"Because Ye Are Unleavened"

As eager students around the farm kitchen table, my mom, siblings and I watched my brother-in-law's stocky Pennsylvania mom toss ingredients into a huge ceramic bowl in just the right amounts to produce her famous homemade bread.  She threw all her weight into kneading that massive lump of dough - flipping it, folding it, turning it, over and over again for a long time.  We marveled at the size of her biceps as she pushed and shoved until the lump was smooth.  Then she covered this lump with a damp dish towel, leaving us to wait through the next step.

After the dough rose to double its size, she punched it down and shaped it into a loaf.  And we waited once again.  When the dough had risen to a perfect chef's cap outside the pan, she baked it.  Our mouths watered like Pavlov's dog just from the aroma permeating the entire house.  She peeked into the oven and when it was crispy brown on the outside, she pulled it out of the hot oven.  We couldn't wait to slice into that loaf, releasing the intense yeast smell that delighted almost as much as the taste.  Mmmmm. We totally devoured that loaf of bread in one sitting and wanted more at that.

Thus, it pains me that such a delicious, appetizing image is exchanged for a picture of sin in the Bible.

Though yeast is the magic, it was Pauline's incredible ability to introduce the yeast to flour and water in the bowl before her that woke it up.  Yeast looks fairly innocuous.  Left in that dark jar or envelope too long without mixing, it dies; but, prove it in a measuring cup with sugar and warm water and watch the bubbly mixture foam and froth as it devours the sugar, showing itself very much alive.  Add flour and oil to the mix and a chain reaction of metabolic activity begins: yeast consumes the simple sugars, releasing alcohol and carbon dioxide gas - the gas, which is captured in the gluten structure, causes the bread to rise.  After you stop kneading with your hands, the rising action itself is friction enough to continue the kneading process, thereby ensuring complete permeation.

Sin is like yeast.  Looks fairly innocuous. What harm is there in a little white lie told to prevent hurt?  What harm a little sex before marriage to know what I'm getting into? What harm gossiping about others if it's truth? What harm going to bed angry with your spouse? What harm a little pornography to spice up your own relationship with your mate? What harm a little flirtation with your co-worker? What harm a few curse words at a well-deserved fool?

Like breadmaking, sin is appetizing to our flesh.  Just mix it together, water it, and watch it grow.  Go ahead and punch it down - it looks like you killed it as it deflates, but reshape it and it still continues working down to the core of my very being, eventually permeating all of my flesh, releasing an aroma sure to seduce me and entice others to join. Sin takes on a life all its own, eventually becoming the master and I its slave, from its innocuous beginnings to its final consumption.

So it was necessary that the law came. The law made me aware that sin was working in me to the point of, shall we say, consumption. Nevertheless, "Through the Lord's mercy, we are not consumed because His compassions fail not," Lamentations 3:22.  The law was mercy.  The law is holy.  The law is my tutor to lead me to Christ.

When God demonstrated His greatness to Job, Job replied, "I abhor myself."

When God revealed His Holiness to Moses, Moses hid his face and ultimately asked, "Who am I?"

When Isaiah saw the vision of God upon the throne, high and lifted up, he lamented, "Woe is me!  I am undone!"

When Paul witnessed the risen glory of Jesus Christ, he cried, "O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" 

While all four men demonstrate recognition of our dreaded deficiency:  "I abhor myself!"   "Who am I?" "Woe is me?"   "O wretched man that I am!", it is Paul who  pinpoints the leaven dilemma and begs the question: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Galatians 3:19 reads, “What purpose then does the law serve?  It was added because of our transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made [that Seed refers to our Savior vs. 16]”.  Thus, Paul’s anguished cry of “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” reflected his realization that the law could not deliver him, only point to his Deliverer.  

We are all undone, as Isaiah cried.  The leaven of sin remains in me no matter what I do.  So where can I turn? "Can a leopard change his spots?"


John the Baptist commands us: “Repent [turn]! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand,”  Then in John's gospel tells us where to turn:  “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” 

Paul states, "before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith." Thus, the law, the feasts, the sacrifices, the ordinances were like the thicket that held God’s sacrificial lamb ("for God would provide Himself a Lamb," Genesis 22:8; "Behold, the Lamb of God," John 1:29; "Behold, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah....a Lamb as it had been slain," Rev. 4:5-6) which would substitute for Isaac (the sinner).  The promise made to Abraham, that “in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:18), the same seed promised in Gen. 3:15, would be our substitutionary lamb, promised to Abraham, fulfilled in Christ.

Each Spring, the Jewish Passover heavily emphasizes leaven.  Jewish families purge the leaven from their houses in preparation for the feast, a recognition of their historical need to flee quickly from Egypt, without waiting for their bread to rise. But if you read the account of the Passover in Genesis 12, you see that their real deliverance from slavery began with the sacrificial blood over the doorpost that spared those safely secured within from the wrath of God via the Angel of Death.  Prior to that, the seal of Abraham's faith was circumcision - "a bloody covenant" disdained by Moses' wife Zipporah - and confirmed by Christ's shed blood - that of the perfect sacrificial Lamb.  Over and over, I see the sacrificial system, the feasts, the law, and even the traditions, God's mercy to point to Christ. 

For instance, when the youngest is asked by the seder leader one revealing question as to why Passover night is different from every other night, he answers in four revealing ways. 

1. On all other nights we eat bread or matzo, while on this night we eat only matza.  This references their hasty flight from Egypt that didn’t allow the needed time for bread to rise...or could it be leaven representing sin. 

2. On all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables and herbs, but on this night we have to eat bitter herbs.  Bitter herbs representing the bitterness of slavery to Egypt...or could it be our slavery to sin. 

3. On all other nights we don't dip our vegetables in salt water, but on this night we dip them twice.  Salt water representing the tears of slavery...or could it be tears of repentance.  But why is it dipped twice?   

4. On all other nights we eat while sitting upright, but on this night we eat reclining.  Reclining on one’s elbow represents freedom, a celebratory meal of rest...or could it be the believer's rest.

The fourth answer is interesting and led me to rethink the 3rd.  According to About Judaism, Rabbis changed the fourth question after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.  Prior to 70 AD, it read “On all other nights we eat meat, which has been roasted, stewed or boiled, but on this night we eat only roasted meat.”  

But why dip the bitter herbs into the salt water two times?  Could it be first for shed tears over the escape from slavery and then for the tears when unbelievers look upon Him whom they have pierced and see the Messiah, who indeed came first as the Suffering Servant (the roasted meat - judged by fire), then as the Triumphant King?  Or could it symbolize that one must be born twice - once of water and once of the Spirit (tears of repentance).  Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3-6, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.... no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to the spirit.” It appears to me that without even knowing they were doing so, the Rabbis were saying, the sacrifice was complete (the sacrifice was sufficient) and we have entered in to the perfect rest.  

But this tradition begged another question.

Why would the Father of the Jewish home search for leaven once the house has been cleaned?  The blood of the sacrificial lamb has been applied over the doorpost, yet the purging of leaven takes place under that. Paul explains in Romans 5:8 "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." There could be no other way, for all are sinners - "the leaven of sin remains in me no matter what I do!" Then further explains we are a new creation - in Christ. “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Therefore, purge out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump, since you are unleavened."  The key words here being "since you are unleavened."  I surmise then that this Jewish tradition beautifully depicts the believer’s walk of examination -  the continual feasting on the unleavened bread of life - a perpetual Passover for those safe under the blood of the Lamb - one that conforms us to the image of His Son as in Romans 12:2, “be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God.” We henceforth walk in obedience, since we are unleavened, (or since we are saved!) examining ourselves and heeding the prompting of the Holy Spirit who now lives in us (as the Father who searches our hearts) to purge out the old leaven, for as surely as we allow it to remain, it leavens the whole lump - whether it be the individual, society or the church. 


As the presence of yeast in bread is visible in its outward action, so is the presence of the Holy Spirit in a believer through faith visible by his "works."  Works not for salvation, but because of salvation, because we are a new lump.  Thus James can rightly declare, "Show me your faith and I will show you my faith by my works."