Unleavened Bread And The Passover - The Bread In The Lord’s Supper – The Meanings Of Them All Series

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.