The Feast of Unleavened Bread:
The Symbol of Leaven
(See the article
What Is Leaven? elsewhere on this Times of
Refreshing website for an
explanation of what physical leaven is.)
The Bible is full of symbolic
items and actions. And biblical symbols don’t always carry the same significance
in every single instance. At one point in the New Testament, Jesus tells a
parable which paints leaven as something very positive:
Matthew 13:31-33
He told them another
parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and
planted in his field.
32
Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the
largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air
come and perch in its branches."
He told them still another
parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast [KJV: leaven] that a woman took and mixed
into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the
dough."
The parable of the mustard seed
equates something that starts small but grows large with the growth of the
influence of the Kingdom of God. In like manner, the parable of the leaven
equates the Kingdom with a small amount of something that is able to spread
widely and have a great influence. So in this instance, leaven is a metaphor for
something very positive.
But in the context of the Feast
of Unleavened Bread, another metaphor comes into play. The Apostle Paul wrote to a
congregation of Christians about a problem of sin in their midst:
I Corinthians 5:1-8
It is actually reported
that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur
even among pagans: A man has his father's wife. And you are proud! Shouldn't
you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship
the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you
in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just
as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus
and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present,
hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be
destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
Your boasting is not
good. Don't you know that a little yeast [KJV: a little leaven] works
through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may
be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover
lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with
the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread
without yeast [KJV: unleavened bread], the bread of sincerity and truth.
In this case, leaven is used as
a metaphor for sin and wickedness, and Paul explains that a little bit of
it is enough to affect—and infect—everything around it.
Notice that Paul is making his
comments to the church congregation in the Gentile city of Corinth. It is likely
that few or none of the congregation had been brought up in Jewish families. But
he is using the symbolism of the Passover—“Christ, our Passover lamb”—and the
Feast of Unleavened Bread from the Old Testament to make a point to them. Many
commentators have concluded that this is an indication that it was their custom,
evidently introduced to them by Paul, to actually celebrate in some way the
Passover and the whole week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They would not have followed the same
custom as the Jews in Jerusalem, of killing a lamb for the observance, and
attending temple Holy Day rituals on the first and last day of the Feast. But
this would not prevent them from observing this spring Feast in some way.
Part of that way would be to
actually remove the leaven from their homes as a symbolic gesture. What would
this symbolize? There are many possibilities to focus on. Here is an explanation
by a Reformed Jewish rabbi of how he views the practice of removing leaven:
http://www.liberaljudaism.org/news_celebrate_pesach.htm
Pesach [the Hebrew for Passover] is a
time of renewal. One of the ways in which we demonstrate our readiness to renew
our lives is by removing Chameitz [Hebrew for leaven], which symbolises
everything that is puffed up, stuffy, stagnant, toxic and excessive. At Pesach
we have the chance to celebrate the liberation of our ancestors and the arrival
of the spring by cleaning out our homes, cleansing our systems, refreshing our
spirits, and making a new beginning. So, making a connection between our
ancestors’ experience and our own experience, involves examining the ways we are
enslaved in our daily lives and using Pesach as an opportunity to break
destructive habits – by spending a week eating a simpler, healthier leaven-free
diet,
In the New Testament context of
the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Bible uses leaven as a symbol of our old life,
and unleavened bread as a symbol of the purity of life available through Christ,
the ultimate Passover lamb who was slain for us.
As Paul put it, we do not want
the “leaven of malice and wickedness,” but the “unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth.” If the eating of unleavened bread is a shadow of something greater,
what is that something?
John 6:48-51
[Jesus said,] “I am the
bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.
But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and
not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of
this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world."
For each Chrsitian, the
Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread are an annual memorial of his or her
deliverance from the wages of sin by the blood of Jesus, the True Passover Lamb.
When that blood is applied “over the doorposts of our heart,” we have a new
life, free from the bondage of our old sin nature. We are then headed for the
True Promised Land, eternal life in the Family of God.
And we then daily “take in”
unleavened bread, symbolizing Jesus, the Unleavened Bread that came down from
heaven, the embodiment of sincerity and truth.
Jesus: The Reason for These
Seasons
Many people who accept Jesus
Christ as Savior and Lord, whether they refer to themselves as "Christian" or
"Messianic," observe the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread as a time of worship,
fellowship, and celebration. They believe that these observances, along with the other
Feasts and Holy Days described in the Bible in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16, are shadows pointing to the
reality of Jesus. And they believe that there are valuable spiritual lessons to
be learned year by year through actually physically setting aside these Times
of Refreshing as
"appointments with God."
For an explanation of the Christian
observance of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, see the article
Let My People Go! elsewhere on this
Times of Refreshing website.
For more about the biblical Feasts
in general, see the article Theme Times elsewhere on
this website.
For an
explanation of the Christian observance of each of the Feasts as
they come in their seasons, explore the links on the navigation
bar above.
For sources of the Hebrew, Greek,
and English definitions in this and other articles on this website, see the
Information page.
For sources
of the Biblical quotations in this and other articles on this
website, see the Information page.
Email the Times of Refreshing WebAuthor
All of the articles on this Times
of Refreshing website were written by Pam Dewey, with
the support and sponsorship of Common Ground Christian
Ministries. For more of Pam's inspirational and educational
writings, visit The Oasis website at
www.youall.com/oasis
All website content
© 2006, Pam
Dewey and Common Ground Christian Ministries
All rights reserved. Material may
be copied for personal use of the site visitor. For permission
to copy for any other purposes, please contact the author at
oasis@chartermi.net
