UNLEAVENED BREAD AND THE PASSOVER - AND THE LORD’S SUPPER – THE MEANINGS OF THEM ALL
The purpose of this article is not for dispute. It is to provide information. I suppose some will disagree with me on some point here and there, because not all things related to this message are clear cut. There is so much variation. Please understand that.
[A]. INTRODUCTION
The Passover of the Old Testament was the meal that gave rise to the Lord’s Supper that is kept by the Church. Throughout the denominations, the Lord’s Supper that was a simple feast of remembrance has become distorted in many ways.
Some rush it through as quickly as possible. Some like the Open Brethren feature the whole service around the Lord’s Supper. Some churches in mainline denominations and smaller independent fellowships, correctly hold it weekly while some like the Salvation Army, don’t even hold it at all. Many like the Baptists and other Protestant churches have it from twice a month to quarterly or even once a year.
The Roman Catholic Church constantly holds it, but calls it The Mass and at each meeting they crucify Christ again on the altar. It is not Christian at all in any way. The Church claims that the wafer and the wine become the actual body (literal) and blood of Christ so they eat Him. It is a type of religious cannibalism. They call it transubstantiation. The Lutherans stand halfway between the Catholics and the more open Protestants. They practice Consubstantiation. That is where they claim the wafer and the wine do not become the actual body and blood of Christ but where His body and blood nevertheless are present. It is a huge compromise because Luther did not want to depart from the Roman Catholic Church. He merely wanted to reform it.
We are familiar with the names for the Lord’s Supper. It is termed as Communion (some Protestant churches); Holy Communion (Catholic and Lutheran and Anglican); The Lord’s Table; the Breaking of Bread; The Remembrance Service (Protestant); Eucharist; Holy Sacrament; The Last Supper; The Sacrament; and there may be other terms.
[B]. THE JEWISH PASSOVER
Many items at the Passover celebration are fairly symbolic. One can not describe a typical Jewish Passover meal in the modern day because there are so many variations. However at nearly all Passover remembrances you will find these:-
SEDER PLATE: A plate with at least five foods, plus salt water: There are at least five foods that go on the seder plate: shank bone (zeroah), egg (beitzah), bitter herbs (maror), vegetable (karpas) and a sweet paste called haroset. Many seder plates also have room for a sixth, hazeret (another form of the bitter herbs).
CHAROSET: A sweet, brown paste of apples, nuts, cinnamon, wine, and other spices. It symbolises the mortar used by the Israelites to build storehouses for Pharaoh.
MAROR: Bitter herbs, such as horseradish, that symbolise the harshness of slavery in Egypt.
KARPAS: A vegetable, such as parsley, celery, or boiled potato that symbolises spring and new beginnings. At the beginning of the Seder, the karpas is dipped into salt water, vinegar, or
charoset.
ZEROAH: A roasted lamb or goat bone (usually a lamb shank) that symbolises the korban Pesach, or Pesach sacrifice.
BEITZAH: A roasted egg, usually hard-boiled, that symbolises the korban chagigah, or festival sacrifice.
HAZEHRET: Another form of bitter herbs, such as romaine lettuce, that may be included on the plate.
THERE WAS ALWAYS THE UNLEAVENED BREAD. We will look at the time of the very first Passover –
This has become The Feast of Unleavened Bread
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[C]. THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
{{Exodus 12:15-20 “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. You shall also 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 permanent ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native of the land. You shall not eat anything leavened. In all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’”}}
For 7 days the Jews had to eat unleavened bread with their quick departure from Egypt. That is what they remember. When the Jews ate the unleavened bread at the first Passover, what did it mean to them? I don’t think it meant much at all. Over time it did come to have meaning for them. The matzah (unleavened bread) symbolises both the Hebrews’ suffering while in bondage, and the haste with which they left Egypt in the course of the Exodus. Passover is also sometimes called the Festival/Feast of Unleavened Bread.
(on sheet as well) Contained in that bread is the symbol for them that meant Deliverance, Freedom, Promise and Hope, and Expectation. They were delivered from Egypt, from the sorrow and bondage of slavery. DELIVERANCE was through the mighty hand of God. The next thought was FREEDOM. Slaves have no freedom but are bound in slavery and hardness; especially this was the case under the new Pharaoh who made life so miserable for the Israelites.
The next two, PROMISE and HOPE were important because they were going to a land of promise in great hope. All the years of slavery were going to end, and the horizon was bright. The last one I mentioned was EXPECTATION, because they expected the goodness of God to go before them. They had great expectation, but sadly we know that they failed because expectation gave way to idolatry in the journey, and to a faithless walk with Jehovah.
Today, I wonder what the unleavened bread means to Jews as they keep the Passover Feast? From all I read, it portrays bitterness and freedom, and that goes back to the original Passover. It has much meaning for us as Christians and I will deal with that later on.
[D]. THE LEAVEN (YEAST) (CHAMETZ)
Throughout scriptures leaven is ALWAYS a symbol or evil. It can’t mean evil most of the time and good on other occasions. All scriptural types are consistent. One parable the Lord told is grossly misunderstood. It is the Kingdom Parable of the leaven – {{Matthew 13:33 He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like LEAVEN which a woman took and hid in three pecks of meal until it was all leavened.”}} This parable is explaining the spread of wickedness in the Kingdom, starting from a small introduction eventually to influence the whole world. We don’t have time to expand on that. Enormous efforts are taken to ensure there is no leaven or grains of leaven in the Jewish household leading up to Passover. Mostly, all new utensils are purchased to use for Passover each year.
A quote from a Jewish source – [[“Ridding our homes of chametz is an intensive process. It involves a thorough spring-cleaning search-and-destroy mission during the weeks before Passover, and culminates with a ceremonial search for chametz on the night before Passover, and then a burning of the chametz ceremony on the morning before the holiday. Chametz that cannot be disposed of, can be sold to a non-Jew (and bought back after the holiday).”
[E]. THE MATZAH EXPLAINED
Matzah is the Hebrew for “unleavened bread”.
From a Jewish Travel site – [[God first spoke to Moses about his plans for the Passover in Exodus 12:1-5, saying, “Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family, one lamb for the household . . . You must watch over it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight.”
Incidentally, this twilight ritual slaughter of sacrificial Passover lambs is still practiced by the Samaritan people on the Mount of Gerazim to this day. But back to the point – God presumably gives this instruction at the beginning of the month, since he says “this month”, and it must at least be before the 10th of that month, since that is the date God tells Moses that everyone has to choose their lamb. They then have to kill it on the 14th.]]
Matzah was the food the Israelites took with them on the Exodus. “They baked the dough that they took out of Egypt into unleavened cakes [matzot], for it was not leavened, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay; nor had they prepared provisions for themselves” (Exodus 12:39). According to this passage, matzah is the hard bread that Jews initially ate in the desert because they rushed out into liberty without delaying.
“However, matzah carries a more complex message than “We have Freedom now!” Made only of flour and water – with no shortening, yeast, or enriching ingredients – matzah recreates the hard “bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3) and meager food given to the Hebrews in Egypt by their exploitative masters. Like the bitter herbs eaten at the seder, it represents the shame and suffering of the Israelites.” (Internet quote).
“Hametz is the word for leaven and looked at, as leaving slavery behind. The matzah symbolised the entry into freedom when leaving Egypt. The halakha [Jewish law] underscores the identity of hametz and matzah with the legal requirement that matzah can be made only out of grains that can become hametz – that is, those grains that ferment if mixed with water and allowed to stand. How the human prepares the dough is what decides whether it becomes hametz or matzah. How you view the matzah is what decides whether it is the bread of liberty or of servitude.” (Internet quote).
From “My Jewish Learning” – [[“The point is subtle but essential. To be fully realised, an Exodus must include an inner voyage, not just a march on the road out of Egypt. The difference between slavery and freedom is not that slaves endure hard conditions while free people enjoy ease. The bread remained equally hard in both states, but the psychology of the Israelites shifted totally. When the hard crust was given to them by tyrannical masters, the matzah they ate impassivity was the bread of slavery. But when the Jews willingly went from green fertile deltas into the desert because they were determined to be free; when they refused to delay freedom and opted to eat unleavened bread rather than wait for it to rise, the hard crust became the bread of freedom. Out of fear and lack of responsibility, the slave accommodates to ill treatment. Out of dignity and determination to live free, the individual will shoulder any burden.”
[F]. THE BREAD OF REMEMBRANCE
In the Passover meal, part of the ceremony is to eat the matzah bread together and remind each other by saying, “This is the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in Egypt”. It symbolises affliction, slavery, and lack of luxury. It is designed, along with the whole Passover meal, to help the children of Israel re-enact the Passover event year after year, each generation telling the story to the next. It was an issue of remembering what God had done for them in rescuing them from slavery and death.
In time, Jesus would hold this same Passover matzah up and say to his followers, NOT “This is the bread of affliction our fathers ate in Egypt”, but “THIS IS MY BODY, GIVEN FOR YOU. DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME”.
It is no coincidence that Jesus’ death was at the time of the Passover sacrifice, for the whole redemption story from Egypt was the type of an even greater redemption to come, planned by the same God of Deliverance as in Exodus.
I am going to quote for you an Internet site on Jewish customs –
[[1 Corinthians 5:6-8 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little hametz leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old hametz that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened, for Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old hametz, nor with the hametz of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The idea of being “puffed up” with pride is also mentioned elsewhere by Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:18, 8:1, and Romans 11:11-32. The symbolism is clear – risen bread puffed up with leaven is reminiscent of sinful pride, and unleavened matzah bread is humble, simple, and pure.
Because there is enough leaven just in the air to have an effect on dough, special efforts have to be taken to prevent it from rising. The bread has lines scored across it, and holes pierced through it to help keep it laying low. This reminds us of how Jesus, humble, pure and sinless, was striped and pierced as he gave his own life for the ultimate Passover sacrifice.
Unlike the flat matzah bread, no amount of stripes and piercings could hold Jesus down. There was no pride in Him at all, but he rose again, and is lifted to the right hand of the Father now in glory, exalted higher than any other name, because of the incredible sacrifice he made to free you and me from slavery, sin and death.”]]
[G]. THE UNLEAVENED BREAD THE SYMBOL OF CHRIST’S BODY
{{1 Corinthians 11:23-24 for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed TOOK BREAD, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”}}
I said this earlier – “Contained in that bread is the symbol for them (Israelites) that meant Deliverance, Freedom, Promise and Hope, and Expectation. They were delivered from Egypt, from the sorrow and bondage of slavery.”
Jesus identified with the bread of the Passover meal, also called “the Bread of Affliction”. Therefore, the symbols contained in that apply to the Lord and to us.
For the Lord it meant a time of the greatest affliction when He became sin for us. He endured the affliction of sin and of cruel human beings. He endured the death of the cross. He wore the crown of thorns with the spikes. He wore the stripes of the lash and all that Satan was able to cast on the Lord Jesus Christ.
His body was scourged but not one bone broken. As I said recently we should not speak of Christ’s broken body on the cross, but of His body GIVEN. Speaking of the Passover lamb in the first Passover God instructed – {{Exodus 12:46 “It is to be eaten in a single house. You are not to bring forth any of the flesh outside of the house, nor are you to break any bone of it.”}}
The cross meant terrible affliction for the Lord but it also meant joy for Him. Did you know that? {{Hebrews 12:2-3 “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, WHO FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”}}
[H]. THE LORD’S SUPPER – THE BREAD
Some groups use ordinary bread while some will use only unleavened bread. What does the bread in the Lord’s Supper mean for us? I would suggest it means much of what the Passover bread meant for the Jews. We will look at those matters –
1. DELIVERANCE. As the Jews were delivered from Egypt, so we are delivered from this sinful world and its hold over us. Deliverance from sin is a powerful work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in us. Look at these two wonderful verses – {{Colossians 1:13-14 “HE DELIVERED US from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”}}
2. FREEDOM. Freedom from sin as slaves set free. Imagine a man released from jail where he had been most of his life and now he is free. Our freedom in Christ is from the jail of sin and the chains have been removed from us. {{Galatians 5:1 “IT WAS FOR FREEDOM THAT CHRIST SET US FREE. Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”}}
3. PROMISE AND HOPE. How beautiful is this as the light begins to rise over the hills. We will enter into the promise of the new land as the released Jews did long ago. We are off to the heavenly Canaan with a hope that is steadfast and sure and burns brighter every day. {{Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and WE EXULT IN HOPE OF THE GLORY OF GOD.” Ephesians 1:13 “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation - having also believed, you were sealed in Him with THE HOLY SPIRIT OF PROMISE.”}} So many are the promises of God to us.
4. EXPECTATION. How the Jews must have looked forward with great expectation, firstly of deliverance, and secondly, a new home in the promised land at the time of the Exodus. What about us?
Do you know that sinners have an expectation of judgement? Here it is here – {{Hebrews 10:27 “but A CERTAIN TERRIFYING EXPECTATION OF JUDGMENT, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.”}}
Christians have a godly expectation and this is it – {{Philippians 1:20 “according to MY EARNEST EXPECTATION AND HOPE, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death,”}}
[I]. CONCLUSION ABOUT THE BREAD
The Lord’s Supper is a serious time, not some distorted ceremony some churches have. We need to be serious about the Supper. As we take the bread it has many reminders – what the bread of affliction meant to the Lord; and what it means to us – deliverance, freedom, promise, hope, expectation of the Lord’s coming which is why Jesus said, “until I come.”
The Lord bless you all.
