Cleaning for Passover

Passover cleaning is happening at our house right now, in fact it is what I should be doing now, but I needed a break. It has been interesting to hear all the things that others do from our "church" community. Some do SO much more and others hardly do anything. We are kinda in between. We start in the bedrooms cleaning out drawers and removing clothes that don't fit or are torn or stained beyond help. Then onto toy boxes and bins. It is amazing that we find bread or food crumbs in these places since technically they aren't allowed to eat in their rooms, but we do. Then it is onto closets throughout the house and bathroom, throwing out outdated and mostly empty product bottles, shoes that fit no one and more crumbs. Now we are into the 'big' room that houses our office, craft room, schoolroom and pantry, otherwise known as the Imaginarium. This is actually even harder to clean than the kitchen. There are so many ongoing projects in there right now. And there also lives my nemesis, the paper pilessssss. I hate doing paper work and filing. But last year we found an old piece of toast under one of those piles (I don't know) so they do need to be dealt with. Then the week before passover we do the deep down in the cracks clean of the main rooms in the house and the kitchen. Here, we know where the crumbs and the yeast full products are going to be, under the cushions, oven drawer, food cupboard, you know the usual culprits.

So why the detailed list? Passover season for my family is a time to do some internal cleaning too. As the family cleans, we discuss sin. Where are those places in our lives that sin is hidden? There are some places we look, never expecting to find sin and yet, there it is. There are some places in our lives that just shouldn't contain sin and yet again, there it is. There are also the places that are hidden to the outside and yet with inspection, there it is. Then there are the places that we deal with all the time and are plain and easy to see that we work on all the time. The trouble with those types of sin, is that we sorta become numb to them and expect them to be there. Those often need deeper introspection than we give them.

Passover is the time that God chose to take our sin by putting it on our Lord, Jesus Christ. He passed over the Hebews in the land of Egypt who obeyed Him and put the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the doorposts. Now we are commanded to forever and always celebrate this festival. Not as a fun little history lesson of biblical times, not as a curiosity, but because God commanded that we should. Always means always, He never changes that in the New Testament, so at our house, we celebrate Passover as generations have in the past. The searching out of sin in our lives as we search out the yeast in the house is just one of the many pictures that is painted out in this festival, which by the way is my favorite.

Guess I better get back to cleaning. The beginning of Passover comes quicker than I expect every year. I pray that I am ready for the return of Christ, with my sins acknowledged and forgiven, as I am sure it too will be sooner than I expect.