Last night, my husband and I were invited by friends to attend a Seder meal at our church. For those of you who don't know, the Seder Service is a celebration of Passover. The Israelites had been held in bondage by the Egyptians for 400 years and God miraculously saved and delivered them from Pharoah and the Egyptians through the works of His mighty outstretched arm, which included ten plagues, the last of which was the slaying of the firstborn. Before unleashing the final plague, God instructed the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb without spot or blemish, and mark the sides and tops of their doorframes of the houses where they ate the lambs. That night, God passed through Egypt and struck down every firstborn son of both men and animals, but passed over those houses where He saw the blood of the sacrificed lambs.
Passover is a celebration of God "passing over" the children of Israel, who obeyed what God told them to do, sparing their firstborn sons from death. It is immediately followed by The Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is celebrated for seven days to commemorate God's bringing the Israelites out of generations of bondage.
In preparation for both Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread all yeast and leaven must be totally removed from the home and are not to be eaten for seven days. Exodus 12:14-15 says, "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come celebrate it as a festival to the Lord - a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. In 1 Corinthians 5:7-8, the Apostle Paul (who was also a rabbi) tells us, "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 of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth." Yeast and leaven are representative of malice and wickedness - sin in our lives. Bread without yeast is representative of sinlessness, sincerity and truth; the Bread of Life come down from heaven - Jesus Christ, whose sacrificial blood poured out on the doorframe of our spiritual house, causes God to pass over us, delivering us from death and bondage.
Why am I telling you something you probably already know? To make you think. Is Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread something you celebrate? Up until this year, I have never taken seriously God's direction to literally do what His Word says to do prior to Passover, namely remove the yeast/leaven from our home and not to eat of it for seven days. This morning God put it in my heart to do that, even though Passover was last night. I shared with my husband and daughter what I was planning to do. The responses were not happy ones. We had just gotten groceries and spent some of the money on loaves of bread, crescent rolls, etc. That would be money down the drain, not to mention the fact that we would be getting rid of something that we enjoy eating. The first thought was to give those things away so they and the money spent on them would not be wasted. However, the point in removing the leaven from our house is to remove physically that which is representative of the spiritual. Removing sin, even the hint of it, from our spiritual "house", the place where God's Holy Spirit resides. Giving away something that contains leaven, although sounding nice, is not something I will be doing. I do not want to give something representaive of sin to someone else, no matter how much money I end up throwing out with the trash. That's all sin is anyway. Trash. And by removing everything containing yeast, baking soda, and baking powder (representative of sin), it requires a concentrated effort to actually disobey God and partake of those things that are considered "sin". Not something I want, either for myself or those in my household.
Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread gives me a chance to meditate on the sin in my life. Sin that has been physically and spiritually removed and sin (leaven) that I may have missed while "cleaning house". It gives me a chance to think about the time when the Feast of Unleavened Bread is over and those items may once again be brought back into the house. Will I be more mindful of the leaven/sin I am bringing into my spiritual house (I hope so)? It gives me a chance to remember areas of bondage in my life that God has brought me out of and to meditate on areas where I may still need to be delivered. It gives me a chance to celebrate all that God, through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, has done for me: My sins have been forgiven through the blood of the Lamb, death has passed over me, I have been brought out of bondage, and now I can celebrate life! God's way of life!
