What Does This Ceremony Mean to You?

Observe how Moses passes the instructions on. He summons the elders, tells them to select lambs, dip a bunch of hyssop in the blood and put it on the doorframes, and stay inside until morning. The LORD will pass through to strike Egypt, but when he sees the blood he will pass over the door and not let the destroyer enter. Then Moses says that when they enter the land God will give them, they are to keep this ceremony, and when their children ask what it means, they are to answer: it is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over our houses in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians. The people bow down and worship, and then they do what they were told.

Interpreting, notice that the ceremony is designed to provoke a question. It is strange enough, a lamb, blood on the door, bread without yeast, that a child will ask why. The answer is a short story, told in the first person plural. Our houses. God rescued us. Faith is transmitted through practice that invites curiosity and through parents ready with an answer.

Applying it, Christian households have their own ceremonies, the Lord's Supper above all, but also the rhythms of prayer, Sunday, giving, and rest. Each should be strange enough to make a child ask and should come with an answer that is a story, not a lecture.

What in your household's life would make a child ask why? Are you ready with a first-person answer? And when did you last let a ceremony you know well ask its question of you again?