This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly.
It is the Passover of the Lord.
Exodus 12:11 NRSVue
Yesterday evening was the commencement of Jewish Passover or Pesach for 2025. This is a moon-related festival, the celebration of the deliverance of the Jewish people from the tyranny of their Egyptian overlords. Passover has become a week-long remembrance but last night was the Seder meal with all its symbolic elements.
This is also Palm/Passion Sunday for most of the world's Christians, even in many non-liturgical denominations. Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week and recognizes Jesus' procession into Jerusalem as Jews gathered for Pesach. What Christians commemorate as Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper was a Passover seder. And Holy Week/Easter is also related to the first full moon after the Spring equinox.
Last Supper -- Emil Nolde
These two religious events don't always coincide as completely as this year but they are always related. In a time when anti-semitism is on the rise its important to remember that in the past some Christians focussed on the persecution of Jews during Holy Week, claiming, falsely, that Jews murdered Jesus. While they recognized that Good Friday and Easter are central to our Christian faith they somehow vilified Jews as agents of Jesus' crucifixion, and some still do.
The drama of this week is deeply meaningful for me as a Christian. The 33 years of Jesus' life zooms in first to the three years of his ministry and then to the momentous eight days of Holy Week and Easter. Jesus was in Jerusalem as an observant Jew so this year we can also be mindful of the profound connection between these two religions and ask how we can promote respect and understanding. May we all be delivered from bigotry and arrogance.
Passover Seder -- Canadian artist William Kurelek 1975
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