Saturday, March 21, 2026: Join us Tomorrow and celebrate the Passover meal with the Emmaus Community.
Join us in person at Christ Church United Methodist
1717 Yulupa Avenue, Santa Rosa California 95403
We begin with a greeting at 3:45 followed by our liturgy at 4:00.
Or Join us via Zoom using this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5193158573?omn=87244480762Passcode: 1234
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The Passover Meal: with order from The Jewish Haggadah, readings and reconstruction from the New Testament, reliance on human history and archeology and our experience through the ages.
Welcome dear friends to Seder – Passover -- and what we call The Last Supper. The Passover meal is the most significant meal in the Jewish calendar and I think we sometimes forget that we celebrate Passover every time we celebrate our liturgy which is our communal celebration – what has become known as The Mass.
What did it look like? It was a communal meal that celebrated the story of liberation from slavery in Egypt, the 40 years of wandering in the desert, to finally arrive in the promised land of milk and honey. It was all about the story – a story that needed to be repeated every year which bound together the Jewish imagination, identity moral fabric and vision.
If you were lucky you went to Jerusalem to be with Jews from all over the known world. What a feeling of joy! Then on the designated night you would sit at a common table and listen, celebrate and come to understand the roots of your faith. The meal was full of symbolism – The food was simple: A lentil stew, olives, bitter herbs, unleavened bread signifying the order given to the Jews to pack and bake hurriedly – not waiting for the bread to rise, dates mixed with apple to form a paste that resembles the mortar they used in Egypt, wine and water mixed in equal parts as was the custom of the time. All were on the menu at the Last Supper.
At this meal the guests would share from the same dishes and generally without utensils. Think of it more as a fondue experience where everyone would dip into and eat out of the same dishes.
Matthew recounts the preparation for the meal this way:
7When the day of the feast of Unleavened Bread arrived, Jesus sent out Peter and John, instructing them, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.” They asked him, “Where do you want us to make the preparations?” And he answered them, “When you go into the city, a man will meet you carrying a jar of water.* Follow him into the house that he enters and say to the master of the house, ‘The teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’
He will show you a large upper room that is furnished. Make the preparations there.” Then they went off and found everything exactly as he had told them, and there they prepared the Passover.
Jesus and his disciples reclined on floor cushions of straw covered in burlap, -- in the Roman style of the 1st century.
So that sets the stage for our meal. Two thousand years later we’re at tables but we do have the unleavened bread called matzoh, olives, dates, lentil soup and wine mixed with water. And as Christians we receive the legacy of Seder in the Mass – we just don’t have all the great food.
We begin with our first blessing followed by our first sip of wine:
May we find moments in this seder to breathe deeply. To offer peace to each other and to the world in this time of war and cruelty. In this meal we celebrate the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery and the liberation of peoples throughout the ages. We also celebrate the transformation of the meal into what we call the Last Supper as Jesus transforms what was a sacred meal into an act of his liberation and ours - giving us the command to love one another.
By touching on the food eaten for so many Seders – unleavened bread and wine, may we be transformed as we commit ourselves once more to accompany one another, sharing our joyous moments, sharing our pain and our losses, our visions and our victories, because as we celebrate this meal we acknowledge: This time, it’s all of us, all of humankind, all living beings or none.
Take the first sip of wine
Song: At This Table:
Our second blessing in one of memory:
Even as we give thanks for the gift of being together at this time, we take a moment of silence, in memory of all those we have lost in the past year, since we last sat at the Passover table together. They may be family or personal loved ones; they may be people who were killed by state- sponsored violence; They may be people who died for the cause of liberation. We remember… and we share their names now:
May the memories of these righteous be a blessing and a reminder of why we gather together to celebrate this feast.
We will now hold a minute of silence in remembrance.
Sip the second glass of wine mixed with water:
The Last Supper: A Reflection from Andrew by D. Bryan King, November 28, 2024
My name is Andrew, and I was one of the twelve disciples who walked alongside Jesus during His time on Earth. Many know my brother Peter, the bold fisherman who often spoke before he thought, but I was the quieter one, the one who preferred to listen and observe. I was honored to be among Jesus’ closest friends,
As we approached the upper room that evening, the air was thick with anticipation and the excitement of Passover. This sacred celebration, observed by our people for generations, filled our hearts with hope and gratitude. I could feel the weight of history pressing down on us as we gathered around the table. Each of us had come to know this meal well – unleavened bread, wine, and the bittersweet memories of our ancestors’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt.
As we settled in, Jesus was already preparing to teach us, His presence a comforting balm
Matthew, ever the meticulous one, arranged the bowls and cups with care, his brow furrowed in concentration. The way Jesus spoke as He welcomed us to the table was heavy with meaning, as if He were about to reveal something extraordinary.
“Tonight, we remember our deliverance,” He began, His voice steady and calm. “This meal signifies the hope and faith of our people in God’s Passcode: 1234
.”
When Jesus took the bread and blessed it, my heart quickened. I watched intently as He broke it, the soft crack of the loaf echoing in the stillness of the room. “This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me,” He said, His voice resonating with a weight that settled in the depths of my spirit.
We say together: “This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me,”
The words hung in the air, heavy and profound, and I felt a pang of confusion. What could He mean? This was our tradition, our way of remembering what God had done for us—the miraculous escape from slavery in Egypt, the years in the wilderness, the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. But Jesus was transforming it into something deeper, something personal, and the significance was not lost on me, even as I struggled to grasp it fully.
Then He poured wine into a cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
All Repeat: , “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
In that moment, I felt a rush of emotions—a blend of awe and uncertainty. My thoughts raced. Could He be saying that He was our true Passover lamb? The very embodiment of our deliverance? The connection struck me with an intensity that left me breathless.
As I looked around at my brothers and sisters, I saw a mixture of confusion mirrored in their faces, yet there was also a flicker of understanding beginning to form. It was as if we were all collectively trying to unlock the mystery of His words, grappling with the magnitude of what He was presenting.
Later in my life, as I reflected on that night, I would come to understand the profound implications of what Jesus was teaching us. He was inviting us into a new covenant, an agreement which brings about a relationship of commitment between Jesus and us -- one that transcended the old law and offers a path to reconciliation with everyone in the world – a path to kinship.
The bread was no longer just a symbol of our ancestors’ deliverance; it was a declaration of His impending sacrifice, a promise of hope that would span generations. I realized that the wine symbolized His blood, a new beginning marked by His love and grace.
I would learn that this act was not merely about remembering but also about participating in His life and mission. It was a call to embody His love and service in the world, to carry the essence of that moment into every encounter we would have. This realization filled me with purpose—a commitment to share the message of grace and redemption that Jesus had laid before us.
Looking back, I understood that Jesus was teaching us that true remembrance goes beyond ritual; it is an active engagement in the love He d
emonstrated. As we break bread together in His name, we are called to reflect on our own lives and how we can be vessels of love to others. I now see that our journey with Him was not just a historical narrative but a living testament to the transformative power of His sacrifice, urging us to embrace our roles as bearers of light in the world.
We take the third drink of wine and water
As we serve the meal:
Dinner conversation/ Shared Homily: Describe a special meal you have celebrated
After the meal, Jesus did something that astonished us all—He got up, took off His outer robe, and began to wash our feet. I was taken aback. This was the work of a servant, a role I had never envisioned Him taking.
“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” I asked, my voice filled with disbelief.
Jesus looked at me with gentle eyes. “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
When He finished, He said, “If I, your Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
As the evening came to a close, we raised our cups in a toast. “Let us always remember this moment,” Jesus said. “Thanksgiving is not just for what we have received but for what we are called to give—love, service, and sacrifice.”
We drink the 4th and final cup
We come together tonight to envision the world we want to live in: a world where every individual has the right to self-determination by participating in shaping our future together.
In this world, we look out and care for one another; we practice trust and kindness; we serve each other, so that they may say of us: see how these Christians love one another.
And the people of this beloved community proclaim: Amen
Note About the meaning of Seder:
Order and ritual are very important in the seder—so important that they are even reflected in its name: the English word seder is a transliteration of the Hebrew word sēdher, meaning “order.” The courses in the meal, as well as blessings, prayers, stories, and songs, are recorded in the Haggadah, a book that lays out the order of the Passover feast and recounts the story of Exodus. Each food consumed as part of the seder recalls an aspect of the Israelites’ 13th century BCE exodus from Egypt. For instance, matzo (unleavened bread) represents the haste with which the Israelites fled; maror (a mix of bitter herbs) recalls the bitterness of enslaved life; and a mixture of fruits and nuts called charoset (also rendered as charoses or haroset/haroses) symbolizes the clay or mortar the Israelites worked with during their Egyptian enslavement.
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