Last night my family and I celebrated Passover. This was the
first time for many of us to celebrate this holiday. I went to work in
the morning and was finally able to make it home by about 3:30 in the
afternoon. From that time until all of my roommates returned home I
cleaned, prepared the food, set the table and prepared my own heart for
this night. As people trickled in from work and from playing volleyball a
great hunger hit all of us. We were so ready for this meal. However, as
we asked the question “what is different about tonight…?” we discussed
the fact that on this night instead of eating the meal without thinking-
we thought about the meaning and the importance of each part of the
meal.
As we proceeded slowly through the meal we ate of the hope and
newness we have in Christ. We remembered the tears shed in oppression.
We ate of the bitterness of our slavery. We remembered the back breaking
labor of our past. We ate the matzah to remember the hurried exodus.
We drank the wine to remember the freedom that we have today because of
the ways God has delivered us and has promised to deliver us. We ate the
lamb to remember the sacrifice made.
We progressed through the meal. We involved ourselves in lively
conversation. We asked questions: some got answered, some did not. We
laughed. We talked about the seasons the Lord has us in right now. We
enjoyed the meal.
As we neared the end of the lamb the groans of satisfaction and
pushing away of plates picked up. We pushed more meat onto the guys’
plates hoping to fill them even more. We cleared the table and the race
was on to find the last hidden matzah that would be used for dessert. It
was great fun to watch the roommates running around the house, opening
cabinets and drawers, searching the refrigerator until it was finally
found and brought to the table for us to enjoy.
As we wrapped up our meal we were led into a time of worship and got
to just sit with our God and remember just how amazing his goodness is
and how much he has done for us.
I got up from this time and joined some of the others who were
already cleaning up in the kitchen. As I was loading the dishwasher I
noticed the dish cabinet was open- I went to close it but then was
struck by its utter emptiness. All of our glasses had been used for the
dinner, and every single plate we have was used (+we had to import one
from another house). Absolutely everything we had went into this meal. I
definitely felt this in my body by this point in the night. Everything I
had that day went into this meal. I felt completely drained of energy.
The thing that struck me the most in this emptiness was as empty as
our cabinet was and as much as we poured into this meal we were so full
we were pushing our plates away. So completely full.
