran short on time and did not want this to be stressful, so we used tortilla chips. It worked! We do not have a matzo tash and used cloth napkins that we had on hand instead. They were green not white and it was fine!
Relax, enjoy celebrating our Savior and a celebration he would have observed. God bless friends!!
xx,
