Each year it is an event to which I look forward. Bob, a dear friend of longstanding, invites us to take part in a Seder. We gather, some ten or so in our community, along with Bob’s family members and a few other friends to celebrate the feast of Passover. Most of this community does not come from the Jewish tradition; nonetheless, the event holds deep spiritual meaning for us all.
In fact, our being non-Jewish makes this event a privilege. I take it as a special mark of friendship that we are allowed to be there for this meaningful meal. And not only be there – – we are also invited to take an active part in response to Bob’s leadership. He asks us to read selections from the Haggadah, the book of readings and prayers, and to make the appropriate ritual answers.
Though we are about something serious, the atmosphere remains relaxed and informal. Even in commemorating the most solemn events of the Jewish liturgical year, we are among friends who know one another well. After more than twenty years of sharing weekly meals, we are held together in strong bonds of affection.
As we celebrate the Seder, these bonds help make us feel comfortable in one another’s company. So comfortable, in fact, that we can warmly welcome others who are not ordinarily members of our group. Extended family members of our host and other guests add to the festivity of the occasion for us all.
My favorite lines from the service are always the question posed by the youngest person present and the responses. “Why is this night different from all other nights,” our friend’s young daughter asks. This question is answered in telling about the Israelites becoming freed from their Egyptian bondage and their flight homeward.
I also love the cup of wine being poured for the prophet Elijah and the opening of the door to let him in. It is a gesture of hope for the coming of the Messiah and a welcoming of strangers. Also, as I like to think of it, this gesture means that the people of God stay open to the Lord’s message through the prophets.
The experience reminds me once more just how radical biblical spirituality is and how far we fall short of it. Even those basic rules of life given to Moses on Mount Sinai go far beyond mere human thinking and acting. “Thou shalt not kill,” for example, though it seems so simple and fundamental, actually holds us to a standard violated constantly. So-called ethnic cleansing, for instance, amounts to a head-on rejection of this divine command.
The Seder centers on freedom, first of all the liberation of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt, and also the freeing of God’s people from the bondage of sin and evil of all kinds. It proves so difficult to accept the call of spiritual freedom that we must hear it in the liturgy over and over. Yes, divine grace is available to us but we still have to struggle in order to lay hold of the freedom that God wants us to have.
For those of us who belong to the Christian tradition, the Seder is also inseparable from the celebration of Easter. Easter is the feast that brings us together to commemorate Jesus rising from the dead to new life. This belief is the bedrock of Christian faith and the source of Easter spirituality.
As we take part in the Easter Vigil, the Eucharistic liturgy celebrated on Saturday night, members of my family will join in the prayers and hymns that give expression to faith in the risen Lord. In writing this I am mindful of one of Michelangelo’s famous sculptures, that of the resurrected Jesus, which one finds in Rome in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. In this great artist’s view the Jesus of Easter is fully human, even more so than before he rose to new life.
During Easter Sunday, we will be buoyed up by the liturgical experience of renewed life. Inviting other family members and friends into our home for a festive meal, we intend to let our lives be marked by Easter throughout the year.
Passover and Easter, two moments that point toward spiritual renewal. Both are passages from death to life, both call us to a richer spiritual life. Can we let these ritual events take deeper root in our hearts and lead us to new possibilities of mind and spirit?
Richard Griffin