In this, the week of Easter, most of the world will take time to reflect on Jesus’ death and resurrection. On Friday we turned our hearts to contemplate the magnitude of what Jesus went through on our behalf. How he endured scorn and ridicule, beatings and being nailed to a cross. On this Easter morning, we rejoice that the death that was ours from the garden is no longer our punishment as we place our trust in Christ’s payment for our sin and victory over death.
The Easter story has been remembered and taught in every church since the church’s beginning.. Jesus and the Disciples in the Garden at night, the disciples sleeping, Jesus battling through prayer and being content with the cup that His father had given Him to drink. The betrayal by Judas and the fact that Jesus’ closest companions, those He loved to the end, left and even denied Him, should move our hearts as we contemplate a Savior that stayed silent when He could have called legions down and annihilated the men who thought they were serving God by killing Him, when He could have just spoken a word and stopped the heart of all men. These are the truths of Easter Sunday that should cause us to once again humbly thank God for His mercy upon those who were once His enemy.
This year, as I sit at home, unable to worship in a church with other believers as a result of a worldwide pandemic, I can’t help but be sober minded on a morning that is usually a joyful. As all the hustle and bustle of normal Easter activities are non-existent this year, I am given a quiet and unique opportunity to think about what this day truly means. To me. To humanity. I can’t help this year but to think of a part of the Easter narrative that, while talked about, is often quickly overlooked in its significance. The night before His death...the Passover meal.
Because it was Passover time in Israel, Jewish households would have been preparing all week for the meal that evening; remembering the night almost 1500 years earlier when God passed over the homes of those who had obeyed by placing the blood of a spotless sacrificed lamb over their doorpost. In addition to the blood, each family had also been required to prepare unleavened bread...bread that had to be made quickly because God was about to remove His children from their slavery. In Leviticus, God commands His children that from that time forth they were to observe a seven day period each year during Passover in which no leaven would be allowed in the home. “The Feast of the Unleavened Bread” This would remind His people that they were set apart, brought out from slavery, and now presented to the world as His chosen people.
Leaven, we know, in the Word, is a picture of sin. Just like a small amount of yeast permeates all of the dough, so sin’s effects permeate the heart of man. Jesus warns of the leaven of the Pharisees, the deadly leaven of religion that eases the conscience of man but its end is death. Paul calls out the church of Galatia for falling behind and forgetting God because of the leaven of some had spread to all.
God gave the Jewish people in the wilderness a foreshadowing picture of His call to have holiness in the inner man when He established the Feast of Unleavened bread and over a thousand years later, the Jewish people were still observing this seven day period. In preparation for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was one day after the Passover meal, the whole house would be required to take out all leaven from the home, no traces left behind. In fact, after all leaven was removed, the Father of the house would then go through with a candle and look in every cupboard, small crevice, and corner lest the smallest amount had been overlooked. This would have been the case for the house that Jesus and His disciples would have had their last meal together in. As He sat in the upper room with His Disciples, in a house that had been cleansed from all leaven, we understand a little clearer what He meant when He presents to them the living sinless “unleavened” bread as He says, “This is my body.”
As we contemplate the magnitude of the Son of God laying down His life so that sinful man might be made right before God, we must not leave out the unleavened bread. In offering the bread to the disciples, Christ was telling them that there was to be a change in the inner man. Yes, His death would bring about salvation. Yes, His blood would be the covering for sin, but the picture isn’t complete without the bread of life. Those who do not eat of His flesh and drink of His blood have no part in Him.
“I believe in Jesus. I believe that He died and rose again. I want Christ and all that he offers!” Many say they want Christ. Many say they want the covering of the blood of the lamb but I am afraid we want it on our terms. We ask God to change us and make us holy and when He does, we, like the children of Israel who sat in their tents crying and weeping before the entrance of the promised land… weeping from fear that they would all be killed...weeping from anger that God had brought them to a place of destruction...weeping from an unbelieving heart. This was not the promised land they had imagined. They wanted a land that would be handed to them. A land they didn’t have to fight for. They didn’t want to trust and strive and fight. They wanted it placed in their laps. But this was not the way God had intended. His promise was sure, they would inherit the land because God had already sealed the victory, but they were still required to put on battle armor and go fight.
Is this not the case in our lives? We want the perfect Christian life that is just given to us. We want a holy life that we don’t have to work for. “Isn’t that what Jesus did on the Cross and through His resurrection? Defeated sin so that I can now rest,” you say? We want the beautiful Easter story of a man who died and rose again that my life might be made happy and complete. But the reality is different. The gift isn’t a field of flowers. The gift is a battle that has victory at the end.
Just like with the Children of Israel, God has brought us out of the slavery, slavery to sin, and has guaranteed our victory but we are commanded to now put on the battle gear and go to war. We must take up the light and go through the house and root out the sin that sits in the corner...the sin, that, like leaven, won’t stay in the corner long. This is our life long battle we have been called to. A lifelong battle that will be won with each step of obedience, but still a battle that has to be fought. Without the fight, there is no promised land. Without the fight, there is no belief. Without the fight, God is not in us.
As this Easter morning dawns, rest and rejoice in the cross. Know that with the morning came the breath of life breathed into fallen man who had died in the garden so very long ago. But don’t stop here.. it is only the beginning. Now put on the battle gear and go and conquer the enemy that your Father has already given you victory over. Go fight the good fight of tearing out the sins of pride and hardheartedness, of selfishness, unforgiveness, lusts and lack of self control. Go remove the sins of unbelief and fear, of doubt, dissatisfaction and control. You’ve already been assured that you will have the victory but the battle still lies ahead of you. You must do the work but don’t lose heart, the battle is the Lord’s and He will go before you. Today, as you celebrate what Christ accomplished 2000 years ago, take up the light (the word) and go through the house and rid your life of the leaven.
“Fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross despising the shame. And has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who has endured hostility by sinners against Himself so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-2
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