On Monday we looked at the festival of the Passover, one day later, on the 15th of Nissan, began the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days (from the 15th Nissan to the 21st Nissan) the Israelites were to have no leaven in their homes. When the Israelites were leaving Egypt at the first Passover they had no time to leaven their bread as they were in such a hurry but this feast has come to mean much more than simply hurrying out of Egypt.
During the feast of unleavened bread the Israelites had to make sure that there was no leaven to be found in their home at all. They would have a thorough spring cleaning and then when the father came home he would go through the home with a feather to make sure that every piece was removed. There was also a game where the children would hide pieces of leaven for the father to find and then tell him if he was getting hotter or colder in finding the leaven until all pieces were removed (similar to our hide and seek game today). After this was done the father would pray over the house asking that any piece of leaven he may have missed be considered null and void and as dust so that they would not be judged for any leaven they had missed.
Leaven relates to sin and Jesus was our unleavened bread because He was without sin and often referred to Himself as the Bread of Life such as in John 6:53-58 “Jesus said, ‘very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread, will live forever.” And John 6:48 “”I am the bread of Life.”
In our lives the feast of unleavened bread refers to consecration, putting aside the old life so that we can become a new creation in Christ. As it says in 1 Cor 5:7-8 “Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Therefore we see that Jesus is our unleavened Bread of Life and that He calls us to lay down the leaven of sin, wickedness and malice as a new life in Him. In the Festival of Unleavened Bread we lay down our sins so that in the following Feast, the Feast of First Fruits, we can take up our new life in Christ in consecration. We will look at this feast on Friday.
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