This Night

*Why is this night different from all other nights?

I wanted last year to do a series of posts on the Seder meal. I'm starting late this year too, but hopefully I'll get a couple in. This particular start is one of the questions asked by the youngest child during a Seder meal, the meal that would have been happening on Holy Thursday, which is now replaced by the Eucharist.

On this night we wait in the Garden of Gethsemane. Before the sun sets again, God will have died. He will have been through more trials than most people can imagine, solely for our benefit. The sins of the whole world, past, present, and future, will be wiped away by the blood that is shed before the next night comes.

Before, there was a less complete salvation given to the Israelites, through the blood of a lamb spread on doorposts this night. Now there is the Lamb who dies for our guilt, our sins. This night is different because the price of our transgressions is paid. No other night will ever match the gift we have been given in this nor the love that has been shown. That is why this night is different. This night, unlike all other nights, we will be saved.


*I meant to post this much earlier in the day. When I realised I couldn't do that after work, I meant to post it immediately after Mass. I had this brilliant plan how I was going to write the post, do some grocery shopping, take groceries back to the house, get back to the chapel for the last half hour before Jesus dissapeared. Amazing how easily all that changes with just a phone call. Particularly from someone important. Particularly if that someone important wants to hang out.