So before we get to Korech we have eaten the bitter herb all by itself and learned that life is sometimes full of bitterness, but you have to experience the bitter before you can come to appreciate the sweet.
Now we come to Korech.
We taste the haroset. It is a mixture made of honey and wine and sugar with nuts and raisins and apples. It tastes so sweet upon the tongue! What a contrast in flavors. Now we learn that despite all of our troubles and bitterness life can still sometimes be sweet.
If we take the bitter herb and mix it up with the sweetness of the haroset and then put that between two Matzah (like a sandwich) we begin to see that the sweetness of life (haroset) overpowers the bitterness of life (Maror). This is the Korech sandwich.
This fact of taking the bitter with the sweet always taste better when you add in the Matzah. The Matzah symbolizes how Jesus helps us to cope with life’s ups and downs, and helps us to balance out the bitter and the sweet by showing us the ways of God.
We have already mentioned that the raisins and apples and wine mixture resembled the work of slavery; but even in our work we can sometimes find the sweetness of God taking over.
When God lives within our spirit, like the Matzah that surrounds the bitter and the sweet of the Korech; we can cope with every situation.
Without the power and hope that Jesus brings into our days it is hard; but with the Korech surrounding our days things become so much easier.
I love the way Rabbi Shraga Simmons speaks of Korech: he says; “At the Seder, we eat the bitter herbs – in combination with matzah – to underscore that God is present not only during our periods of freedom (symbolized by the matzah), but during our bitter periods of exile as well.
He will never forsake us.