Spring Festivals, Pt 2: Unleavened
Exodus 12:14-20 14“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance. 15For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do. 17“Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”
1Corinthians 5:6-8 6Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Luke 12:1b-3 “Be[47] on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.
All of the Jewish Festivals have relevance to our understanding of the plan of God to send His Son for the restoration of His people. The Spring Festivals point to the First Coming of Jesus and the Fall Festivals point to the Second. It is easy to grasp the connection between Passover and our Sacrificial Lamb (see the previous posting), but not so easy to understand the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The tendency is to see it as purely historical and while that is good and useful in and of itself, there seems to be little relevance to our current lives. There is so very much more to this Festival than just history. It was appointed by God that it be observed by His people for all of their lives so there must be more to it.
It seems to me that there is something holy about this Festival in addition to the historicity of it. It begins at Passover, runs through Firstfruits (next blog), and ends seven days later. It sort of reminds me of creation week really. The people have just been set free from the bondage of Egypt and are on their way out of captivity. It is certainly a time of new beginning and it seems also clear that at least spiritually a new creation of God’s people is being experienced. Every year we are to remember the Exodus story. But God remembers too. He remembers the covenant He has with us, His love of us, and in so remembering He continues to act in our lives to draw us closer. How wonderful is that? When we accept the historicity of Unleavened Bread and use it to consider the things God has done for each of us, the realization that God is daily involved in the lives of each of His children should refocus our lives on Him. Why is it a lasting ordinance? Why is it bookended with holy convocations? The holiness and righteousness of His people, or at least the continuing increase of them, is serious business to God. We are such a frail and fragile people. We wander and waiver. We interact with pagan idols, whatever the century we live in, and so need constant, at least yearly, reminders of the holiness of God. An idol is anything a person puts above God. In our day it might be television, or sports, or celebrities. In any case elevating of them diminishes God, and Satan brings potential idols into our lives for the express purpose of distracting us from God. That’s why this seemingly minor Festival is actually extremely important.
History in general and this history in particular is not just a set of horizontal compartmentalized experiences to be academically studied, but is in fact the interaction by God with His people through events and circumstances. God has a timeless plan by which He intends to bring His people back to him. But God will brook no countenance with those who rebel. That is why the one found to be eating leavened bread is to be cut off: Rebellion is a cancer that kills, and this Festival is about holiness and righteousness.
The absence of leaven (yeast) from bread during this festival is a metaphor for the absence of sin from our lives. That’s another reason this festival is so important. In terms of quantity yeast is the smallest ingredient added to the batch of dough. But it has the greatest effect. The fermentation process spreads throughout the batch, causing the entire loaf to rise. It is the same way with sin; it changes everything. When we accept Jesus as our Savior we become a new creation both spiritually and physically. We begin to think differently and act differently. We are, in fact, a new lump as the old sin has been removed by Jesus.
21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2Corinthians 5:21).
Here’s the thing: Sin ‘tastes’ good. If it didn’t we wouldn’t do it. But the hidden danger of sin is that it changes our character as well. It changes our thinking, and our believing and our entire nature.
So Unleavened Bread is important because if we pay attention it helps us recenter. What has crept into your life over the previous year? Have you accepted the lie that to adhere to Godly standards makes you intolerant? Do you think it is OK to skip church because an ‘important’ game is on TV? Is it OK to drink to excess the evening before and then fail to meet with God at church because of the hangover? These are examples of the pervasiveness of sin in our lives. We find excuses to do them because they taste good.
Christ died for each of us; He became sin so we would be free of it. Let’s cooperate so that he won’t have done it in vain.