CELEBRATING CHRIST – OUR UNLEAVENED BREAD

“This annual ‘Celebration with Unleavened Bread’ will cause you always to remember today as the day when I brought you out of the land of Egypt; so it is a law that you must celebrate this day annually, generation after generation” – Exodus 12:17 (NASB).

There is unique significance in CELEBRATING CHRIST as OUR UNLEAVENED BREAD: “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1Cor.5:7). This is the second in a series of the seven feasts of the Lord that God has given us in His Word. What exactly was the Feast of Unleavened Bread ordained to teach? It was an extension of the feast of Passover. In yesterday’s Capstone Capsule, we saw that the Passover symbolised the freedom God has given His people through Christ’s Blood-bought redemption, as the true Passover Lamb. The six days that follow the Passover feast teach that God requires His people to remove certain things from their lives and homes in order to enjoy His freedom.

During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, God’s people were instructed not only to avoid eating leavened bread, but to remove anything that had any yeast in it from their homes. Anyone who disobeyed during that week was to be shunned or ostracised: “For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel…” (v.19a). Yeast symbolised the power of sin in the human life. Jesus warned His disciples against becoming like the Pharisees: “Beware of the LEAVEN of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Lk.12:1). When the Church at Corinth had a man in their congregation who was engaged in sexual immorality, Paul wrote that they should not associate with the man until he repented; they were not even to eat with the man: “…Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1Cor.5:6b).

Essentially, yeast makes bread rise: It makes something look bigger than what it really is by filling it with air. Likewise, sin is deceptive; it makes us believe that we’ve gained more of something in our lives, when in reality all we’ve achieved is more decay and rot because yeast causes bread to mould and decay from the inside out. The Jews, after experiencing the Passover, were to make sure that there was no yeast in their homes. As believers who have experienced the greater Passover – Salvation through Christ Jesus – we must also ensure by Grace, that we keep sin out of our lives. We must determine that anything which would hurt our faith shouldn’t be allowed in the front door, or the back door, or through an open window into our lives. Think of this: how many things will you have to hide in your home if Jesus would come to visit?

Leaven generally symbolises a type for sin. It is so used because of its properties of spreading and influencing everything around it. Even a little bit can have a big impact! Among the Jews, to prepare for the Passover, once a year the family spends an entire week scouring the house for any and every small crumb of yeast they can find. In other words, they weren’t just getting rid of the yeast that happened to be obvious and visible. They couldn’t afford to be superficial, but had to be sweeping in their search. They had to look in every nook and cranny of their home – to find the leaven and remove it.

Jesus is the unleavened bread (Jh.6:32-35). This speaks of His total sinlessness that qualified Him to be the perfect sacrifice for sin (1Jh.3:5). To celebrate Christ in the Feast of Unleavened Bread is to consistently search our hearts, examine our lives, and repent from sin: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified” (2Cor.13:5). The Old Testament echoed the same: “Keep your heart with all diligence, for our of it spring the issues of life” (Pro.4:23).