This month, all over the world, most Jewish families will be recounting their ancestors’ ancient Exodus from Egypt through the annual tradition of the Passover seder. Sadly, many of them will also fail to hear of the true meaning of God’s salvation and sacrifice.
According to the Torah, it is not only Israel’s responsibility to perform the Passover sacrifice each year, but also parents’ responsibility to explain the purpose of the sacrifice to their children, as captured in the following father/son exchange from Perfect Word Ministries’ Messianic Passover Haggadah, Behold the Lamb.
son: Abba, “what is this ‘avodah [ceremony, rite] you have?” (Exodus 12:26)
abba: It is “a sacrifice of Pesach [Passover] to Adonai, who passed over the houses of the sons of Yis’rael [Israel] in Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians, and our houses He delivered” (Exodus 12:27).
son: Abba, why are we to “take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel over the houses in which we eat it?” (Exodus 12:27)
abba: It is to remember that “the blood has become as a sign for” us—that when Adonai saw “the blood, He passed over” us, “and a plague for destruction was not on us when He struck the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:13).
