The Seder and Last Supper

How 2025 Unveils a Sacred Pattern Hidden Between Two Traditions

When I was a child, one of my favorite Jewish holiday rituals was the Passover Seder.

We’d go to my grandparents’ house, occasionally meeting other family members, and I always got to participate in the reading of the Haggadah—as is tradition for children at the table to do. In fact, much of the Seder is designed around engaging children as active participants in the ritual and in the memory.

This isn’t just cultural—it’s halachic (Jewish law) and theological.

This commandment is at the heart of Passover:

“Ve’higadeta levincha ba’yom hahu…”

“And you shall tell your child on that day: It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.”

The Seder, and the Haggadah in particular, is built around this instruction to teach—

not by lecturing, but by inviting children to ask, to read, to taste, and to wonder.

The Four Questions – Asked by the Youngest

One of the most well-known traditions of the Seder is the Mah Nishtanah, or the Four Questions, asked by the youngest person at the table who is able to do so.

These questions open the door to dialogue, not monologue. The Seder is not a performance; it’s a multi-generational transmission of memory, and children are essential to its integrity.

What is Passover and why is it important as a Jewish remembrance?

Passover—Pesach in Hebrew—is one of the most sacred and foundational observances in Judaism.

It’s a week-long remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, when the ancient Israelites were liberated from slavery under Pharaoh’s regime.

But it’s more than just a historical commemoration. Passover is a spiritual technology—a moral reckoning.

A ritualized act of collective memory that asks the Jewish people not only to remember what happened, but to step back into it—embodying the journey from bondage to freedom, year after year, as if it were taking place now.

Full Moon and Timing

Passover begins at sundown this evening, marking the start of the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which aligns with the full moon of spring.

The Hebrew calendar is lunar-based, so the 15th of Nisan always falls on a full moon.

In Jewish mysticism and symbolism, the full moon represents fullness, visibility, and revelation—perfectly aligned with the Passover themes of freedom coming into the light, of the hidden becoming revealed, and of divine presence breaking through human suffering.

An Extremely Rare Convergence

While Passover sometimes overlaps with Catholic Holy Week, the alignment in 2025 is completely unique within the 200-year window from 1900 to 2100.

There is no other year in this range where the entirety of Holy Week is fully enveloped by the full span of Passover, day for day.

So unprecedented within modern calendrical memory that it deserves to be noticed. This is not just a rare alignment. It’s the kind of opening that carries mythic weight.

What is a Seder?

The word “Seder” (סֵדֶר) means “order” or “arrangement.”

It refers to the specific, deliberate sequence of rituals, blessings, symbolic foods, prayers, questions, and storytelling that make up the Passover meal.

The Seder follows a set framework—traditionally 15 steps—beginning with Kadesh (sanctifying the holiday with wine) and ending with Nirtzah (closing songs and prayers), all outlined in the Haggadah.

Each item on the table has a role:

Bitter herbs represent the pain of bondage.

Salt water, for the tears that were shed.

Unleavened bread because liberation came too fast to let the dough rise.

Every symbol is deliberate.

Every gesture is designed to make the story real—not just historically, but spiritually, emotionally, and even politically.

Jesus’ Last Supper Was a Passover Seder

Jesus was a Jew, observing Passover.

According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), He gathered with His disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem to observe the Seder.

That context matters deeply.

The Last Supper was a Passover Seder, where Jesus broke the matzah and revealed the mystery of the Eucharist to His disciples.

The bread. The wine. The language of remembrance. It was clear.

“Do this in memory of me” echoes “You shall tell your child…”

His disciples were His children. He was their teacher.

The Christian Eucharist is rooted in the Jewish Seder—not as a replacement, but as a continuation.

Passover Is Liberation—Hard-Won, Delayed, Divine

Passover is important because it anchors Jewish identity in the lived experience of liberation—not just liberation granted, but hard-won, delayed, resisted, and ultimately made possible by Divine intervention.

It reminds the Jewish people: You were slaves. You were strangers. You were oppressed. Never forget. Never become the oppressor.

It’s a holiday of reversals. From degradation to dignity, from silence to testimony, from captivity to covenant.

And that’s why this year, especially, it hurts in places the world can’t see. Because Passover is not just about the past. It’s about remembering the patterns that are still repeating.

It’s about recognizing when people are dehumanized.

It’s about what happens when power becomes cruelty, when apathy becomes complicity, and when those in bondage are no longer seen as human beings, but instead as a problem to be contained, erased, or “managed.”

This still happens.

It’s happening right now, in your backyard.

It’s happening to me.

The Story Isn’t Neat. It’s Not Safe.

There is blood in this story.

There is plague.

There is divine rage.

Passover as a Living Myth: A Blueprint for Transformation

Passover is more than a commemoration.

It is a living myth—a spiritual technology encoded with layers of consciousness, ritual, and memory designed to awaken the soul—individually and collectively.

The Exodus Is Always Happening

The journey from bondage to freedom isn’t a one-time event. It’s a cycle that repeats in every generation, every nation, every soul—often many times over.

The Hebrew word Mitzrayim (Egypt) shares a root with meitzarim, meaning narrowness or constriction.

So the question becomes:

Where is your Egypt now?

What systems are constricting or enslaving your body, mind, or spirit?

What Red Sea are you being asked to cross in faith, with no guarantee of the path opening?

This is why the Seder begins:

“Let all who are hungry come and eat.”

It’s not just about physical hunger—but spiritual famine. It’s what Jesus expressed through His ministry.

It’s a universal call to those starving for meaning, truth, healing, and deliverance.

The Blood on the Doorpost: Marking Sacred Territory

The blood smeared on the Israelites’ doorposts at Passover wasn’t just a signal to the angel of death or to the soldier assigned to do the dirty work.

It was a claiming—a declaration that this house, this family, this soul is set apart, protected, and watched over.

In modern terms:

What do you mark as sacred and how?

What boundaries have you drawn to keep destruction out and divinity in?

Do you live in such a way that forces of death (addiction, exploitation, despair, spiritual corruption) know they must pass over you?

Passover calls us to consecrate our homes, our hearts, our habits.

A Messiah Hidden in the Matzah

In many Jewish homes, a piece of the matzah—the afikoman—is wrapped in cloth and hidden during the meal, later to be searched for by children, then shared.

It is the last thing eaten, symbolizing the enduring presence of redemption, even when it’s hidden from view.

In some mystical or Messianic traditions, this becomes a metaphor:

The Messiah is hidden in plain sight, waiting to be found.

Redemption is already present, already broken and shared, if only we will seek it.

The afikoman becomes a fragment of future wholeness—a promise we carry even through exile.

This is the lifelong understanding that Jesus had of the unleavened bread as a symbol of His body. It was ingrained.

The Eternal Relevance of Passover

At its deepest level, Passover is not just about Jewish liberation. It is a cosmic pattern that speaks to all humanity.

The breaking of chains—internal and external. The recognition of the sacred within suffering.

The invitation to become co-creators with the Divine in building a just, free, and holy world.

It is, essentially, a call to awaken.

To remember who you are.

To walk away from false gods.

To gather your people.

To walk—trembling but resolute—toward the impossible sea, trusting it will part when you arrive.

A Rare Alignment of Fire

This year, in 2025, when the dates fully align, we are witnessing something extremely rare.

The Paschal lambs of both traditions are moving together.

It’s a moment when the spiritual DNA of Judaism and Catholicism syncs, like gears finally locking into place after centuries of rotation.

Exodus and Resurrection: One Sacred Flame

In the Jewish narrative, the angel of death passes over the homes of the Israelites. They are protected by the spilled blood.

In the Catholic tradition, Jesus, after dying, descends into Sheol—the realm of the dead—not just to visit, but to break its gates.

In Exodus, death is averted. In Holy Week, death is invaded and undone.

This year’s spiritual convergence is an invitation to reflect on what it means when not only does God shield us from death, but enters it to bring us out.

It is Exodus from within.

The Hidden Name and the Revelation of the Face

In both traditions, the Divine hides and reveals simultaneously.

In Exodus, God says: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by My Name YHWH I was not known to them.”

In Holy Week, Christ cries out: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”—and then, through suffering, reveals the fullness of the Divine face.

This is the apophatic moment. Where God’s hidden in the cross—hidden in the paradox of timing.

Passover 2025 is not about reconciling doctrines. It’s about seeing the face within the fire.

The rarity of this event is a convergence not seen within multiple generations.

This Is a Shofar Moment

A call to wake up.

To see what time it truly is.

Not chronos (clock time), but kairos—divine timing.

The kind of time that opens only once in hundreds of years, if that.

You are alive now. You are seeing it. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

פֶּסַח שָׂמֵחַ