Spring Cleaning and the Passover Seder
Apr 01
Yesterday was a great day for a number of reasons.
I actually took the day off and spent some great time with the kids. In the morning, I was able to work on cleaning out the basement with Jill and I took a huge load to the land-fill. By the end of the day Jill had totally cleaned out and organized a major portion of the basement. It was so refreshing to have cleaned out so much in just a day. It felt good at the end of the day.
Jill and I took the kids to a “Seder” meal on Thursday and we were led through the “Seder” experience by a Messianic Rabbi named Derek Leman. The “Seder” always takes place during the celebration of “Passover”which takes place during the yearly festival called “The Feast of Unlevened Bread”. Passover initiates a seven day period where Jews would not eat any bread with yeast and would only eat unlevened bread. The Unlevened bread initially was a reminder of the original Passover experience where the Jews would not have had time to put leven in their bread because of their hasty departure from Egypt following the night of the Passover. Leven has also become a symbol of sin in the lives of Jewish people and is representative of the fact that it only takes a little leven (yeast) to impact the whole and similarly it only takes a little sin in our lives to impact our entire life and relationship with God.
Jews have been known to sweep up every crumb of levened bread during this festival and take it out of their house and burn it as a symbol of getting rid of sin from their household. The apostle Paul referred to the impact of a “little” sin in our lives in his letter to the Corinthian Church.
1 Corinthians 5:6 (NIV)
6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?
As we approach Easter, it may be good to remember the Jewish feast that is almost simultaneously taking place. It may be a good time to do some “Spring Cleaning” in our lives and make ourselves available to God in a new and fresh manner.
It may be refreshing! What are your thoughts?
My thoughts … I would like to borrow Jill for the day.
Seriously, we have got to ‘Spring Clean’ ourselves and ask forgiveness for our sins before we can even think of praying about anything … before we can pray for others. It’s amazing what God will do for us when we make ourselves available to Him.
That is refreshing!
Joyce Nobles