(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)
SEVEN DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
The 7 days of Unleavened Bread start on Passover and last for seven days. These are special sacred times that God has set apart from other days. In these days we remember that we are merely humans who have a tendency to sin, and that God does not like sin, and that we must put sin out of our lives in order to grow closer to God. On some years a lot of my Catholic friends are observing Lent during these times and I notice many similarities between the two observances. This year the Hebraic calendar for Passover came later than the time of Lent. I chose to take the path that Jesus took and observe the days of unleavened bread.
This is
how we show that we are followers of Christ, by trying to remain sinless like
Him. I emphasize the word TRYING. It is an impossible thing for any of us to achieve without Christ. We cannot do this on our own, but we must always continue to make
an effort with God’s help. This shows
our desire to be like Him. He looks on the desires of our hearts.
When the Israelites escaped from Egyptian bondage they were in a hurry and took their bread dough with them before it had time to rise. When they baked it the next day, it was unleavened bread. The bread was course and not luxurious like leavened bread, but they ate it and thought of the freedom leaving the leaven behind had given to them. When they considered this, they became joyful and thought it was the most wonderful bread they had ever tasted!
It is the same with us when we leave the leaven of sin behind in our old life and put on a new coat of the blood of Christ. For awhile we will taste new things, but our appetite for the old things may yet remain with us. In time we will come to appreciate the fact that we left sin behind and the taste of the new things of God will bring us much more pleasure and joy than the old things from the old life.
The exercise of physically removing leaven from our homes and our diets during these days helps us to remember to keep the proper perspective on what we really need in life, and what we must put behind us in order to move on in God's Kingdom. Yes, we should do this all through the year, every day of our lives; but keeping these seven days helps us to be better focused on that fact. It helps us to think in different ways than we would normally think. God speaks to us during these days of who we are and where He is going to lead us next. He reminds us of what we need to be putting into our lives and what we need to be taking out of our lives.
We begin these days by remembering and celebrating the atoning blood of the lamb at Passover and recalling the atoning blood of Christ which God gave to cover all the sin that we humans cannot rid from ourselves. It takes the blood of Christ to wash us clean. That is the first step, just the beginning of an ongoing sanctification process in the life of any follower of Christ. Once we are clean, it is good to focus on staying that way for as long as possible. So each year we go through these ritual reminders of how we are cleaned by God and how He wishes us to try to stay that way. Each year we should be growing and developing and getting better at this. That is why we always want to consider the symbolism of Unleavened Bread and continue to constantly apply it properly to our own lives.
The unleavened bread is called matzah. There is much symbolism in the making of the matzah. Abstaining from the leaven is a picture of how God's people must be called to holiness and separate themselves from sin and become a holy people by constantly walking with God.
When the Israelites escaped from Egyptian bondage they were in a hurry and took their bread dough with them before it had time to rise. When they baked it the next day, it was unleavened bread. The bread was course and not luxurious like leavened bread, but they ate it and thought of the freedom leaving the leaven behind had given to them. When they considered this, they became joyful and thought it was the most wonderful bread they had ever tasted!
It is the same with us when we leave the leaven of sin behind in our old life and put on a new coat of the blood of Christ. For awhile we will taste new things, but our appetite for the old things may yet remain with us. In time we will come to appreciate the fact that we left sin behind and the taste of the new things of God will bring us much more pleasure and joy than the old things from the old life.
The exercise of physically removing leaven from our homes and our diets during these days helps us to remember to keep the proper perspective on what we really need in life, and what we must put behind us in order to move on in God's Kingdom. Yes, we should do this all through the year, every day of our lives; but keeping these seven days helps us to be better focused on that fact. It helps us to think in different ways than we would normally think. God speaks to us during these days of who we are and where He is going to lead us next. He reminds us of what we need to be putting into our lives and what we need to be taking out of our lives.
We begin these days by remembering and celebrating the atoning blood of the lamb at Passover and recalling the atoning blood of Christ which God gave to cover all the sin that we humans cannot rid from ourselves. It takes the blood of Christ to wash us clean. That is the first step, just the beginning of an ongoing sanctification process in the life of any follower of Christ. Once we are clean, it is good to focus on staying that way for as long as possible. So each year we go through these ritual reminders of how we are cleaned by God and how He wishes us to try to stay that way. Each year we should be growing and developing and getting better at this. That is why we always want to consider the symbolism of Unleavened Bread and continue to constantly apply it properly to our own lives.
The unleavened bread is called matzah. There is much symbolism in the making of the matzah. Abstaining from the leaven is a picture of how God's people must be called to holiness and separate themselves from sin and become a holy people by constantly walking with God.
So, obviously, to show our agreement with God about what is good for us, on the
first day through the seventh day of unleavened bread we do not eat anything
with leaven in it. We completely remove all leaven from our homes before the first day of this feast because the leaven is symbolic of sin. This
is to say to God that we want to put all sin away from us and we will try very hard to do
this with God’s help. Physically observing the spiritual principals here is a way of saying we will not just give lip service in our worship, but we will physically afflict our souls as a gesture to show that we are willing to do what is necessary to follow God. This feast is considered a high Sabbath where no work is done on the first day and the seventh day, except for preparing food without leaven.
It is yet another sacred time, seven more days that God set apart to help us remember that He desires for us not to
sin. In Exodus 12:17 this feast was declared to be a memorial feast to be kept forever.
So off we go before Passover comes to clean our homes and sweep out all leaven. It is an interesting exercise to see how much leaven has become hidden in the cracks and crevices of our homes, and it all relates as a very eye opening parallel to show us the sins we have buried and forgotten down in the deepest darkest parts of our hearts. We try to pull this out, to remove all that we have not noticed because we were not focused on ridding ourselves of sin and we have just over looked these things. This time of self-examination is the time to be rid of it! God gives us a pause in time to consider these things and to help us to focus. We must do our spiritual housecleaning! It is important! It is really more of a spiritual rather than a physical cleansing.
When the leaven has been all cleaned out of our house, we have a special little ceremony with our children in which we search for any leaven that might have been missed in our cleaning. When found, this overlooked leaven is quickly swept up with a feather into a paper bag and burned. The children see that this is like asking God to forgive your sins. Their eyes are opened to the fact that sometimes there are sins we don’t even see. We ask God to help us find those sins and to help us to put them away forever. It is amazing how the innocent hearts of children will absorb these truths so much faster than adults do. Our children teach us to love God with tender hearts. We must be sure to teach them all they need to know about God's feast days. We must be careful to keep the symbols and fables of Spring with the bunnies and eggs and baskets of goodies in their proper place - as just pretty little spring things to play with, games that we do for fun, like hide and seek, and not a part of the gospel story at all. There is nothing wrong with these things until we put pagan tags or practices on them, or try to make them appear to be Christian when they are not. Children learn fast. If you do not tell them the truth, they will eventually discover it themselves. Much better coming from the older wiser generation so that they have people to look up to and trust for truth.
These customs observed during the days of Unleavened Bread teach children true spiritual symbolism. They must know the sacred things first and most, and it is up to us to teach them how to sort it all out. They are counting on us to show them the way through God's Kingdom. We will be blessed and they will be blessed, it is a double blessing on a household!
None of us are perfect. We always miss something. That is why God sent Jesus. He atones for all sins that we commit, but our observance of these Days of Unleavened Bread expresses our desire to be more like Him and our desire to learn to overcome our sins. Self control is a virtue and a godly trait. This actual practice says in actions instead of words that we do not take the precious blood of Jesus for granted. We do not want to have sin in our lives that we can prevent. God always looks at the desires of our hearts and gives us grace because of Jesus. When we come with obedient hearts He hears us and forgives us.
It is just as important to take unleavened bread into your body during this time as it is to leave out the leaven. Why? Because the bread clearly represents Jesus, Our Messiah!
The bread is without leaven, or without sin and we know Jesus led a sinless life. Pick up a kosher sheet of unleavened bread and examine it. It is striped, pierced and bruised. The Messiah was wounded and bruised and it is by His stripes that we are able to be healed. He was beaten for us. He endured pain for our sins. The unleavened bread is a picture of this. We bring this out in the Passover service as we speak of the bread that we take and say a blessing over it. There is a point in the Seder meal when we hide the beautiful bag that is made of three layers of cloth. Inside is a piece of matzah. Our children are told to go and find it. Whoever finds the bag with the matzah inside receives a special prize. This is to encourage the little ones to keep looking for Jesus until they find Him.
The feast during unleavened bread speaks often of the sanctification process that each follower of Christ must go through. The Messiah was set apart. He was unleavened (sinless.) He reminds us in his words to us that a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal. 5:9.) This is another way of saying to us and reminding us that a small sin in our lives can spread and grow, causing us to puff up with pride and arrogance. In the end it will defeat us. It is totally unhealthy and bad for us. It starts off small and gets larger and larger until it is totally out of control. If you don't believe this put a large amount of leavening into a lump of dough and let it sit in your refrigerator for awhile. You will be amazed at how it takes over the whole shelf when it rises!
We have a funny family story that we always remember at our house on Unleavened Bread. Our daughter Erin bought boxes full of yeast rolls to use at her sister's bridal tea. The refrigerator went bad while she was at work, and the dough rose more and more throughout the day. It looked like the bread monster had taken over the house when she got home. Bread dough was coming out the doors and the refrigerator was totally beyond repair! It was actually a hilarious thing to gaze upon if you were not expecting to see it! A perfect picture of how the leaven of sin can get out of control too. It can take over your whole life and ruin it if you do not purge it from your life.
In contrast to all of this pride and arrogance of the leaven, we see the sinless body of Christ. He is the bread of life! He is the matzah! He chose to be broken and offered up for you and I. When we break the matzah we think of His broken body. We realize He is the true Bread of Heaven, like the matzah that reigned down to feed the people in the wilderness. If we take Him into our selves, we will always be nourished, always be satisfied, always be filled! He is the health that we are seeking. We must be taking in more of the Bread of Heaven!
So off we go before Passover comes to clean our homes and sweep out all leaven. It is an interesting exercise to see how much leaven has become hidden in the cracks and crevices of our homes, and it all relates as a very eye opening parallel to show us the sins we have buried and forgotten down in the deepest darkest parts of our hearts. We try to pull this out, to remove all that we have not noticed because we were not focused on ridding ourselves of sin and we have just over looked these things. This time of self-examination is the time to be rid of it! God gives us a pause in time to consider these things and to help us to focus. We must do our spiritual housecleaning! It is important! It is really more of a spiritual rather than a physical cleansing.
When the leaven has been all cleaned out of our house, we have a special little ceremony with our children in which we search for any leaven that might have been missed in our cleaning. When found, this overlooked leaven is quickly swept up with a feather into a paper bag and burned. The children see that this is like asking God to forgive your sins. Their eyes are opened to the fact that sometimes there are sins we don’t even see. We ask God to help us find those sins and to help us to put them away forever. It is amazing how the innocent hearts of children will absorb these truths so much faster than adults do. Our children teach us to love God with tender hearts. We must be sure to teach them all they need to know about God's feast days. We must be careful to keep the symbols and fables of Spring with the bunnies and eggs and baskets of goodies in their proper place - as just pretty little spring things to play with, games that we do for fun, like hide and seek, and not a part of the gospel story at all. There is nothing wrong with these things until we put pagan tags or practices on them, or try to make them appear to be Christian when they are not. Children learn fast. If you do not tell them the truth, they will eventually discover it themselves. Much better coming from the older wiser generation so that they have people to look up to and trust for truth.
These customs observed during the days of Unleavened Bread teach children true spiritual symbolism. They must know the sacred things first and most, and it is up to us to teach them how to sort it all out. They are counting on us to show them the way through God's Kingdom. We will be blessed and they will be blessed, it is a double blessing on a household!
None of us are perfect. We always miss something. That is why God sent Jesus. He atones for all sins that we commit, but our observance of these Days of Unleavened Bread expresses our desire to be more like Him and our desire to learn to overcome our sins. Self control is a virtue and a godly trait. This actual practice says in actions instead of words that we do not take the precious blood of Jesus for granted. We do not want to have sin in our lives that we can prevent. God always looks at the desires of our hearts and gives us grace because of Jesus. When we come with obedient hearts He hears us and forgives us.
It is just as important to take unleavened bread into your body during this time as it is to leave out the leaven. Why? Because the bread clearly represents Jesus, Our Messiah!
The bread is without leaven, or without sin and we know Jesus led a sinless life. Pick up a kosher sheet of unleavened bread and examine it. It is striped, pierced and bruised. The Messiah was wounded and bruised and it is by His stripes that we are able to be healed. He was beaten for us. He endured pain for our sins. The unleavened bread is a picture of this. We bring this out in the Passover service as we speak of the bread that we take and say a blessing over it. There is a point in the Seder meal when we hide the beautiful bag that is made of three layers of cloth. Inside is a piece of matzah. Our children are told to go and find it. Whoever finds the bag with the matzah inside receives a special prize. This is to encourage the little ones to keep looking for Jesus until they find Him.
The feast during unleavened bread speaks often of the sanctification process that each follower of Christ must go through. The Messiah was set apart. He was unleavened (sinless.) He reminds us in his words to us that a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal. 5:9.) This is another way of saying to us and reminding us that a small sin in our lives can spread and grow, causing us to puff up with pride and arrogance. In the end it will defeat us. It is totally unhealthy and bad for us. It starts off small and gets larger and larger until it is totally out of control. If you don't believe this put a large amount of leavening into a lump of dough and let it sit in your refrigerator for awhile. You will be amazed at how it takes over the whole shelf when it rises!
We have a funny family story that we always remember at our house on Unleavened Bread. Our daughter Erin bought boxes full of yeast rolls to use at her sister's bridal tea. The refrigerator went bad while she was at work, and the dough rose more and more throughout the day. It looked like the bread monster had taken over the house when she got home. Bread dough was coming out the doors and the refrigerator was totally beyond repair! It was actually a hilarious thing to gaze upon if you were not expecting to see it! A perfect picture of how the leaven of sin can get out of control too. It can take over your whole life and ruin it if you do not purge it from your life.
In contrast to all of this pride and arrogance of the leaven, we see the sinless body of Christ. He is the bread of life! He is the matzah! He chose to be broken and offered up for you and I. When we break the matzah we think of His broken body. We realize He is the true Bread of Heaven, like the matzah that reigned down to feed the people in the wilderness. If we take Him into our selves, we will always be nourished, always be satisfied, always be filled! He is the health that we are seeking. We must be taking in more of the Bread of Heaven!
So we do not mind carrying out this ritual every year, because it reminds us to always be putting off our sin nature and replacing it with the Body of Christ. The children who always imitate the adults learn so much from this time. Adults are also stretched in their learning. During
unleavened bread we become very aware of the sins that affect the body. By not putting leaven into our bodies we
realize how much we sometimes crave things that are not good for us, and how we must
overcome the craving for sin by replacing the sin with the goodness of God.
This fast of leaving out the leaven and putting in the matzoh teaches us not to be prideful, and helps us to realize that humility is the best way to live and be, both before God and with our fellowman. A lot of us have developed the habit of inviting each other over to share the meals of unleavened bread together at the tables of our homes and to share daily readings that speak of the practice of unleavened bread. It is not required, it is simply something that we do willingly as an act of fellowship and our love for one another.
This observance makes us more aware of how God’s children should be living all the time.
It is a good way for us to encourage one another to stay on track with God's will in our daily lives.
It is a great yearly reminder that always helps us to persevere and reminds us that we should continue to try to keep overcoming the world.
So, let us continue to break unleavened bread together forever and celebrate the Body of Christ!
This fast of leaving out the leaven and putting in the matzoh teaches us not to be prideful, and helps us to realize that humility is the best way to live and be, both before God and with our fellowman. A lot of us have developed the habit of inviting each other over to share the meals of unleavened bread together at the tables of our homes and to share daily readings that speak of the practice of unleavened bread. It is not required, it is simply something that we do willingly as an act of fellowship and our love for one another.
This observance makes us more aware of how God’s children should be living all the time.
It is a good way for us to encourage one another to stay on track with God's will in our daily lives.
It is a great yearly reminder that always helps us to persevere and reminds us that we should continue to try to keep overcoming the world.
So, let us continue to break unleavened bread together forever and celebrate the Body of Christ!
