A Leaven-less Gift
In each spring of my childhood an unmarked carton appeared in the closet just outside the kitchen. Banished to this dark corner were bread, Saltines, flour, graham crackers, pretzels, breakfast cereals, and my beloved Oreos. At home in the kitchen the rest of the year, these staples were suddenly exiled because circumstances rendered them unacceptable – they contained leaven[1] and it was Passover.
Normally we delighted in leaven because it made our cakes airy, our cookies chewy, and our bread soft and tender. But all that changed as 14 Nisan approached, the start of Passover week. Suddenly what had been a blessing in our home was banned.
The nature of leaven had not changed at this time of year, but the context in which leaven was found did.
At Passover we remember our deliverance from slavery in Egypt through God’s provision – the sacrifice of an unblemished year-old lamb.[2] God instructed those who offered the lamb to spread its blood on their home’s door frames, then to roast and eat it along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Exodus 12:8).
This was more than a meal; it was an offering to God – an act of worship acknowledging our total dependence on Him. As such it needed to be acceptable to God. In Leviticus we learn that leaven was prohibited in certain grain offerings[3]. In the context of this offering, leaven’s absence made it acceptable and its presence unacceptable.
We are reminded of this each Passover by removing leaven from our homes and diets for seven days.[4] In my childhood home this meant eating matzoh and exiling all leavened foods to a box in the front hall closet for the duration of the holiday.[5]
As an adult the memory of that box holds two vital spiritual lessons for me. One speaks to my need, the other to God’s gracious provision.
The box’s banished leaven reminds me that some things are simply not acceptable to God. Just as everyday leaven makes the Passover offering unacceptable, so too my everyday sin renders me unacceptable to a holy God,[6] exposed to His righteous judgment.[7]
Physical leaven can be removed from daily life by human effort, but not spiritual leaven. Sin so permeates our thoughts and actions[8] it infects even our best efforts to love God and others leaving us unacceptable before our Creator.[9] The box is a painful yet needed reminder of sin’s cost in my relationship with God and my inability to “fix” it.
Thankfully, the box also points to the way back to God. As leaven symbolizes sin and unacceptability, its absence symbolizes the opposite.
We did not deliver ourselves from bondage in Egypt. We were spared God’s wrath of the tenth plague and eventually freed from bondage because of what God provided for us. Our deliverance came when, by faith, each household offered the prescribed Passover lamb sacrifice, placed its blood on their home’s doorposts, then roasted and ate it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
The absence of leaven in our home and diet during Passover highlights the acceptability of the offering God provides, and the redemption that comes to those who receive it by faith.
As the Passover and Resurrection season approaches, let’s give thanks that God still provides THE Passover Lamb (Messiah Jesus) we all, Jewish and Gentile, so desperately need.
“…knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Messiah.”
“Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Messiah our Passover also has been sacrificed.”[10]
Written by Dan Strull, LIFE Board Chair
To find out more about restoring your relationship with God through His “unleavened” provision click here.
The idea of “giving up something” at this time of year has become part of the Lenten tradition for some Christians. For some Jews and Gentiles, “doing without” is seen as a way of gaining merit with God. How does Titus 3:5-6 speak to this idea?
Have you considered having a family Passover celebration that connects Jesus’ death to the Passover Lamb? Check out Life in Messiah’s “virtual Passover.”
Endnotes:
[1] The rabbis point out the prohibition is not against leaven per se, but leavened grain in an offering, e.g., Leviticus 2:11. This explains why wine, which contains leaven but not grain, can be kosher for Passover.
[2] This lamb’s blood marked our homes for escape from God’s judgment on the firstborn son of each family. The lambs sacrificed at Passover died in place of all the firstborn in Israel.
[3] See Leviticus 2 for the instructions God gives regarding when leaven is unacceptable in an offering.
[4] See Exodus 12:19 and Deuteronomy 16:4 for this Passover prohibition.
[5] This was my mother’s personal approach. In Orthodox Jewish homes the leavened products are thrown away or sold to a non-Jewish neighbor from whom they are repurchased at the end of the Passover week.
[6] “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).
[7] “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…” (Romans 1:18); “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23).
[8] See Genesis 6:5.
[9] “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Isaiah 64:6).
[10] 1 Peter 1:18–19 and 1Corinthians 5:7.