Jannies, feel free to move this into Deep Thoughts or whatever if you want.
Koby_Fish said:
IMO, a Christian Seder is entirely legit. Christians should be just as happy that the ancient Hebrews got out of slavery in Egypt as the Jews are. Christianity proceeds from the Hebrew religion of ages past, and there's actually a bit of symbolism that can get lost in the Jewish version of things. For instance, the middle Matzah, which is broken in half. There's Christian symbolism there regarding the Messiah, as there's multiple references in the Bible of the Messiah being "broken" (Isaiah specifically). Not only that, the Matzah itself is "striped" (with the scoring marks on it), which again, can also refer to the Messiah (Jesus), because Jesus was whipped by Pilate prior to Crucifixion. Just as the Hebrews were released from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, Jesus the Messiah frees us from the bondage of sin. And after all, the whole Last Supper was a Seder Meal, itself. (Now if it was an entirely different religion, like say Hinduism, to "appropriate" the Seder, dude might have a point, but Christianity literally has roots in ancient root Hebrew religion (as it existed in the Mosaic Era of the O.T.) and this is entirely acceptable.)
The issues I have with a Christian Seder are:
1) Lots of the people who support it also push dual-covenant theology (which in my opinion is racist and completely anti-Christian) or support giving the Holy Land to the Jews (ditto, especially when those same Israelis are perfectly happy to oppress local Christians because, hey, they're just goyim after all).
2) Passover is the Old Testament equivalent of Easter - at Passover, God's people were delivered from bondage to the Pharaoh, at Easter, God's people (yes, Christians are God's chosen people, regardless of their ethnic background) were delivered from bondage to sin. If you speak French or Spanish, you'll notice that the words for Passover (
Pascua judia, Pâque juive) come from the words for Easter (
Pascua, Pâques). Which brings me onto my next point:
3) There's no need for Christians to adopt Jewish traditions when we have our own traditions, which is what Chrysostom warned against. Pharisaic Judaism is, from a Christian point of view, a false religion. Why should we celebrate a false religion's rituals when we have our own ones?