Ideas for a Christ-centered Passover

Passover is one of three biblical holidays we celebrate to remember Christ’s death and resurrection. This week, we celebrate the days coming up to Passover, which we will celebrate on Saturday evening. That is followed immediately by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, then First Fruits. Unleavened Bread lasts 7 days.

Yes, Christ is the lamb who was sacrificed on Passover! Praise His name. Because Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits are actually separate Feasts from Passover, I hope to include a second part to this post, offering ideas for embracing those celebrations. For this one though, I’m focusing on Passover.

We are embracing feasts that were established in the Old Testament, honoured by Christ Jesus, and prophesied of the wonderful, amazing truth of Christ, our Saviour.

One thing I had to wrap my mind around when we started embracing the biblical feasts is that the Hebrew Calendar is not the same as our calendar so Passover (along with all the other feasts) will almost never fall on the same day or day of the week in our ‘Roman’ calendar. This year Passover and “Easter” are very close in timing, however, many years they are up to a month apart.

So… here are some of the ways we are embracing a Christ-centered Passover this year.

Studying a Biblical Passover-

My sweet friend Robin at Heart of Wisdom was so kind to give me a copy of Adam to Messiah for review. I was in the midst of reading through the volumes to post a detailed review (coming soon!) when I was prompted to check for a lesson related to Passover. I flipped to the Ancient Egypt Book and voila! So, we’ll be using this lesson for this week. Maybe this is a mini ‘plug’ for the Adam to Messiah curriculum, because WOW do I love this! I am so excited about implementing this into our homeschool!!!

We will be doing the following from the lesson:

-Make a list of the plagues, from memory if possible. Then read Psalm 78. Which plagues are mentioned?

-Once the plagues are listed (on chalk board), I will hand the children their own little pictures of the plagues, which they will attempt to put in order (by memory).

-Copying scripture for copywork.

-Reading through the account of the exodus found in the Old Testament.

-We will also discuss the prophetic and deeper meanings to the plagues. For example, the Nile was the Egyptians’ idol which God defeated by turning the Nile to blood. The blood is also a symbol of how blood thirsty and sinful the Egyptians were to slaughter the Hebrews’ children. The frogs represented the fertility goddess, Isis. Once the plague came, the dead frogs, which we supposed to symbolize life, were left in heaping piles as a reminded of God’s supreme power and glory over the false gods of Egypt.

Can you think of the 10 plagues from memory?

Can we put the plagues in order?

Easy copywork for lapbooks.

Reading through the Passover Story in one of our Children’s Bibles:

I got this bible on discount years ago, and it has been one of our favourites!

The Story of Christ (object lessons from our Pesach Box):

I love all these little symbolic pieces, each one representing a part of the story of Christ’s death and resurrection. They are so tactile and the children are filled with memories upon taking them out of the box. I salvaged these from our old ‘Resurrection Eggs’… I wasn’t comfortable with the eggs but still felt the symbols were very fitting for Passover so I saved them, and I’m glad I did.

You can easily find many of these things around the house or make them out of crafting items. I encourage you to be creative!

I believe this year, I’ll implement this into our Lapbooks as well. (I’ll share this year’s lapbooks at the end of Unleavened Bread, Lord willing.)

Symbolic Meanings and Readings:

The Donkey reminds us of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.

Matthew 21:1-9, Mark 11:8

The Coins reminds us of the thirty pieces if silver Judas received for the betraying of Jesus into the hands of the Jewish leaders.

Matthew 26: 14-16

The cup reminds us of Jesus last supper with his disciples before His crucifixion. It was what was used for the wine, which is drunk in memory of Christ’s blood that He shed for us and our sins.

Matthew 26:17-19, Exodus 12:23

The praying hands reminds us of Jesus visiting the garden of Gethsemane to pray.

Mark 14:32-42

The leather reminds us the whip used to give Jesus 39 lashes after His trial by Pilate.

John 19:1-15, Matthew 27:26-31

The crown of thorns reminds us of the crown that the soldiers placed on Jesus’ head while mocking Him.

Matthew 27:29

The nails remind us of the nails that were driven into Jesus’ hands and feet to nail Him to the cross.

John 19: 16-22

The dice reminds us of the Roman soldiers gambling for Jesus’ robe.

John 19: 23-25

The spear reminds us what the Roman soldiers used to pierce Jesus’ side when He was on the cross.

John:19 31-37

The gauze reminds us of the linen cloth used by Joseph of Arimathea to wrap Jesus’ body after He died on the cross.

Matthew 20: 57-61

The stone reminds us of the tomb were the stone rolled away.

Matthew: 28:1-2

The basin and towel reminds us of how Jesus washed the feet of His disciples on the night before He died.

John 13:1-7

The lamb reminds us that Jesus is the Lamb of God, the One True Passover Lamb who died once and for all so we may be cleansed of our sins and draw close to the Him.
John 1:29

The two candles are the Sabbath Candles that remind us that Jesus is the Light of the World.
John 8:12

I found all the symbols in clip-art form and printed them off for the children to put in order as we work through all the symbols in our Pesach box.

Passover Supper

For our celebration of the Last Supper (Passover dinner), we plan to enjoy a special meal together.

We don’t do a traditional Sedar. There are many parts of the Sedar that I don’t necessarily feel prompted to embrace at this time. For us, we focus on the Bread and the Cup as Christ said these two things were symbolic of His body and His blood.

We will eat Unleavened Bread together and read through many scriptures together to remind us of what Christ Jesus (Y’eshua) has done for us through His sacrifice.

We will also embrace and discuss the four cups. Each cup has deep significance and are referred to in Exodus 6. We will have 4 separate wine glasses with grape juice and will read through the assigned readings together.

This is also when we will search for Leaven in our home and prayerfully do our best to rid our home of leaven for our embracing of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.