Why is this Night Different from All Others?

Maccabeats fans can probably sing their version of Mah nishtanah ha layla ha zeh, mi-kol ha leilot... A catchy tune in Hebrew asking the four questions children ask the father in the Passover seder. Why is this night different from all other nights? What a great question! And for me telling my own grandson a story or two, why is this night, this season, so special to me?

"And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you..."

- Exodus 12:1-2

Passover of the Exodus was indeed a new beginning. A season of deliverance, of rescue, of incredible miracles, of receiving divine instruction. Moving forward out of the mud, out of the house of bondage, into the wilderness of demonstration with Hashem guiding. The children of Israel have been commemorating the event for thousands of years. Most Christians are more familiar with what's called, "the Last Supper," a religious term that contributed to the severing of Passover from "Easter." Constantine-era leadership intentionally pushed Christianity away from its Jewish roots commanding the observance of Easter on a different date from Passover [read Constantine's actual words on it in my book Razing Constantine: Facing the Effects of the World's Christian Emperor ]. It did not take too many generations to forget what Jesus said or did relative to the Passover meal. He said, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you" before his death (Luke 22:15). It should feel natural to delve deeper into what He and the people of God celebrated and, like a child, ask a question. Why was that night special to Him?

Why it's special to me also goes waaay back. Okay, not as far back as the Exodus or Constantine, but at least to the '70s. When I was a freshman at SMU, I encountered the Lord in a major way, like - LIFE changing. I was so touched by His love and sense of purpose for my life that I put it all on the table to find His will. During the Christmas break, I told my parents I was not sure what the next semester would be like, and in January, started a prayer quest with the Lord. I dropped the party scene and spent quite a few nights on my own with school studies and prayers asking for "what's next??" Winter passed into February, March. Still searching, asking, knocking. No answers, but I didn't let it discourage me. I pressed in to hear from Heaven.

At the onset of April, I started getting a little nervous. It would soon be time to either re-register for the fall or make arrangements elsewhere, so my prayers continued and my trust deepened. Then finally, one day my heart clearly heard His personal instructions... "Go back to Arkansas and help Happy Caldwell with the harvest coming." Wow. Okay now I had a plan. I had heard! The bridge between Heaven & Earth gave me a rung on the ladder for the upward climb! I did not re-register at SMU, to the sore chagrin and disparaging comments of the majority of my friends. I found the Bible school I felt He led me to, registered, and went home for the summer. Little did I know then that one month later, the Caldwells would announce opening "Agape Country Church" in May, 1979, where I would serve after bible college for more than the next three decades of my life.

Years later, I was curious as to why the Holy Spirit waited until April to speak a word. Was He testing me? Was He stringing me along to see if I'd stick?? I decided to google "Passover season," of that year and Bam - there it was. Mid April, the onset of Passover, when I too found my new beginning, my redemption out of the "world," out of Egypt, and started a faith venture into the glorious unknown like the children of Israel. I would come to learn this season as one of promise, of hope and adventure, trusting God when you don't see, and following Him where He guides with His eye.

Passover in the Exodus and in my life was a break from the past, a break from what was and is to what will be. In my own life, I followed it with a water baptism to punctuate my move. The waters of the Red Sea brought God's people out of one place to a whole new frontier of God's divine purpose, and I had no idea what I was doing!

In 2016-17, I felt the Lord drawing me out, aside from where I had worked and served so long, a hard move after being in one place since 1981, but on a particular day in the fall I recognized that voice as He said, "Go in six months." I shared it with John, who had white knuckles on the steering wheel listening, and agreeing. He had so faithfully been a part of the Agape journey, a member himself since "the shopping center days," before the church building was even built. We knew change would come at some point but after more than thirty years you begin to wonder! Yet here we were, and in spite of many opportunities we had both declined over the years, we would take a step in a new direction.

I met with Pastor Scott Stewart; we looked at the calendar from that time and saw it - Passover. He smiled and said, "Sounds like God to me!" John & I prepared our home of many years, thinking as had been the case in real estate, it would take months to sell and we would figure out where to go, what to do. We would have time to "figure it out," make plans, live on his salary as I finished my PhD. But boom - unlike anything in the market that size, the house sold in four hours...and as of Passover 2018, we sat in the beautiful Pesach seder of our friends the Tettlebaums and Stubers with tears in our eyes through each cup and each psalm, under contract, needing to move to God-knows-where in 30 days. A new beginning alright! A sudden break with what was to what will be. A time of God's favor, His season of movement, of launching, of blessing, just like the bursting of flowers and buds. We felt like the children of Israel leaving with bowls on their heads.

We announced my departure to our congregation on the 1st Sunday of April that year, and on Monday, a house came on the market that we bought to be close to our entire family. We had never been in such a whirlwind yet experienced one deliverance after another...battles and blessings every day until we closed on the new place exactly 40 days later.

That Passover seder and "night under contract" was March 30, 2018... and for this grandma, here's the cherry on top. For several years now, we've labored in the fields of our commission...thankfully, that is in Israel's amazing South, in gardens, and among God's people, and sharing important educational goals with our friends in Arkansas, Florida, India, wherever God connects. But now on Passover have one new son for future nights of the question, Why is this night different from all others? Our daughter and her husband and 12 year old son welcomed the surprise arrival of Jude Phineas Kent on March 31, 2025. I thought for sure we'd have a Passover baby when we learned of her pregnancy the previous fall, but Abbie's water broke quite unexpectedly on you guessed it - March 30th, three weeks early of his due date. At 4am on the first day of the biblical new year, this "beginning month of the year for you," 12 days before the onset of Passover, my heart rejoiced in a grandson's arrival. I danced, I wept, I barely slept ~ and I wasn't even the one up with the baby! Two grandsons celebrated birthdays in the same month at the time of this writing - 13...and 1 year!

If Heaven influences the events of our lives and we allow it to...if God has designs and purposes and plans as He said to Jeremiah... then a time I have learned to count on His readiness to speak, move, bless, and break out is on this Night Like No Other, during the Passover season. Seven days of Passover, Unleavened Bread, including First Fruits, from which the next 50 days are counted. What a season of fulfillment and demonstration. Our modern Christian celebration of communion has honored the remembrance of Jesus as the lamb of God, but not to the extent of the entire Passover table. This is truly a night for families in their collective generations to dip the parsley in the salt water and remember the tears of servitude, break the matza, taste the bitter, remember the sticks and bricks...while reflecting on the good and faithful plans of God for all His people. Those plans have powerfully revealed His character and greatness through the ages.

As believers in Jesus, we look back to His last moments, words, and deeds. We look back to His Pesach seder, to his death, burial, and resurrection at First Fruits and celebrate our entrance into the family's redemption. We look back with a little understanding as to why that night for Him was unlike any other. What we do in the Passover Season remembers Him and everything that pointed to Him from Isaac's binding to the Exodus from Egypt. With our Jewish family, we look forward to the Messianic age and the world to come.

John and I found in our lives the Lord would noticeably deal with and bless us in the specific seasons of His Feasts. It means so much to John now that he leads a Messianic Passover seder in our community, and I think one of his favorite parts is watching the kids search for the hidden matza and rewarding them with thirty pieces of silver! God so values the joy and dinner table interaction of His family that He centers His major feasts around them, and counts on parents, grandparents, and children to learn together. How we spend these hours affects how our grandchildren will pass along values to their grandchildren, so what a bang for your buck of time - looking ahead to influence four generations on this very special night.

I challenge you to make room for the feasts of the LORD in your family calendar and start by making connections from its passages to the gospels and Acts.* May the Lord's Table at Passover and His Biblical Seasons become for you, too, nights different from all other nights and your launch into the next great new beginning.

*For study, see Exodus 23:14-20; 34:18-28. Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16:1-17

Children hide their eyes while the broken matza is wrapped in linen and hidden for them to find later in the Passover seder. Right: Family in southern Israel prepares for the relatives to share Pesach or Passover meals together on the first and last two nights of the Passover week.