#bread during Passover feels like a totally different thing to me. but also i know actual jewish ppl who do not observe passover and i don’t

[pepprs]

ok hi. not to be stupid about this publicly once again but it’s 5:34 am [update it is now 5:53 am] and i have gotten absolutely HORRIBLE sleep tonight. first bc i was so stressed that i couldn’t fall asleep until 1:30am. then because my sister is sleeping in our room again (long story) which is good for her bc she’s making progress w her ocd but it means that she comes in with h the flashlight on after 2am and has to check the room and she leaves the bedroom door wide open which distorts the white noise from the sojnd machine which is right in front of my bed. and she’s like laughing at stuff on her phone too so all the subtleties of sound and light disrupt me and wake me up and throw me off. and also it’s freakishly hot so i woke up a couple times bc of that. and now im awake at 5:30ish after barely sleeping for 4 hours bc im stressed bc it’s Passover and my moms bday and im leaving work early today and tomorrow for the “””””Seder””””” (which again literally is not a seder it’s just dinner w my grandpa) and barely have time to get anything done at work and haven’t done anything for my mom and have to clean the house for my grandpa to come over and we literally don’t even have a dinner table yet likr idkw aht the fuck we’re going to do.. and also im fucking STARVING. because guess what!!!! we have to stop eating bread!!!! and i usually have 4 slices with avocado / guac on them before i go to sleep but there were only 4 slices left in the whole house so i had 2 so my brother will get to have the other 2 during the day. and my stomach is howling rn. and we have other things to eat like fruit and stuff but nothing that’s not going to throw me off.. like im not about to eat an orange at 5:30am it’s going to set my throat on fire with the acid this early in the morning. and we don’t have any snack foods in this house or like anything that can be made without having to prepare it for a while bc of our diet (lol). and we don’t have any flatbread or tortillas or whatever yet. so im going fucking crazy and feeling resentful abt passover again and wondering what the hell im going to do going into work and not being able to eat bagels for breakfast after not being able to eat my bedtime snack and being this hungry and stressed and miserable for a week on top of everything else. lol

[rabbi-brian]

PASSION FOR GOOD FRIDAY OR THURSDAY?

PASSIONATE PASSAGE:

13 So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Yeshua out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place called the Stone Pavement (but in Aramaic, Gabbatha). 14 It was the Day of Preparation for Passover, about the sixth hour [12pm]. And Pilate said to the Judean leaders, “Behold, your king!” 15 They shouted back, “Take Him away! Take Him away! Execute Him!”... 31 It was the Day of Preparation, and the next day was a festival Shabbat [KJV: “high day”]. So that the bodies should not remain on the execution stake during Shabbat, the Judean leaders asked Pilate to have the legs broken and to have the bodies taken away. - John 19:13-15,31 (TLV)

PASSIONATE PRINCIPLE:

It is beautiful to see believers from all around the world gathering together this Friday to celebrate and recognize the sacrifice of our Savior. Our Messiah gave His life to the world, as the “Lamb of God,” to become the Lamb of God who takes away our sins.

Messiah Fulfills Passover

The Messiah, Is our “Passover Lamb” who delivers us from bondage, as His Blood is applied to the doorpost of our hearts.

Passover is the annual feast on the 14th day of the first month, that rehearses how the Almighty delivered Israel from Egypt by the blood of the lamb. Their freedom from Pharaoh and his cruel bondage is reenacted through a Passover Seder, where a storybook called a Haggadah is read, and four cups of wine, or the “fruit of the vine” are drunk throughout the retelling of the Exodus, to remind us of how God delivered Israel from slavery, and redeemed them with His outstretched arm, in four stages. Unleavened bread, known as “matzah” in Hebrew, is eaten with bitter herbs [usually horseradish], during the evening of the seder, or festival meal. The Hebrew month of Nisan, formerly just called Aviv, is the month for this festival, and is commanded by God to be used for the sacred calendar for counting months, in contrast to the “Jewish New Year.” The blood of the lamb was smeared on the doorpost so that the death angel would “pass-over” their homes.

Messiah Fulfills Unleavened Bread

The sinless Messiah, is our “Unleavened Bread” who defeated sin, death & the grave.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is the second part of the Passover festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the first month, where the participants continue to eat unleavened bread, for a total of seven days. This is to remind us of how Israel’s bread had no time to rise, due to their swift flight out of Egypt, as the final tenth plague killed all of the firstborn. Leaven was a “type” of pride, or sin, that gets removed from the household before the annual Passover celebration is kept [Exodus 12:15; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8].

Messiah Fulfills Firstfruits

The Messiah is our “Firstfruits from the dead” who ressurected on the third day.

The Day of Firstfruits was the third element of the Passover week, as well as the third day of the festival, but was also considered the second day of eating unleavened bread. It was commanded to be kept this day to offer up the firstfruits of the Barley Harvest, once Israel was finally in the Promised Land, and they could grow their own crops. From this day forward, the Israelites would count fifty days, or seven extra weeks, for bringing in the sheaves of the barley harvest. We call this “counting the omer” [an omer was a measure of the barley], and is fulfilled through the Messiah becoming the “Firstfruits from the dead” [1 Corinthians 15:20]. This third day reveals that Yeshua would be in the grave for three days and three nights.

FRIDAY OR THURSDAY?

Tradition is a wonderful thing that keeps us celebrating year after year the things that are most important to us. As a Messianic rabbi who is also a shepherd and teacher in the Christian world, I understand how easy it is to hold on to traditions as if they were fact or historical landmarks of our faith. Once you celebrate something year after year it’s hard to separate biblical truth from tradition, that we feel helps us express our love for God. Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with tradition as long as it is supportive of our faith. Although, we must be careful that our traditions don’t make void the word of God. This is like days of worship, where is some believers worship the Lord on Sunday, and others follow the typical command to keep the Sabbath as their day of worship. There are also many other days of the week that are used for worship days. Without picking one day over another for worship, what if we just accept the biblical reality that every day is a day of worship. The real issue at hand in this matter is not what day to worship, but which day is the Sabbath. For many Christians, Sunday is their Sabbath, pointing to the resurrection. For Jews, and Messianic Jews, Saturday is not only the day of the Sabbath, but it is also the primary day that we congregate and worship the Lord. The apostle Paul reminds us not to argue or judge one another About what we eat or drink, or in regards to celebrating a festival new moon or Sabbath day, in Colossians 2:16. Let’s not forget, that even though Paul said this, he was a sabbath keeper. He knew that many of the Gentiles did not feel the obligation to observe the special holidays, primarily because they were unfamiliar with them being raised in the pagan society of a Gentile world. We follow this principle in our synagogue. Wonderful Gentile believers, who desire to learn about the Jewish roots of their faith, often join us in our worship to God on the Sabbath, or as we call it, “Shabbat” in Hebrew. We don’t make them wear a prayer shawl, known as a tallit, or a head covering called a kippah or yarmulke. Instead, we make them available for those who desire to explore their significant purpose and usage without making them feel obligated or judged if they decide not to. In other words, we allow the grace of the Lord and the leading of the Holy Spirit to teach and train His people about the significance of Messianic Judaism. Ultimately our goal is to understand the mandate and mission of the Messiah, become discipled as his students, and and become trained in how we can fulfill His Great Commission. Having said all that, I do believe that it helps us in our biblical understanding when we realize the plan of God and how the details of His plan are revealed in the Scriptures. Wasn’t the Messiah supposed to lay in the grave for three days and three nights, just as Jonah was in the belly of the “big fish” that we call a “whale.” If Yeshua died late in the afternoon on Friday, but was already resurrected out of the grave before the dawn of sunlight on Sunday morning, how could that be three days and three nights on any calendar? This has always bothered me in reading the Scriptures, when things don’t seem to make sense. I know if I have these questions, and I love reading the word of God and studying it’s truth, how difficult can it be for the skeptic who says that none of this seems to add up?

HIGH HOLY DAYS:

John 19:31 Says that the Messiah’s body needed to be taken off the cross before the high day sabbath began. This reference doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the weekly Sabbath, but rather to the Sabbath-rest of unleavened bread, Where no work could be done. The connection is found in the word preparation. We see this term preparation day referenced inverse 14 and in verse 31. So in context, the preparation day they’re talking about is the Feast of Unleavened Bread and not the weekly Sabbath. All of the Jewish holidays are called high days, especially the ones that are in the fall, like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We called them the High Holy Days. Another thing to understand when it comes to the Jewish calendar, and how days are counted, a day always starts the evening before at sundown. So technically the sixth day of the week, that we call Friday, actually would start on Thursday evening at sundown. So it’s fine that we call this day that we recognize the crucifixion of the Messiah as “Good Friday,” as long as we look at it through Jewish eyes. Let’s not forget that the disciples of Yeshua were Jewish. In fact, Palm Sunday, would actually be the 10th day of the first month of spring time that we call Nissan. This is the day that the lamb was selected, and this would be the day that our Messiah how does trample entry into Jerusalem and was pronounced king by those who raised their voices to cry out, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” The lamb had to be roasted over fire for the Passover on the 14th day of the month. So count four days from Palm Sunday and you come to Wednesday evening. This would mean that Yeshua would be arrested that evening, brought before the Caiaphas, the High Priest, then Pontius Pilate, and finally He was crucified between the hours of 12p.m.–3 p.m. 

JEWISH TIME VS. ROMAN TIME:

Jewish time was based upon Creation, counting the evening, then the morning, as the first day of the week, with every day proceeding in that order. This means that the same night that Yeshua had His Passover meal with His disciples, in what we call the “last supper,” is the same 24 hour period from evening to morning, in which He became the Sacrificed Lamb of God. The story of Jonah in the belly of the “big fish” would be connected to Gentile timing in Nineveh, versus Jewish timing in Israel. Three days and three nights is a completely different way of keeping time, in comparison to the Jewish way of counting the evening and the morning as one day. So if Yeshua was crucified on Thursday in the daytime, between 12pm-3pm, He would be placed in the tomb between 3pm-6pm, which is still part of a day. Thursday night would be one day under Roman rule. Friday would then be another day and night, and then the same with Saturday. Since He was an Orthodox Jew, who rested on the Sabbath (Saturday until sundown), we would expect for Him to wait until Shabbat was complete before He rose from the dead! LOL! That means that He would therefore have a window between sundown on Saturday until Sunday morning before dawn to resurrect. Let’s not forget that Saturday night is already Sunday in Jewish timing. So a Thursday crucifixion solves the supposed contradiction in the Scriptures. The most important thing is to know that our Messiah would never destroy the Torah or the Prophets, but rather He came to fulfill every “jot and tittle” found in the ancient scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures!

PASSIONATE PREPARATION:

1. We passionately remember what our Messiah did for us when He died as a sacrificed lamb.

2. We passionately apply His blood to the doorposts of our hearts and homes.

3. We passionately proclaim that He has risen from the dead to be our Conquering King Messiah and Loving Saviour.

[apairofcrepeswiththerarestape]

This week, at the behest of my partner (a behest that I was totally into), it was time to return to the soup well. This would be a great name for a soup restaurant, like the tagline could be "This is one well you'd love to fall down into!" or "If Baby Jessica fell down in this well she would have been fine!" Both of those slogans would be predicated on you having a very old customer base, I mean do people even fall into wells anymore? Old people do love soup though so this could work. By this terrible logic chain I'm for sure an old person because I do know who Baby Jessica is and I LOVE SOUP! So like I said, I was totally into the behest so I dug into the old Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child to find a soup. Actually I just left the book on out coffee table open to the soup section with a note that I had scrawled "PICK A SOUP" on. The soup she picked was the soup I secretly wanted to make and that was evidence that we have a good partnership just like that old adage about leaving a recipe book out with a note about soup goes. What was that marriage defining soup? GARLIC SOUP aka AIGO BOUIDO!

This garlic soup was very easy (I could say it was soup-er easy but I won't (but actually I just did!)) to shop for, mostly because it used ingredients that were already in our home. This is one of the benefits of cooking on a regular basis, you just have stuff like thyme and sage and stupid ass bay leaves and salt and pepper and eggs and parmesan cheese and olive oil and cloves and parsley. I will say though the way they sell parsley is buuuuuuuuuuullllllllstuff! The bunches are gigantic! Like how much parsley is one supposed to use? I made two dishes that used a decent amount of it last week and I still have enough parsley for the a first night of passover seder at my parents house when I was a kid (that's a deep cut for my fellow chosen people out there). Whenever I open my fridge and see that wilting bag of Philly Fanatic body hair shavings staring back at me I curse the grocery industrial complex. Anyway this was the long way around to telling you that I only had to get a head of garlic for this recipe. I got it from the grocery store in my neighborhood and didn't get a bag so I walked down the street holding a head of garlic and that was a great feeling.

Cooking that soup was almost as easy as shopping for it. I had to pull apart my garlic head to get the 16 cloves called for in the recipe, though it is also implied that one could use more depending on how much you like garlic. I like garlic a fair amount but I'm here for verisimilitude in reportage so I just stuck with the 16. Then I dropped those cloves in some boiling water for 30 seconds, drained and rinsed and peeled them and that was the garlic prepping I had to do. Then I just dumped them along with 2 quarts (which is 8 cups of water, a fact that I still have not memorized) of water, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon each of sage and thyme, 4 sprigs of parsley, 2 cloves, a half a bay leaf, two teaspoons of salt and a pinch of pepper (which I hope is  the name of former NY Giants linebacker Pepper Johnson's folk album) into a saucepan and boiled that whole thing slowly for 30 minutes. Now I was very confused about how to boil something slowly so I googled it and mostly just got that fable about that creep who like to boil frogs. After some parsing of a website that described different kinds of boiling (a result that will haunt my google algorithm for years) I figured it out and sat back and relaxed for 25 of those 30 minutes. For the last five I took 3 egg yolks and put them into a different saucepan that was off of heat (the recipe calls for a soup tureen but I've dedicated a lot of my kitchen space to coffee mugs that I think are "cool" so there's no space for any other mostly useless kitchenware) then beat in 4 more tablespoons of olive oil into it. The recipe instructs me to do this "as for making a mayonnaise", this is a phrase that I had not ever seen before but I look forward to using at some point in my life. After that was all beat and the timer went off to signal the end of the 30 minute slow boil, I drizzled a ladleful of the boiled liquid into the egg stuff, beating it the whole way. Then I strained the rest of the boiled liquid slowly continuing the beating into the egg mixture. I squeezed as much liquid out of the boiled stuff and then the soup was pretty much done.

THIS SOUP WAS GOOOOOOOOOOD! I served it with some crusty bread and a cup of grated parmesan and put a little extra pepper in mine because I like pepper (though not as much as former NY Giants linebacker Pepper Johnson, who got his nickname because he used to put pepper in his cereal as a child. This is a story who's bizarreness has unforch been overlooked by the sports press and for some reason isn't repeated every time Pepper Johnson mentioned about as it should be). Now the recipe talks about how this soup has all sorts of healing properties and how people get addicted to it and blah blah blah. I was not sick or really feeling any pain (other than the regular pain of getting old in this nightmare world) so I cannot speak to its medicinal abilities. Nor do I find myself craving this soup as I did the sweet sweet first drag of a cigarette during my full on smoking days so I know I'm not addicted to it. Regardless, this is a soup that is very good and very easy and that you should make! Maybe you will feel its supposed powers! I would and will make it again so I say thumbs up to AIGO BOUIDO aka GARLIC SOUP!

#tdandjulia #aigobouido #garlicsoup #iamold #babyjessica #fallintothesoupwell #fablesandadages #boiledfrogs #pepperjohnson

[pastordorry-blog]

Be A Bucket Filler

Easter Season Series on Discipleship Week 4

John 13:1-17

May 26, 2019

            During baseball season, every time I turn on the television, it’s always on Sports Philadelphia (formerly Comcast Sportsnet), because while I was upstairs the night before getting ready for bed, Phil took a few minutes to listen to the Phillies post game show.  What amazes me is, the next day when I turn on the tv at lunch time or in the late afternoon, people are still talking about the game!  And, having been married to Phil for almost 31 years now, I know that when something really unusual happens, baseball fans still talk about it, even years and decades later!  

So I think it’s a reasonable guess that in between Easter and Pentecost, the disciples spent a lot of time talking about their many experiences with Jesus.  My guess is they rehashed and analyzed and replayed every moment with him.  They sure did see him do some unusual things! He walked on water.  He fed thousands of people with tiny amounts of food. He healed the sick, cured the blind. Even raised the dead.  These events are so unusual, we are still talking about them!

But what about the things they saw Jesus do on his last night on earth?  Do you think they spent much time talking about how, during the Passover seder, he took the bread and the cup, and imparted new meaning to these symbols?  I bet they did talk about that, because we are still talking about that!  But what about how, during that same dinner, Jesus took the role of a servant, and washed the disciples’ feet?  It was the custom in Jesus’ day for a servant to wash the feet of dinner guests, because the roads were dusty and dirty, and the typical foot covering of the time was a leather sole attached to the feet with simple straps.  They provided protection for the bottom of the feet from hot or pointy.  But they did not keep out the dirt!

Since Jesus and his disciples did not have any servants, when they gathered for the Passover meal, they followed the custom of eating without footwashing.  It never occurred to them to wash each other’s feet, because none of them were “servants”. But servanthood is at the heart of what it means to be a disciple.

Jesus opened his public ministry by telling everyone that he had come to bring good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19).  All of those things sound pretty important, things only a powerful and noble person could accomplish.  But Jesus’ power and nobility were not like that of other kings. Jesus’ power and nobility came from his willingness to serve, to serve even those who were dead set against him, to serve even those who would desert him and disappoint him and had no real way of paying him back.  Jesus closes his ministry by showing us a different king of power:  the power of servanthood.

As he washed their feet, at least one disciple seriously questioned Jesus’ actions.  Peter asked him, Jesus, what on earth are you doing?  Jesus said, “You do not understand now what I am doing, but you will understand later.”  He went on to say, “ I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another's feet. 15 I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you.”  I wonder if, at every meal the disciples shared between Easter and Pentecost, if they thought about Jesus washing their feet, and if they in fact performed that task for each other.  As far as I know there’s no account of that in scripture.  Perhaps the disciples realized Jesus gave those instructions to them, not to be taken literally, but as a model for how they were to live in the future.

I have been part of foot-washing services on Maundy Thursday at several churches now, and, this still amazes me, but hardly anyone likes it.  Everyone seems to agree that the meaning is powerful, but the execution is just kind of weird.  This is especially true when we’re dressed up, like we usually are for church.  Most Christians I know, agree that footwashing is very meaningful in theory, but it is complicated in practice!  So we go beyond the literal interpretation.  Just like the original disciples, we are left to figure out what Jesus meant when he said we would understand later.  What are we supposed to learn from this remarkable, “play at the plate” if you will?

One of my favorite authors, Joan Chittister, tells this story:

Once upon a time some disciples begged their old and ailing master not to die. “But if I do not go, how will you ever see?”, the master said to them.  

“But what can we possibly see with you gone?”, they insisted.

With a twinkle in his eye, the holy one answered, “All I ever did in my entire life was to sit on the riverbank handing out river water.  After I’m gone, I trust that you will notice the river.”

Truly great teachers don’t just give their students lessons while they are living.  Truly great teachers plant within us lessons we can only learn after we are no longer together.  When we reflect on Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and then going on to serve them in an even more sacrificial and humbling way by going to the cross, we realize we are in the presence of a lesson, a teacher, than cannot be grasped all at once. We find ourselves at the river of life.

For three years, the disciples worked and lived with Jesus.  Any information they needed, and guidance or help they wanted, they just held out their cups, and Jesus filled them.  What an adjustment it must have been for the disciples, to have to make decisions and judgment calls without Jesus right there to guide them anymore.  They knew he was alive, they knew he would always be with them in a mystical sense, but they could no longer go to their teacher with every little thing and get an answer on the spot.  They would need to rely on their own experiences, their own judgment, and most importantly, their own spirituality now.  No longer able to touch and see and feel Jesus with their physical senses, they would have to develop the same skills required of us, and learn how to connect to Jesus using their souls.

You know, for all the times we mention the word “soul” in church, I am not sure we do a very good job of defining it, let alone teaching about how to care for it and utilize it.  It always seemed to me that knowing about souls was an innate ability you either had or you didn’t have.  Like being athletic, or artistic, some people are just spiritual.  At least that’s what I thought.  I remember in third grade my parents went out somewhere, and they asked a 12th grade girl who rode my school bus to babysit.  Rita and her family went to the Baptist church in town, which meant they went to church on Sunday mornings AND Wednesday nights. I thought that meant Rita knew all there is to know about God.  While she was babysitting me, I asked her all my questions about souls.  Does everyone have a soul?  Where is it?  What does it do?  How do I know if my soul is okay?  Poor Rita. I hope my parents paid her extra for having to deal with my questions!

I don’t remember anything Rita said, but I do remember has being patient and kind, which is probably all the evidence needed to conclude that Rita had a pretty good understanding of souls!  I had picked a good person to ask.  But many years would pass before I felt like I was starting to understand what having a soul is all about.  I was cleaning the bathtub the way my mom taught me to—with Comet and scrub brush, and then wiping it down with a sponge.  Since I never liked cleaning the bathtub, it had been a long time since I used the sponge, and it was totally dried out.  Dried out sponges are not good for wiping!  If you want the sponge to absorb anything, it has to already be wet.  Seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?  But that’s the way sponges work.

And I think that is the way souls work.  Every person has a soul and has the capacity to be “spiritual”.  But dried out souls cannot absorb God.  Our souls are a body part we cannot see, that have receptors.  Like our tongues have taste buds, and our hands have nerve endings, souls have God receptors.  Special sensory equipment to help us detect and absorb God’s presence and action in our lives.  We are born with our souls pre-moistened.  At baptism they get moistened some more.  But if we do not engage in the practices that keep our souls supple, we gradually lose our ability to connect to the good things God has for us.

I think that is part of why Jesus told his disciples to become foot washers.  Kneeling down to wash someone else’s feet is good for the soul!  It requires flexibility, it requires getting wet.  It squeezes the sponges of our souls and allows us to absorb God’s presence.  It reminds us of our baptism, and fills us with living water, even as we share that water with someone else.

Several months ago one of our church members gave me this children’s book, “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?” by Carol McCloud. The book is intended for use in schools, so it’s not explicitly Christian.  But I think it captures some of what we’re talking about today.  

The thesis of the book is that everyone has a bucket—an invisible repository for love and good feelings.  We might call this invisible body part our souls.  The book calls it a bucket.  When people treat others will kindness and respect, we call them “bucket fillers”.  The book teaches children that even they can be bucket fillers when they express caring. And, by filling other people’s buckets, you fill your own, too!  Bucket filling makes everyone feel good.

The converse is also true.  When we’re unkind and disrespectful, that’s called bucket dipping.  Sometimes we think being mean will take good things from the other person’s bucket and fill up our own, but bucket dipping never fills up our own buckets.  Bucket dipping in the end always makes everyone feel bad.  It could be that the person who is hardest to love, the person who we see doing a lot of bucket dipping and mean stuff, is the person most in need of love.

Jesus lowered himself and embraced the dirtiest, grimiest, dung covered parts of the disciples’ bodies, and he asks us to follow his example.  He had compassion on the empty buckets in his midst, and did what he could to fill them with love.  What he did for us, we can do for each other!  “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Amen.  May it be so.  Amen.