Seders celebrated at some Christian churches

Some Passover Seders have been offering a place at the ceremonial table to an unusual guest: Jesus.

Churches are welcoming him at Christian Seder ceremonies, complete with the matzo, wine, lamb shankbone and Hebrew prayers that Jews have cherished as Passover symbols for centuries.

But at some Christian Seders, the meaning of these ritual items is transformed. The broken matzo symbolizes the tortured Jesus. The wine is his blood, the shankbone a foretelling of Jesus’ description as “the lamb of God” in John 1:29 and 1:36.

“It’s a good way to remind ourselves where we come from as Christians,” said Lucy Matos, 58, who attended a Seder at First Baptist Church of Deerfield Beach, Fla., last week.

“Everything we study in the Old Testament connects us with Judaism.”

Jesus’ name would never come up at a traditional Jewish Seder, the annual ceremony commemorating the biblical exodus from Egypt, which was conducted in Jewish homes and synagogues around the world Monday night and Tuesday.

But Christian Seders are adding a New Testament twist to the ancient ritual – a spin that does not make many Jewish leaders happy.

“The people doing it may be well-intentioned, but they are misguided,” said Rabbi Anthony Fratello, president of the Palm Beach County, Fla., Board of Rabbis.

“It’s problematic for Christians to be engaging in Jewish ritual observance. It’s almost heretical from the standpoint of Christian theology. It ignores history.”

Christian Seder leaders say their intention is not to tune out history but to plunge into it, to understand the roots of Christianity as well as the faith of their Jewish neighbors.

“We conduct ours exactly as if we were in a Jewish home,” said Deacon Ron Perkins of Ecclesia Christi, a Christian spiritual community in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that has been conducting Seders for about five years.

“Christ was Jewish,” he said. “As you go through the prayers of the Seder, it reinforces what it was like in Christ’s time.”

Holy Name of Jesus, a Catholic church in West Palm Beach, Fla., uses a haggadah – the book participants follow during the Seder – written by the Archdiocese of Chicago, created in consultation with rabbis.

Seder leader Tom Blackburn said the text is almost identical to a traditional Seder haggadah, but there is no mention of Elijah, the prophet many Jews believe will precede the Messiah, because Christians believe the Messiah already has come.

The connection of Jews and Christians through the Seder goes back to the 1950s and ’60s, when America’s faiths reached out to each other post-World War II, said Rabbi David Sandmel, a professor at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Jews led those teaching Seders, but as the years progressed, Christians started to lead their own, without Jewish participation, he said.

“It moved away from learning to more of a way of connecting to the Last Supper,” Sandmel said. “They started to incorporate aspects of Christian worship.”

Many Christians believe three Gospels describe Jesus before his death at a Passover Seder, the Last Supper.

“There are so many parallels,” said the Rev. Russell Silverglate of Hammock Street Church west of Boca Raton, who was born Jewish and has led many Christian Seders.

“Without the Jewish people, you can’t have a Christian faith. Every Christian has to learn this.”