The Feast of Unleavened Bread, like all the feasts, contains deep spiritual lessons for Christians today. As an explanation for this feast, the Israelites were told:
- Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat - that only may be prepared by you. So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting 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 no leaven shall be found in your houses . . . You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations you shall eat unleavened bread. (Exodus 12:15-20, NKJV)
Leavening, or yeast, has great power to effect change. Added to a bowl of ingredients, it can turn a hard lump of dough into a large, airy mass, ready for baking. The leavening which permeates the entire batch of dough is used in scripture as a symbol for error or sin. The Saviour Himself warned the disciples to "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." (Matthew 16:6)
The act of removing leavening from the household is a living parable. It requires much careful searching to make sure that nothing with leavening power, no baker's yeast baking soda, or baking powder, remains in the house. Ingredients must be read, careful attention to detail is required in getting all leavening and leavened products removed from the home.
This act reveals the care all should take in the individual work of heart searching. Are there concealed areas of the inner heart, secret sins which, like leaven hidden in dough, will permeate the entire heart and soul of the person? One secret sin, cherished, will corrupt the entire life.
Of all the feasts, Unleavened Bread is the one that represents self-denial on the part of the believer. It is not an easy thing in the modern world to get all leavening out of the house and the diet for seven days. While none are saved by their works, yet obedience to the divine law requires self-denial.
Satan had accused Yahuwah of requiring self-denial of His creatures, but not practicing it Himself. Calvary was Heaven's answer to the question: Is there self-denial with the Almighty? By an infinite sacrifice, the answer was given: yes!
The self-denial required during the Feast of Unleavened Bread is a constant reminder of the self-sacrificing efforts that all must make who would deny self, take up their own crosses and follow the Saviour.
As the first of the yearly religious assemblies, the heart-searching encouraged during Feast of Unleavened Bread is a necessary preparation for the next feast, Pentecost. For those who are preparing for translation to the heavenly Canaan, the yearly feasts are a time of contemplation, recommitment and thanksgiving for blessings bestowed.
For more information on the Spring Feasts, Click
here.
