Feast of Unleavend Bread
Exodus 12:14-20
March 6, 2022
When it comes to eating, I think we all have our downfalls. There are some foods we can eat every day. When I think about myself, I have a few different foods which bring me comfort. Usually, the go to is dessert, especially chocolate. One of the foods I really enjoy is fresh bread! I mean, sometimes going to Fazoli’s or Olive Garden is more about the breadsticks, or go to Texas Roadhouse for their rolls, or other places we can think of.
My mom loved Chinese food, but she never liked going out for Chinese food. Why? Because you never received rolls with your meal. Ever think about that one?
That leads us to the feast we’re going to talk about today. The 2nd of the Jewish feasts. It’s called the Feast of Unleavened bread.
Last week when we started looking at the 7 feasts of Israel. We started with the first one, which is Passover. It officially starts on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nissan. As I said last week, the first 3 feasts all happen during the same period of time. Passover is on the 14th and the Feast of Unleavened Bread starts on the 15th and lasts for 7 days.
When I was growing up, I never heard it called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was always the 8 days of Passover. And that’s pretty common, because most people lump them together. But God doesn’t. God sees a huge difference between the 2 feasts. So, let’s look at what God says about this feast day, according to Exodus 12 - -
14 “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.” - Exodus 12:14-20
So, that’s what the feast of unleavened bread is about. After I talk about what it means for the Jews, we’re going to look and see where we find Jesus in the midst of this feast.
We get a number of helps on this feast from other OT books as well. In Deuteronomy 16, we read - - -
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. - Deuteronomy 16:3
In Exodus 13, Moses told the people - - -
7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory.
8 You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ - Exodus 13
In addition to this, Numbers 28 outlines the offerings the people were supposed to make during this feast. So, there’s really a lot of information for us.
With all that in mind, let’s look at what it means.
When you read through these passages one thing really stands out for me. The Jewish people were to get rid of all the leavened products in their homes. In 7 verses in Exodus 12, the people are told 4 times not to eat leavened bread and to get it out of their homes. If you’ve ever repeated yourself because something is important, understand that to God, this is really, really important.
But, what’s the big deal about not eating the leavened bread? It’s what Moses was instructing the people in the passage from Deuteronomy 16. It was called the bread of affliction. It symbolized the affliction of the Jewish people while they were in Egypt.
And from what Exodus 13 tells us . . . They were to remember what their ancestors went through and how they left Egypt - - in haste. There was no time to let the bread rise. So, they baked without leaven, or without yeast.
And if they were found to have leaven in their homes or if they were eating it, they were to be kicked out of fellowship and ostracized from the people. That sounds really harsh, but that’s just how serious God was about this feast. It wasn’t just about remembering, but about obedience to God. Were the people willing to follow God, to be obedient to Him?
It was also a reminder of the swiftness of God's deliverance. There was no time for their daily bread to rise, so it had to remain unleavened.
The Talmud, which are extra writings by Jewish rabbis about the OT, wrote this - -"leaven represents the evil impulse of the heart."
And we’ll see how Jesus followed up that line of thinking as well. But, understand that Jesus came before the Talmud was written. We can say, that these rabbis were following how God viewed leaven.
So, to help us gain a deeper understanding of what’s happening - - - This was to be a sacrifice of the heart, soul and stomach for each person. Giving up those great breads, but more than that, no donuts, no muffins, no snack cakes, no pizza, no peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, nothing at all with yeast in it. No can do.
Pretzels, bagels, English muffins, bread sticks, and biscuits. Stuffing, croutons, bread crumbs and bread pudding. Even Soy Sauce has yeast, as do some berries and grapes.
Now, in my family, we would try to go that week without eating bread. It didn’t always last. But if you were really trying to do it right, a Jewish family would go throughout the house and clean out all yeast products in the house. You couldn’t have any remain in the house. The days before, especially the night before you would clean the house of leaven products. You’d even look for crumbs under the sofa and in the sofa, and on the floor.
You’d get rid of anything with yeast in it. In the garbage it would go. Many Orthodox Jews will use china that is only used for Passover and this feast. That way it’s never touched leavened products. You’re also supposed to wash the tables and counters to make sure there is no residue of yeast on them. Often times all of the bread products are taken out and burned.
Then you would say a prayer condemning all yeast products that somehow have been missed, after doing the best you could to get rid of it all.
So, that’s where the Jews were at with the feast of unleavened bread.
Now, let’s look at where Jesus comes in to this and what all of this means for us.
When we go back to the Bible, we can with one exception, Jesus equated leaven or yeast with sin.
When Israel offered bread to God along with burnt offerings, that bread was to have NO yeast in it.
When Jesus warned the disciples against becoming like the Pharisees, He said - - -
1 “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. - Luke 12:1
And when the Church at Corinth had a man in their congregation who was engaged in sexual sin, Paul wrote that they should not associate with the man until he repented. Listen to what Paul told them - - - -
6 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. - 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Do you see how Jesus and Paul were talking about leaven? Those references indicate that it is bad. In other words, once you add leaven, or yeast, you see it changing everything around it.
Have you ever worked with someone who is toxic? Are you played on a team or when in a band and there was that one person, and if they left, everyone could breathe a sigh of relief. They were the leaven. And that’s what Paul is getting at. If you allow that person to stay, to continue to put their yeast in the group, then you can’t help but have it infiltrate and destroy the fellowship of the group.
It is a natural occurrence and happens all of the time. Sadly, we often allow it to happen because we seek to avoid conflict. So that leaven continues to make things bad. And there’s a lot of dysfunction that happens. If we were to be honest, we can point to it all around us.
Which is why Paul said to get rid of the leaven so that we could be a new lump. We start with new ingredients and don’t include the leaven, so we are unleavened, we are without sin. That’s what Paul wants us to understand, because we worship the Passover Lamb, and we have the One who was without sin.
As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, one of my absolute favorite scriptures about who Jesus is for us - - -
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. - 2 Corinthians 5:21
Think about when you’re baking bread. You use lots of flour, but not much yeast, and we watch the bread rise, and that’s because of the yeast.
So, why would God use yeast to symbolize sin?
I mean think about the difference between this loaf of bread and this matzo.
The bread has yeast, the matzo doesn’t. Sin works like the yeast in our lives. A little bit and it changes your properties as well. It changes you from the inside out. It changes your heart, it changes the way you look at life and other people.
When you leave today, at both entrances there will be baggies with pieces of matzo in them. It’s not a big piece, but enough that you could taste it and see that there’s not really much taste to it. Sometimes that’s how we view living a sin free life. There’s not much fun in it. It’s not as tasty.
Bread tastes good. Even though we may struggle with sin, in the same way, sin can taste good, if it didn’t taste good, think about it, you wouldn’t do it, you wouldn’t even be tempted to do it. That’s part of the enticement to sin. We may abhor it in our heart, we may struggle with it, but we do it, not because we must, but because there’s often an element that tastes good.
Also, notice that we don’t need much yeast to change the nature of the flour and make it rise. When we add sin to our lives, it doesn’t take much to change our character as well.
When you add yeast to the flour, you see it rise, it looks bigger and is more enticing than before. Sin does the same in our lives. We possibly start believing that we have more than we really do. It infects our whole being, which then infects all of those who surround us.
Once we give in to the sin, we may think we’re more powerful or more important. Sin has a way of leading us to change the way we view ourselves. Often times we gain a greater sense of self, more pride, more arrogance and that changes the world in negative ways.
And it goes on and on. Sin, starts to delude our thinking and believing, in fact, it changes our entire nature.
We look at the world and say we want what everyone else has, but so much is based on sin without accountability to anyone. You can do whatever you want, there’s no consequences. But there are, yet satan wants us to believe we are the master and we don’t have to answer to anyone.
That’s the way of the world right now. If we look around we can see that the world wants you to believe you can live any way you want and that is perfectly acceptable and if you don’t agree based on biblical beliefs, then you’re a bigot and have some type of phobia. But those are lies from satan. So, a little leaven changes the mix of everything.
Yeast also causes the bread to get moldy and rotten. Have you ever gotten fresh bread, left it on the counter a little too long because you wanted it to stay soft and fresh? Then you start to see those ugly mold spots forming. Not just in one spot, but in many spots. You can leave this piece of matzo, unleavened bread in a different baggie and watch what happens, you will not see mold. Why? There’s no yeast in it.
I read a story about a girl who asked her mom if she could go to a seedy amusement park with friends.
When her mom said no, the daughter argued that all her friends were going.
The girl kept arguing and the mom kept saying it’s not a good place to go to.
While they were talking the mom was making a salad - - - and the mom began to reach into the sink and pulled out some of the wilted lettuce and scrapings from the vegetables that were for the garbage and mixed them into the salad.
The daughter was shocked and incredulous. She asked her mom ‘why are you doing that?’
The mom replied, "I thought that if you didn’t mind putting garbage into your heart and mind, you wouldn’t mind a little garbage in your salad."
The Feast Of Unleavened Bread focused on removing the symbol of sinfulness from the home. That weeklong festival began with a celebration of their freedom from slavery - The Passover Meal. And then it leads to the removal of sin.
God frees us from slavery and our response should be to live a life of integrity. A life in which we seek to honor and glorify God with all we do. Whether at home, at work, at school, when shopping, wherever you are, we seek to honor God because He has freed us from slavery to sin through Jesus, and now we are free to love and serve Him.
Think about what Paul said in Romans 6 - - -
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.
Romans 6 is telling us that our freedom came from belonging to Jesus, and because we were now new creatures in Him, we should no longer engage in sinful activities of our past life.
Too often people will say that they don’t want to become Christians until they clean out their lives. They fail to realize that it isn’t in removing the yeast of their past sins that will make them acceptable to God. We can only be free when we accept Jesus, and put off our old self . . . and put on the new person in Christ. It’s the sense of baptism, that the old person goes under the water, is cleansed and rises as a new person in Christ.
So, as we look at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we see Jesus as the One who took away the sins of the world, we see God’s call to you and I to remove the leaven from our lives, so that we would not contaminate those around us.
We would learn how to love, how to give, how to embrace the grace and mercy of God. We would then go into the world, filled with His power, His grace, His renewed spirit and show the world who Jesus is.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread should serve as a reminder to us that we’ve been freed from our bondage to sin and made to be righteous before God through the blood of Jesus. As a result, we now have the power to no longer live in slavery to sin. But we still must, day-by-day and moment-by-moment choose to live our lives in a way that we become more and more like Jesus.
Some parts taken from Jeff Strite sermon
