This week Christian world celebrates Easter, and Jewish people celebrate Pesach. As you may very well know, these two festivals are closely intertwined. On Wednesday I had a privilege to give a lecture on the last days of Jesus in the light of history, for which I gathered much information from number of sources, along with a meditation on the Stations of the Cross. Also, on Maundy Thursday evening it has been my tradition for many years now to host an Agape meal or Love feast with my partner, inviting one or two friends. In recent years, it has become more and more a Christian Seder meal.
So, I try to draw from these two events I was organizing, and we’ll see what we come up with.
First obvious questions are: what is Agape? What is Seder?

Agape is a Greek word, one of the three words Greeks used for “love”; more common in Hellenistic literature are Eros and Philia, passionate love between two people, and love between friends and relatives. Agape is unconditional love. It is not emotion. It is action. It is God’s deep and active love for the world, as expressed in the heart of the mystery of Christ’s cross. It is love that God calls us to show for our neighbour (Mk.12:31), and for our enemy (Mt.5:44-45). Because Agape is not emotional, it doesn’t mean you should like everybody! But you must love everybody! Love in this context, means impersonal good will expressed in selfless action. “Love is what love does!” Intercession, for example, is a direct model to apply the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”: Intercession realizes the Great Commandment of love; it is a deed of love! (“Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” Mt.5:44)

Agape meal or Love feast is first mentioned in the New Testament in 1 Cr.11:20-34, and it expresses Koinonia – communion, sharing, fellowship, and reminds us that we are brothers and sisters in Christ and we should love one another. Acts 2:46 tells us how the apostles… “breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.” Breaking bread refers to Eucharist, but “ate their food” proves it was more than Communion; it was a meal. These two services were closely connected in the early church, but eventually they diverged during the second and the third centuries, and at the sixth century practice of Agape was left out.
Some Churches closer to our time readopted this practice, mainly, Moravian Church and Methodists.

Still today Jews celebrate Easter as Pesach. “And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’” (Exodus 12:26-27)
It is important to understand that Jesus was a religious Jew. During the centuries Jews have followed traditional form at their Seder, “Seder” comes from Aramaic, meaning “order, arrangement”. Brief booklet called Haggadah includes text for this service.
Like Jews celebrate their release from slavery of Egypt, so Christians may celebrate man’s redemption from sin through passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Like God sent Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, so did God send His Son to save the fallen humanity.

We can honour origin of our Christian Faith, roots and heritage of Jesus, and gain better understanding of our Jewish brothers and sisters, thus helping to heal old wounds, by drawing from traditional Jewish Seder and the New Testament.
“Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?’” (Mt.26:17) Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us, that Jesus initiated his Lord’s Supper, or Communion, or Eucharist, at this meal.
St. Paul’s short indication to the Last Supper of Jesus is meaningful, since it reminds of Jesus’ words as they are found in synoptic Gospels, and it’s very likely that Paul was writing independently, and he was not a source for evangelists; so, his account is independent of the Gospels, and therefore a firm reason to think that tradition is mostly genuine.

Bethlehem literally means “the house of bread”; from the fields of Bethlehem was harvested the crop, that the bread for the needs of the Temple was made of, including the bread on the table of presence. There were twelve loaves of bread on this gold plated table, one for each tribe of Israel. Every week priests ate these loaves, and at a same time another group of priests was baking fresh bread to substitute the ones that were eaten. The same routine went on and on from week to week.
When Jesus took bread, thanked God, and broke it for his disciples to eat, he was acting like a high priest of the temple while making a holy meal for the priests. Jesus made his disciples a new priesthood. Apostles were able to experience this as sacred act, Sacrament, because it was deeply rooted in the cult of the old covenant.

Moreover, by telling us how the temple curtain was torn in two at the hour of his death, evangelists identify Jesus with the high priest, the only one who once a year, at the day of atonement, could enter the Holy of Holies, with sacrificial blood on his skin. Jesus realized old rituals, and not in shadowy symbolic significance, but in his living body. In his apocalyptic vision, St. John depicts Jesus as a figure standing in the middle of seven golden lampstands, dressed in white robe with golden belt. This is image of the high priest, who at the day of atonement changed his “golden garment” made of 8 pieces of clothing, to white linen before entering the holy of holies. The body of Jesus was covered with linen, material used for the finest clothes of the priests and other respectful people. John saw Christ as the heavenly high priest standing in heavenly temple! Christ’s words on the cross, “it is finished”, were the exact words used by the high priest at Pesach after the last lamb was slaughtered. Jesus died while the lambs were slaughtered in the temple. “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” (1 Cr.5:7)

“And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the LORD. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the LORD. Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the LORD made by fire, by a perpetual statute.” (Leviticus 24:5-9)

Frankincense is prophetically speaking of the meaning of pure worship. When the smoke filled the Holy, it also filled the loaves of bread that were left on the table for whole week. It became “holy bread”. Not only priests ate the bread, but they also drank the fruit of the Vine from the golden cups around the table. In the Old Testament, word wine is also used for the grapes (as in Isaiah 65:8). There are several Hebrew words to distinguish between fermented wine and grape juice, but in the NT Greek only one general word is used, oinos. During the Passover Seder, wine was mixed with water because children took part of it too.

However, according to the Gospels, the last supper could not be the official Passover Seder, which was to take place on Friday evening. It was a common meal by Jesus and his disciples, and St. Mark tells us it followed a normal order of the feast, but without any typical elements of Seder, like bitter herbs.
When celebrating Christian Seder, we can use these traditional symbolic elements, giving them partially new meaning. Twice there are two elements representing mixture of positive and negative experiences or emotions.
Firstly we eat green vegetables dipped in salt water, and later we eat sweet charoset (paste made of apple, grinded almonds, honey, and cinnamon) and bitter herbs. Life is mixture of joy and sorrow. We can’t pretend it’s all sweet. Rather it is our goal to rejoice of the fact that God is working in all conditions of life.
Green vegetable, karpas, is symbol of nature reawakening in the spring; God created and sustains life. First Passover for Jews was a new spring of hope. First Passover with Jesus was a new spring of hope for humanity in a deeper level. Yet tears often salt our lives with experiences of growth.
Bitter herbs, maror, remind Jews of slavery in Egypt, where their lives were made bitter. We Christians don’t hesitate to taste this bitterness as a reminder of Christ’s suffering and death. Charoset symbolizes for Jews clay and straws that were used for making bricks for Pharaoh’s construction projects. It tastes good because truly free people find good under all circumstances. Followers of Christ know that sharing in bitterness of his suffering, strengthens our hope, as St. Paul said: “We also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:2-5)

After destruction of the Temple in 70A.D. most Jews have replaced lamb with roasted lamb bone. As Christians think Christ was our Lamb who sacrificed himself on the cross throughoutly in our behalf, we can use a wooden cross instead of lamb bone.
Rachtzah, washing of the hands, signifies holiness of event, and purity of heart and hands. Christ washed the feet of his disciples, and taught them to love and serve others: “But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” (Mt.23:11)
It would be too awkward to wash other people’s feet during the meal, but instead we can symbolically wash each other’s hands.

Matzo, unleavened bread, is because Jews had to leave Egypt in such a hurry they didn’t have time to leaven their bread. During this meal leavening is also a symbol of sin. Matzo is broken and one half is hidden for desert. It is related to missing Passover lamb. We can see breaking of Matzo as a break, change, from the old order of things. Hidden half is symbol of Redemption we long for, and we know it is coming but we can’t see it yet. Of course this also reminds us of the Eucharist.

We start meal with boiled eggs, signs of new life, perfect symbol for Easter.
Four symbolic cups of wine are shared during Seder, and one cup called the “cup of Elijah” is reserved for the return of the prophet to proclaim the coming of Messiah. We Christians believe that not only Elijah returned, but Messiah also came. For us this cup represents the cup of Eucharist.
“Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’” (Luke 22:17-18)

Your Kingdom Come. Drink with us, Lord Jesus. Maranatha.

- Marcion

Some online resources:

The Passover Seder for Christians

A Guide to a Christian Seder

A Christian Passover Seder for Holy Thursday

An Agape Feast

Love Feast

Agape Meal