A Year of Celebrating Biblically: Feast of Unleavened Bread
Jesus / Bread from God / Bread of Life / Bread without Leaven
The Almighty God — unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid — humbled Himself and took the form of man. For mankind and for its salvation, He came down from heaven and became the Bread from God—the Bread of Life— and in doing so fulfilled yet another feast: The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is the second in the line of three feasts; the first is Passover and and the last is First Fruits. Scripture says this in Leviticus 23:6-8:
6And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. 8But you shall present a food offering to the LORD for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.”
Dr. Richard in his book “Celebrating Jesus in the Biblical Feasts” points out that both the first and last days of the feast (the 15th and the 21st ) are High Sabbath days. Passover, which occurs on the 14th day of Nisan, is therefore a preparation day of sorts for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In giving this feast to Moses and the Israelites, the Almighty God says,
This day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. (Ex. 12:14-15).
And again He says in Exodus 13:3. 7:
Remember this day you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by the strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten . . . Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters.
While Passover celebrates redemption, the Feast of Unleavened Bread celebrates sanctification/separation and holy provision.
Again Dr. Booker says:
When God delivered the Hebrews from Egypt, He brought them out with such haste that they did not have time to bake their bread, which would have normally included leaven. Over time, leaven became symbolic of the Hebrew’s old life of bondage in Egypt under Pharaoh and the Egyptian’s world system, which was contrary to God. Unleavened bread symbolized their putting off this old life as they came out of bondage.
Apostle Paul uses leaven to symbolize sin in a letter to the community in Corinth when he writes, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Or said more plainly, a little bit of evil corrupts. God commands the Israelites in these passages to remove all the leaven from their life: “Go to the secret places of your home and sweep out the yeast. During the whole of this feast may no leaven be found among you.” Likewise, the New Testament authors, especially Paul, warn about the dangers of secret sins, and letting no evil be found among the community of Christ.
But yet there is no one who does good all the time. There is no one who is good— except God alone. So we see that the manna— that came down from heaven and was the Israelites daily bread— satisfied their bellies in part but it is Jesus — the Bread of Life who came down from heaven — who satisfies our souls in total. The symbolic bread without sin could never be achieved by man and so it was fulfilled by God-made-Man.
Jesus tells us himself in John’s gospel:
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world (John 6:47-51).