These feasts were given to the Jewish people from God through Moses.
God established the calendar and set the 14th day of the first month of Nisan (NY-san), last for 1 day, and on the 15th of Nisan, The Feast of Unleavened Bread will begin and last for 7 days.
When looking at Passover, we see that Jesus is the Passover Lamb.
Just as God led the Israelites out of slavery of Egypt, Jesus leads us out of the slavery of sin, as the Passover Lamb of the New Covenant.
As mentioned, we are going to examine how each of these feasts leads us to Jesus.
Passover represents the crucifixion of Jesus.
Passover, or salvation in Jesus, brings us out of Egypt, it separates us from the world! Thank you Lord!
BODY
We are looking at these feasts while keeping in mind:
Colossians 2:16–17 “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”
And we are going to examine 5 things about each of these feasts:
Calendar date
Historical significance
Scripture that describes the feast
How it leads to Jesus
What it means to us as Christians
Before we dig a little into Feast of Unleavened Bread, let’s recap the 7 Feasts as laid out in:
Leviticus Chapter 23:
Passover
Feast of Unleavened bread
Feast of First fruits
Feast of Weeks / Day of Pentecost
Feast of Trumpets
Day of Atonement
Feast of Tabernacles
We’ll look at these as a group, as well as individually.
The first four are feasts in the Spring.
They are also indicative of prophecy that has already been fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah.
They last 3 are Fall feasts, and are yet unfulfilled prophecy of the Messiah.
The first mention of Unleavened Bread is found in Exodus 12.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread and Feasts of First Fruits overlap.
We’ll look at that how Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread overlap.
Let’s read Exodus 12:15-20 together.
Please stand with me as we honor God while reading His word.
The significance of Unleavened Bread is that the Israelites had to leave in Egypt in haste and there was no time to let the bread rise, therefore they left out the leaven, or yeast.
God’s deliverance can be swift!
We have @ least two examples of this:
Although Joseph had been in prison for several years after he was falsely accused of rape, he woke up one morning in prison, and the next morning he woke up 2nd in command of all of Egypt.
God’s deliverance can be swift.
Here’s another example of God’s swiftness:
Paul and Silas in prison:
Set up the story:
Demon possessed slave girl
Fortune teller earned a lot of money for her masters.
Paul got exasperated and called the demon out of her.
Instantly the slave master lost the income she was producing for them
They went to the magistrates, told lies about Paul and Silas, and they were imprisoned.
Acts 16:24–26 “Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.”
God can be swift in breaking of chains!
This leads us to an even deeper meaning for Unleavened Bread, as we’ll examine today.
Let’s revisit Exodus 12:15–18 “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting 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.”
Exodus 12:19–20 “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, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ ””
This was a purging of sin, from the houses of the Israelites.
The leaven, or yeast represented sin, and that is why God said “ For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”
Let’s look at some scripture that may help us understand God’s intent for us.
1 Corinthians 5:6–8 “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 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. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
I gotta tell you, I have a much better understanding of what Paul is telling us here, as I learn about the feasts.
(research Paul’s meaning in above passage)
-Re-read it, and ask others what their bible says.-
Jesus is the unleavened bread of life! Bread without sin!
Puffed up sin:
As most of you probably know, yeast causes bread to rise, or become puffed up.
The yeast in our lives, causes us to become “puffed up” in sin.
This is what Paul is warning us against:
“not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Paul is directly addressing sin in the church, and is instructing us to hold our Christian brethren into accountability. “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”
Are we “puffed up” with the sin of hatred?
Putting others down to make ourselves feel better than them?
Are we “puffed up” with the sin of jealousy?
Exodus 20:17 ““You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.””
Are we jealous of others success?
Are we “puffed up” in greed?
1 Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Are we “puffed up” with the sin of hypocrisy?
As I was preparing this message, I came across this verse:
Deuteronomy 16:3 “You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.”
I came to this understanding... “sin is an affliction”.
Here’s one definition of affliction- “something that causes pain or suffering”.
In the short-run, sin may not cause pain and suffering, but eventually, without repentance, the pain and suffering will probably occur!
Listen to what Jesus sin to leaven bread:
Luke 12:1 “In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
Mark has a slightly different twist:
Mark 8:15 “Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.””
Matthew has even another twist:
Matthew 16:6 “Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.””
In God’s word, we see the significance of unleavened bread:
We see it in 4 different passages in Exodus, a couple of verses in Deuteronomy, in Leviticus, Matthew, Mark and Luke.
A couple of interesting notes about Jesus and bread:
He was born in Bethlehem which translates “house of bread”.
He portrayed Himself as “the bread of life”.
On the night of Passover, He chose bread to symbolize His body.
I found it interesting that there were three specific instructions for observance of Feast of Unleavened Bread:
On the first and seventh days of the feast, no work was to be done.
Special sacrifices were to be offered in the temple each day of the feast.
Leaven was strictly forbidden during the feast.
On the day of preparation, before the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jewish families cleaned their houses, eliminating any traces of leaven, or yeast, which represented sin in their homes.
Here’s how Jesus cleaned God’s house from sin:
Matthew 21:12–13 “Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ””
CLOSING
Quick recap:
Passover, or salvation in Christ, brings us out of Egypt, and separates us from the world.
The Unleavened Bread symbolizes the purging of sin in our lives.
The dates the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins or 15th of Nisan (NY-san) and continues until the 21st.
Jesus is our bread of life!
God wants our walk to be unleavened.
For me, this Feast was not only about tradition and remembering what and where the Israelites were delivered, but also about obedience, and the price of disobedience, in our following of Jesus.
As I am studying these feasts, I have deeper understanding of the NT, and Jesus’ words.
First off:
Jesus was a radical,
and sometimes His words sting.
Sometimes they change our thinking and our direction in life.
Sometimes His truth is harsh, and we don’t want to hear it,
and sometimes we are just not spiritually prepared to receive them.
Take John 6. This is just after the miracle of the feeding of the Five Thousand, that He gives this discourse to His followers of who He is, and who they are in Him.
Then He lays this on them:
John 6:51–53 “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”
He goes on:
John 6:54–56 “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
John 6:60 “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?””
John 6:66 “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”
John 6:67–68 “Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Next Week: First Fruits
