UNLEAVENED BREAD

Passover is celebrated along with two other feasts:

* Unleavened bread                 from the 15^th to the 21^st of Nisan

* Firstfruits                                 the day after the day of rest (Sunday)

UNLEAVENED BREAD

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is the second feast of the redemption. In Hebrew it is known as Hag HaMatza.

(Leviticus 23:6-8)  And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. (7) On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. (8) But you shall present a food offering to the LORD for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.”

This feast is celebrated for seven days, from the 15^th to the 21^st of Nisan. Throughout all of these days, the bread that is eaten has to be “WITHOUT leaven”, hence the name of the feast. The first and the last of these seven days are considered days of rest.

In the context of Passover, these seven days of celebration are mentioned.

(Exodus 12:14-20) “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. (15) Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. (16) On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. (17) And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. (18) In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. (19) For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. (20) You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

Why do we have to take the leaven out of our houses during the days after Passover? What does this have to do with Passover and the redemption process? Why is the consequence so severe for those who eat leaven during those days? Those are the questions we will try to answer next…

WE LEFT EGYPT

The reason the Bible gives for celebrating this feast is this:

(Deuteronomy 16:1-3) “Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. (2) And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose, to make his name dwell there. (3) You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 

The feast of Unleavened Bread is related to the redemption from Egypt.

The Bible tells that the Israelites left Egypt in a hurry after celebrating Passover. But they left with unleavened breads, since there was no time to let the bread grow the night before.

But, why did the Lord place so much emphasis on the bread, and not on all the other things that were happening in that time of freedom? The emphasis is focused on what the leaven represents.

LEAVEN

Leaven is a microscopic fungus that has the ability of decomposing and fermenting food. When it comes to bread, leaven makes the bread grow, until it is soft and inflated. In contrast, bread without any leaven stays flat. Without leaven the bread stays as it is, like a cookie, but if it is affected by leaven it grows and gets inflated. It turns into something that it is not, but that has a more desirable appearance. Along this line, some commentators compare the unleavened bread with humility, and leavened bread with pride.

There are several types of leaven mentioned in the Bible:

a. The Pharisees’ Leaven.

(Luke 12:1) In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

The Pharisees were the most religious people. They knew the law perfectly; unfortunately, they did not live it. They liked to keep the religious rites, but they were not interested in knowing the “spirit of the law”; that is, the reason behind the commandments to know the heart of God. They knew the religion, but not God.

(Matthew 23:1-7) Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, (2) “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, (3) so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. (4) They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. (5) They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, (6) and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues (7) and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

(Luke 11:39-42) And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. (40) You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? (41) But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. (42) “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

(Matthew 15:7-9) You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: (8) “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; (9) in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

In short, the “leaven” of the Pharisees is hypocrisy and religiousness. 

b. The Sadducees’ Leaven.

(Matthew 16:6) Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

(Matthew 16:12) Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

We mentioned the Pharisees already, but what was the teaching of the Sadducees?

They were also religious people, but they had different doctrines from the Pharisees.

(Acts 23:8) For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

The Sadducees didn’t believe in the supernatural or in the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. If we don’t believe in the power of the Spirit to transform our lives, we will keep on living with bondages that won’t allow us to enter into the freedom that the Lord has bought for us with His Blood.

The Sadducees also didn’t believe in the resurrection, which leads us to live only in the moment, for this life, instead of having our eyes placed in eternal life.

(Mark 12:18) And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying…

(Mark 12:24-27) Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? (25) For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. (26) And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? (27) He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”

c. Herod’s Leaven.

(Mark 8:15) And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

Although many have a wrong impression of Herod, he was someone who was very involved with the religious things. He made himself look like a “devout man”, but the reality was that he did not live as God commands.

Herod really liked what John the Baptist preached (Mark 6:20). However, his messages only made him excited and “made his ears itch”, but he was never willing to take steps of repentance and change. He would rather look good before men than before God. In the end, he had John’s head taken off to please his guests (Mark 6:14-28).

d. Corinth’s Leaven.

Paul’s message to the church in Corinth also makes a reference to leaven.

(1 Cor. 5:6-8) Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (7) Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (8) Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

One of the main sins in Corinth, even among the members of the church, was sensuality and fornication.

(1 Cor. 5:1-2) It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. (2) And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

The leaven of the Corinthians is tolerance to sin among the members of the church.

There is no doubt that we are saved by grace, and the blood of the Lamb cleanses us from all sin. But once we are forgiven, we should leave sin behind and begin to give fruits of repentance.

(1 Cor. 6:8-11) But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!

(9) Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, (10) nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (11) And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

If we were made clean, we should not keep on wallowing in the mud of sin (2 Cor. 12:20-21).

This is precisely what the Feast of Unleavened Bread teaches us…

FRUIT OF REDEMPTION

During the feast, we celebrate that we were freed from slavery – out of Egypt and out of sin.

(Exodus 12:17) And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.

During Passover, we celebrate the gift of redemption that God has given us, thanks to the blood of the Lamb. In the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we begin to produce the fruit of the gift of that redemption, and we do it by taking the leaven out of our lives.

The seven days of the Unleavened Bread is a time to meditate and analyze if we still have leaven to take out. The best way to appreciate redemption is to live in freedom. We live in freedom by taking off the chains of ungodliness, which stop us from being free and living in our absolute potential.

For example: the lack of forgiveness won’t let us relate to every person freely; envy won’t let us appreciate what we already have; fear won’t let us live in confidence and peace. These are just a few examples of everything that we need to look for during these feast days.

Many Jews clean out their houses year after year, taking leaven out of their homes. But there is no point in having a physical cleanse if it does not go along a spiritual cleanse, and even an emotional one. If any of you have done a deep clean in their homes, you will know what this implies. You open every single drawer, and you clean every single corner and turn. Nothing is left without having been dusted, swept, mopped, polished, and cleansed.

Cleaning the leaven is more than a rite that we have to do to “win our salvation”. The reality is that we don’t earn redemption, because we don’t deserve it. There is not one that is just, not a single one (Rom. 3:10).

The Lamb of God paid for our redemption; now we have to live in such a way that it honors the price that was paid to save us. God took us out of Egypt and takes us to the Promised Land, but he later expects us to defeat our enemies from the land and take them out of our lives.  

(1 Cor. 5:7-8) Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (8) Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Now that we are in the Week of Unleavened Bread (April 2011), let’s examine ourselves. Let’s take the leaven of bad intentions, of rebellion, of hypocrisy, of religiosity out of our lives. Let’s live in a life of freedom, with sincerity and honesty. After having been forgiven and set free, let’s not present ourselves before God empty handed, but with proof of repentance.

(Exodus 23:15) You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed.