Zoom Seder – Maundy Thursday, April 9th, 2020.

Shalom!

In light of these times, we are going to attempt to celebrate a “Christian seder” on Maundy

Thursday.

The seder is the Passover supper Jesus shared with the disciples on the night before He was

crucified. As we celebrate the seder meal together, we remember that Jesus is the Passover

lamb whose sacrifice covers our sin.

During the seder they:

• Clean the house and prepare for the meal

• Share 2 cups

• Tell the Exodus account

• Share a meal

• Share the 3rd cup (which is the communion cup; and the bread)

• Then finish with a 4th cup

What you will need:

• Pan with water for hand washing, and a towel.

• Grape juice (for the 4 cups): Substitute with any kind of juice, apple, grape, etc.

• Matzo (unleavened bread): Substitute with crackers or bread.

• Parsley: Substitute with celery, or lettuce, or green vegetable.

• Salt water: Mix some salt with water and place in a dish.

• Hard-boiled egg; optional.

• Charoset:

o Chopped apples mixed with ground nuts, mixed with juice.

o Any type of chopped fruit will do; even jelly.

• Horseradish (bitter herbs): Mustard, or Dijon mustard can be substituted.

• Set the table (set one extra plate unattended).

o If possible, eat on the floor, reclining against a wall with a pillow; and remove

your shoes. Otherwise you may set at a table.

o Do not have to dress special for this…as you know the Israelites would have been

in traveling clothes.

• Have a candle.

• Prepare a normal meal for your family.

Order of Service:

1. Dad cleans the leaven from the house.

a. 1 Corinthians 5:7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you

really are unleavened.

2. Mother lights the candles.

3. Share the first cup: Sanctification

4. Leader washes hands

a. Jesus washed his disciples feet at this point – we will ritually cleanse ourselves by

washing our hands.

5. Dip the parsley TWICE into salt water and eat

a. 1st dip remembers tears shed in slavery.

b. 2nd dip remembers Egyptians drowning in Red Sea.

6. Hide the afikomen:

a. Break the middle matzo and hide the piece.

b. To be shared as dessert, after the meal.

7. Child asks the 5 questions:

a. Why is this night different?

i. Answer: Once we were slaves in Egypt, but now we are free and we set

apart this night each year to remember the great things God did for us.

b. Why do we eat only matzo?

i. Answer: Matzo reminds us of two things – we were delivered from

slavery in Egypt, and we have a new life.

c. Why do we eat bitter herbs?

i. Answer: We remember how bitter our ancestors’ slavery was in Egypt.

d. Why do we dip twice into the saltwater?

i. Answer: We are reminded of the tears and of a miraculous deliverance.

e. Why do we recline while we eat?

i. Answer: Before we were slaves, but now we are able to recline to express

the rest we enjoy as free people.

8. Share the Passover Account (Haggadah) – Condensed and Paraphrased:

a. Leader Reads:

This is the history of Passover. Listen carefully and you will hear where the

name Passover came from.

A long time before Jesus lived, the Hebrew people who believed in the one

true God, lived in Egypt. During that time there was a wicked king named

Pharaoh ruling over Egypt. Pharaoh was very cruel to Hebrews. He made

them into slaves and made them work very, very hard.

Pharaoh was very jealous and worried that one of the Hebrew boys may grow

up and try to take over. So, he ordered the soldiers to kill all the Hebrew baby

boys.

b. Reader 1:

One Hebrew mother decided to hide her very special small baby. She put the

baby in a basket on the riverbank so the mean soldiers wouldn’t find him. The

Pharaoh’s daughter went to the river and found the baby. She did not tell the

Pharaoh it was a Hebrew baby. She brought him home and named him Moses,

which means “brought from the water” in Hebrew.

Moses grew to be a man. He did not understand why the Pharaoh was so

mean to the Hebrew slaves. He left Egypt and became a shepherd in a faraway

land.

c. Reader 2:

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.

While Moses was taking care of his sheep, he came to the mountain of God.

There the angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.

Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So, Moses

thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn

up.” God called to Moses from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” and Moses

said, “here I am.”

d. Reader 3:

God said, “Do not come any closer, take off your sandals, for the place where

you are standing is Holy ground. Then He said, “I am the God of your father,

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his

face, because he was afraid to look at God. God said, “I have indeed seen the

misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their

slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So, I have come down

to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of

that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out

of Egypt.”

e. Eat the bitter herbs (representing the bitterness of slavery)

f. Eat the charoset (representing the mortar of the bricks they made)

g. Leader/Plagues:

i. Share the Second Cup: The Cup of Plagues; recount the plagues.

1. Pour the cup and before you drink, when each plague is recalled;

dip your finger in the cup and let a drop drip from your finger

onto your plate.

Let us dip our fingers in the cup, putting a drop on a plate for each plague as it

is recited:

Everyone recites the names of the plagues together, while dipping a finger into

the second cup and placing one drop on the plate:

Blood Frogs Lice

Blight Boils Gnats

Hail Locusts Darkness

Death of First Born

h. Reader 4:

After nine of the ten plagues God told Moses to tell all the Hebrew people that

each man was to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. These

were very special lambs. They had to be one-year-old males without any

sickness, disabilities, or blemishes.

They were to kill the lambs and take some of the blood and put it on the sides

and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.

Jesus is our Lamb:

John 1:29 Behold, the Lamb of God The next day he saw Jesus coming

toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin

of the world!

John 19:30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is

finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

1 Corinthians 5: 7b-8 For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven

of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

i. Reader 5

That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with

bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. They were to eat the lamb with

their cloaks tucked into their belts, their sandals on their feet and a staff in

their hand. They were to eat in a hurry.

God said that on that night He would pass through Egypt and strike down every

firstborn – both men and animals. When he saw the blood on the houses

where His people were, He would pass over them. He promised he would not

harm anyone who had the blood on the doorpost that night while He struck

Egypt.

j. Reader 6

That night death came to all of Egypt’s firstborn.

Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and

there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone

dead. During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up!

Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship god as you have

requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go.”

The sad and frightened Egyptians insisted the Hebrew people hurry and leave

the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” So the people took

their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders

wrapped in clothing. The sun baked it into hard bread.

k. Reader 7

When Pharaoh let the people go, God led the people around by the desert

road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites left Egypt.

By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them by day,

and a pillar of fire to guide them by night.

Then Pharaoh was told that the people had fled, he and his officials changed

their minds and said “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and

have lost all our slaves!”

Pharaoh took chariots and his army and chased the Israelites and caught up

with them while they were camped by the Red Sea.

l. Reader 8

As Pharaoh got closer, the Israelites looked up and were very afraid; and cried

out to God. Moses told the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm and you will

see the deliverance God will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you

will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you nee only to be still”.

Then God said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to

move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the

water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

m. Reader 9

Then angel of God, who had been traveling in front went behind them and

kept the Egyptian army away from them all night.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all-night God drove the

sea back and turned it into dry land. Then the Israelites went through the sea

on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

The Egyptians chased after them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and

horsemen followed them into the sea. God looked down from the pillar of fire

and clout and threw the Egyptian army into confusion. He made the wheels of

their chariots come off and get stuck.

Then God said to Moses “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters

may flow back over the Egyptians and their horsemen.” So Moses stretched

out his hand over the sea, and the sea went back to its place and all of Egypt’s

army drowned in the sea.

n. Leader

That day God saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians.

God said that Passover was a day to be celebrated for the generations to come,

every year; to remember that we were once slaves and now we are free.

In like manner, because Jesus is our Passover Lamb we are no longer slaves to

sin:

Romans 6:6 We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him in order that

the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be

enslaved to sin.

9. Eat the boiled egg (representing the destruction of the temple)

10. Find the Afikomen & Share the 3rd Cup – The Cup of Redemption:

a. Institution of the Lord's Supper

b. Luke 22: 14-20 14 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the

apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this

Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it[b] until it is

fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given

thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that

from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God

comes.” 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and

gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in

remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying,

“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 19 And

he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them,

saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of

me.”

c. 1 Cor 11:23-26 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the

Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had

given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for[f] you. Do this

in remembrance of me.”[g] 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after

supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as

you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and

drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

11. Search for Elijah

a. Mat 17:10-13 And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first

Elijah must come?” 11 He answered, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all

things. 12 But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize

him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly

suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to

them of John the Baptist.

12. Share the Fourth Cup: The Cup of Praise

a. Share Testimonies

13. The seder is finished.