Wednesday of Holy Week

There was no activity recorded on Wednesday of Holy Week, but this is a fun thing to do with the family to prepare for Passover. 

On the day [of Unleavened Bread, when] the sacrifice of the Passover lambs was to take place, [the day when any bread made with yeast was removed from every Jewish home, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where should we prepare the Passover meal for you?”] (The Life of Jesus: Harmonized Gospels: Reader's Edition (The Passion Translation), p. 240) 

Activities like this reinforce concepts from Scripture no matter what your age:

What you will need: 

1.     wooden spoon

2.     feather

3.     candle in a holder to catch the drips of wax (and matches)

4.     little paper bag

5.     piece of string

6.     some bread

7.     Bible 

How to celebrate!  

In the evening, on the night before Passover, gather the family together. Read Exodus 12:15, 19, and 42. In the Old and New Testaments, leaven or fermented things often symbolize sin. Jesus warned against "the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Matt. 16:6). Paul wrote, "the leaven of malice and wickedness" and the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:8). the Passover bread described in Exodus was to become a symbol of the sinless Christ. The instructions are clear. Unleavened bread is to be used exclusively for seven days. Orthodox Jews treat leaven during Passover like a doctor treats a contagious disease. They clean, scour, and scrub anything that might have had "contact" with leaven during the year. (We don't have to go to this extreme. We are teaching principles, not regulations.) 

An interesting ceremony for cleaning out the leaven is performed on the evening of the day just before Passover. It is called, "bedikat chametz," the search for the leaven. After dark the father of the family leads a search through all the corners of the house. It is traditional to use a wooden spoon and a feather and to be guided by the light of a candle. If Mother, or whoever cleans, did a good job, the children would never find any leaven. It has become a tradition in our family for me to break a slice of white bread in about 12 pieces. I hide these fragments in our living room-dining room area. (Remember, the house will be dark, so they don't have to be too well hidden.) Adapt it to the ages of the children, too. After you turn off the lights and light the candle to search in the darkness for the "leaven," remember Christ, the light of the world, spotlights sin in our lives and offers to remove it! Because leaven represents sin, the pieces found remind us that there is not a person in the world who does only good. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23).   

As you search for the leaven, discover some important concepts:

1. You can't go off alone -- you need the light of Christ to see.
2. The light (Christ) exposes the bread (sin). 
3. Mother may forget where she put some of the pieces -- some sins in our lives are forgotten until Christ's light shines on them. 
4. Some pieces are hard to find -- some of our sins are very well hidden. 

Talk together, express what you are feeling, share your impression. You may be surprised at how much you are learning just having fun! Gather the pieces into a small bag. Tie it closed with a string. Pray together in response to this experience. Include a time of silent prayer for personal confession of sin. Turn on the lights and read Psalm 103:12. Keep the bag overnight for use in the morning. (Celebrate the Feasts by Martha Zimmerman, p. 58-59)

The morning of Passover, you go out to a place where it is safe to have a small fire or in a wood stove or fireplace, and you burn the bread bag and read 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.