Passover (Pesach) Prep – Part 2

Passover starts Monday night, and our community seder is Tuesday night at our house. The final countdown has begun! This particular Feast of the Lord is the most traditional one and is celebrated the most, even by secular Jews. No two seders are alike. You have to decide what you want your guests to leave with and focus on those things.  This Messianic blog post boils everything down to seven goals of a Pesach seder. I love this. You don’t even have to focus on all seven. Seders don’t have to be long and complicated. It’s a time for family…for celebrating the love of Abba….for remembering how He brought us out of darkness…for seeing the mystery of the gospel of Yeshua hidden in every aspect of the seder.  Have fun!

(more…)

Passover (Pesach) Prep – Part 1

I absolutely love the Passover time of year. The weather is getting warmer, the grass is greening and the flowers are beginning to bloom. What better time of year to remember and celebrate the love of God when He brought us out of the darkness and bondage of sin?  This is a special time of year for the family to remember together….for the older ones to teach the younger ones about God’s rich, lavish affection for His people.  He will stop at nothing to communicate this. He will move heaven and earth to have a remnant of voluntary lovers who put Him above all the riches this world offers.  He REALLY loves us! That is what Passover (“Pesach” in Hebrew) is all about.

This year Passover starts on Monday evening, March 29th.  I’ve already started preparations for our Seder which is ten days from today. The first step in preparation is to read the Exodus story again. Remember how God delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Chapters 1-13 in Exodus tells the story. Also Deuteronomy 6:20-25 tells of how we are to tell the story to our children.

That brings up another point that I feel very passionately about. Romans 11:13-36 says that we, as Gentiles, were wild olive branches grafted in to the cultivated olive tree of Israel. We share in the rich Root of our Jewish brothers and sisters. We cannot boast that we are better than the cultivated olive branches. We were grafted in because of the vast love of our Abba God. The Root sustains us….we don’t sustain the Root.  We owe EVERYTHING to that olive tree. That is why our family celebrates the Feasts of the Lord. They aren’t feasts just for Jews. They are for Gentiles as well. Foreigners observed the feasts as well as the Israelites. It is for us as grafted-in branches!

Leviticus 23:4 says, “…the Feasts of the Lord, which you shall declare to be holy convocations…these are My feasts.” Also, II Chronicles says, “…on the set feasts of the Lord. This is an ordinance for Israel forever.” Did Yeshua observe Passover?  Yes! Read Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22. If He celebrated this Feast (actually He observed them all), then don’t you think there is something in it for us?!

The second step in preparing for Pesach is making sure you have all the necessary supplies and food for the seder.  I started buying a few things yesterday.  (more…)

He Loves His House

I’ve been meditating recently on the two accounts in the Gospels where Yeshua ran the money-changers and animal sellers out of the temple complex. One is in John 2 right after He turned the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, and the other one is in Matthew 21 a few days before He let the people crucify Him.

The first time this happened He made a whip, drove them out of the temple complex along with the animals, knocked over the money-changers’ tables, and said, “Get these things out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market?” That day His disciples remembered a verse in Psa. 69:9 that said, “Zeal for Your house will devour me.”

(more…)

Simchat Torah! (Rejoicing in the Torah)

Today, Simchat Torah, marks the end of the annual cycle of weekly Torah readings which are read in synagogues all over the world. On this day every year, the last portion of Deuteronomy is read along with the beginning verses of Genesis reminding us that Torah is a circle that never ends.  It is a time of great celebration, processions and dancing.

We were privileged last night to be a part of the rejoicing in Jerusalem.  Even with all the unrest and tension in Jerusalem right now, the mood was festive with lots of laughing and dancing. On the main stage, rabbis from the nations were introduced along with their newly-purchased Torah scrolls. Many rabbis make annual trips to Israel at this time to get their scrolls for the new cycle of Torah reading. The platform was packed with rabbis showing off their new scrolls for their synagogues!

Line dances and circle dances were taking place all around me. This one is great because it’s teenagers and twenty-somethings having a blast. It’s only 73 seconds long. Be sure and watch to the end because one guy has a fun time in the center of the circle!

As believers in Yeshua, we celebrate the Living Torah written on our hearts.  He is the Word of God sent by God to reveal God to the world.  We rejoice in the Truth of His Word. We rejoice, because He loved us enough to send Yeshua to the world so that we might know Him. And we can really know the Creator of the universe because of Yeshua’s sacrificial death on the cross.  That should make you want to dance a little jig!

All small children were on the shoulders of their fathers. The kids wave special flags for Simchat Torah. We even saw kids eating cotton candy!  What a fun night!

We rejoice in YOU, Lord!!!!  Pray that His chosen people will come to a revelation of Yeshua as the Living Torah written on their hearts.

Images of Sukkot

From the time Sukkot began last Friday night, I’ve been taking random pictures of the temporary booths that are in our neighborhood (Lev. 23:42-43). Each sukkah is different and unique to the builder. I love this time of year!

Sukkot on Ben Yehuda

Our neighbors downstairs were repairing their sukkah roof and I got this picture of the table inside it.

Taken from our living room window

Flowers from my hubby!

I just couldn’t end this post without showing you the flowers Gary got for me yesterday. These were at the little 24/7 convenience store close to our house. On Thursday and Friday, flowers are sold everywhere in Israel, because it’s very traditional to have cut flowers on a shabbat table.  Isn’t it amazing how flowers make you smile and brighten your day?!