TEXT: Select
SUBJECT: The Feast of Unleavened Bread
INTRODUCTION:
In our message on The Feast of
Passover, we hopefully made it clear that Jesus the Messiah perfectly and
completely fulfilled this Old Testament Feast of God. Consider the following:
1. As the first
Passover Lamb was taken into Jewish homes and inspected for
imperfections from the
tenth day of Nisan (our March or April) until the
fourteenth day, so too
was Jesus, the Lamb of God, inspected for imperfections
by the Jewish religious
leaders for four days after He rode into Jerusalem on the
tenth day of Nisan. (This
inspection came by their questions of Him)
2. As the Passover Lamb was
bound to the altar by the High Priest on the
fourteenth day of Nisan
at 9am, as it had been done for hundreds of years,
so too was Jesus Christ
crucified, bound to the cross on the fourteenth day of
Nisan at 9am![1]
3. As the Passover Lamb was
slain by the High Priest at 3pm with the declaration,
“It is finished,” so
too did Jesus die at 3pm by declaring, “It is finished!”[2]
Beloved, Jesus the Lamb of God
fulfilled the Feast of Passover to the very day and the very hour! And it was
through His shed blood that eternal forgiveness was made available to all who
will receive it—including you and me!
Our part is to apply that precious
blood to our lives through faith even as the Jews were required to apply the
Passover Lamb’s blood to their front doors on that first Passover night in
Egypt. It requires trust, humility and obedience to trust in another and not in
ourselves.
Even as Jesus gave up His Spirit at
3pm on the fourteenth day of Nisan, the same time the High Priest slew the
Passover Lamb, in three hours at 6pm, at the beginning of the Jewish new day on
Nisan fifteenth,[3]
the Passover meal would begin as well as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was
at this time that the family would eat the roasted lamb. The roasted lamb
provided the opportunity for a fellowship meal with God and with one another.
Forgiveness of sin and the way to God
was provided by the blood of The Lamb, and fellowship with God was made
possible by feasting on the Lamb’s flesh. The point is this: forgiveness of sin
and fellowship with God come only through God’s perfect and sinless Lamb of
God—even Jesus Christ the Messiah.
Dear friend, our acceptance with God
is always and forever will be based on the perfection of Jesus and His shed
blood at the cross as our Passover Lamb.
“Nothing in my hand I bring, only to
His cross I cling.”
And it is only through the Lamb of
God, “the roasted lamb,” that we have real and genuine fellowship and
relationship with the Lord of glory! This is, I believe, what Jesus meant when
He said “. . . unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,
you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day. . . Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood remains in me and I in them.”[4]
God’s favor and acceptance can only
be realized and experienced when we are totally dependent upon the finished
work of the only begotten Son of God. If there had been any other way, God
would not have crushed His Son on the cross! Selah
With that divine truth firmly
established, we will now examine The Feast of Unleavened Bread that followed
The Feast of Passover.
The eating of unleavened bread by the
nation of Israel commemorated the original Exodus from Egypt. Since there
wasn’t enough time for the dough to rise in the bread when the Jews fled from
Egypt, the Lord memorialized the event with the commandment to eat only
unleavened bread for seven days.
In Deuteronomy 16:3 we read, “. . .
seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left
Egypt in haste—so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of
your departure from Egypt.[5]
To fulfill this commandment the
Jewish people prepare themselves by removing all traces of “chametz,” which is
leaven, from their homes. Leaven (yeast) produces fermentation, especially in
bread dough, and it is the result of
the natural process of decay. So the removal of leaven from their homes
is in obedience to God’s Word.[6]
But what is the connection of this
Old Testament Feast of Unleavened Bread with Jesus the Messiah?
First, The Feast of Unleavened Bread
is a picture of His holiness, purity and sinlessness. His life and sacrifice
were “unleavened,” without the taint or curse of death. There was no sin or leaven
in Jesus. He was without fault; no imperfections were found in Him.
Jesus was crucified on Nisan
fourteenth; His sinless body was wrapped with linen and was in the tomb on
Nisan fifteenth, the first day of The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
However, because Jesus was sinless,
His “unleavened body” did not suffer or undergo the natural process of decay—the decomposition of the body!
Beloved, something was going on in
that tomb that had never happened before! Jesus’ body did not enter into the
process of decay. God Almighty was writing a new narrative into redemptive
history!
One of the divine mysteries of “The
Feast of Unleavened Bread” was literally unfolding inside of the tomb of Joseph
of Arimathea. The Messiah’s unleavened, sinless body was not decaying!
Listen to the stunning words of the
Holy Spirit spoken in Psalm 16:9-10, a prophetic psalm about the Messiah,
“Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest
secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.”
The Apostle Peter applied this
Messianic scripture to Jesus when he preached his amazing message on the Day of
Pentecost in Acts 2:25-36.
Beloved, Jesus Christ the Messiah was
the ultimate fulfillment of The Feast of Unleavened Bread. Because His body was
sinless, it could not and did not decay. And that is Good News for all of
humanity—especially for those who believe! We have hope of life beyond the
grave!
I want to close my message to you by
showing you an interesting part of the Passover/Unleavened Bread celebration
involving what is called “Afikomen.”
Since the beginning of this
celebration, it has revolved around a traditional dinner known as the Seder.
The Seder dinner is highly symbolic through foods that are served, prayers that
are offered, stories that are told, and blessings and praises offered up to
God. Three symbolic foods were to be eaten: 1.) Lamb, representing the innocent
lamb that was sacrificed on the evening of Passover, 2.) Matzah or unleavened
bread which symbolized the purity of the sacrificial lamb, 3.) Bitter herbs
which were to serve as a reminder of the suffering of the lamb.
But there is a part of this Seder
dinner which is a mystery to most Jews!
At a certain point during the dinner,
the leader of the Seder picks up a linen
bag from the table which contains three pieces of matzah or unleavened
bread. The leader then removes the second
or middle matzah and breaks it in half. Half is placed in the bag and
the other half is carefully wrapped in a linen
napkin and then hidden someplace in the home. The piece that is hidden
is known as the Afikomen and appears later in the service.
After the meal, the children are sent
out to find the hidden Afikomen. The child who finds it receives a reward.
Rabbinic law then requires a small piece of the Afikomen to be eaten by
everyone present at the service as a reminder of the Passover Lamb.
What is interesting is that the
Afikomen is a Greek word. It is the only time in the Passover that a non-Hebrew
word is used! The question is why?
First, Afikomen was not present in
the day of Jesus. It was a later addition to the Passover celebration. The last
solid food taken that day was the lamb at dinner. Rabbinic tradition holds that
the Afikomen now represents the lamb and therefore everyone must eat it.
Second, there is much debate among
Rabbis concerning the meaning of the word Afikomen. The problem is compounded
since Afikomen does not exist in the Hebrew language. It is just not there.
Rabbinic consensus usually explains that it means dessert since it is eaten
after the meal when a dessert would normally be eaten. But Afikomen is the only
Greek word (the common language of Jesus’ day) in the Passover Seder.
Everything else is Hebrew. It is in the second aorist tense which means the
completion of an action. In this case it is the completion of the Greek verb “ikneomai.” The translation of this word is electrifying.
The word simply means, “He came.” Now the question is this: how could Afikomen,
if it speaks of Jesus, make its way into the Jewish Passover when the majority
of Jewish people today do not accept Him as their Messiah?
In the first century Messianic Jewish
believers had already broken away from the sacrificial system believing that
the Messiah had made a once-and-for-all sacrifice upon the cross. They were
already celebrating Passover without the lamb, choosing to incorporate the
broken Matzah-Afikomen into the service at the precise point at which the Lord
had said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”[7]
It is therefore not difficult to imagine this tradition being borrowed by others
seeking to switch to a lamb-less Passover without realizing the full
significance of the ceremony!
The truth in this observance,
unrecognized by the Jews, is that the three pieces of Matzah (unleavened bread)
symbolizes the Trinity of the God-head—three persons in one—just as the three
matzahs are in the oneness of the linen bag. The second piece of the matzah
bread, which is broken at the Seder, symbolizes Jesus, the second person of the
God-head!
The second person of the God-head,
God the Son, came[8]
to earth as the Messiah. He was broken
on the cross, wrapped in linen,
(Christ’s burial shroud was linen) and was hidden
away or buried in the tomb!
Consequently, the true spiritual
meaning behind the feast is this: Jesus was buried and lay in the tomb on the Feast
of Unleavened Bread. And the matzah which was traditionally pierced and striped
was seen as being symbolic of Christ who was striped (whipped by the Romans)
and pierced on the cross.
Beloved, here is the point: just as
Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Feast of Passover, so too did He perfectly
fulfill the Feast of Unleavened Bread!
How brilliant is our God? How loving
is He? God reveals His plan of redemption in His feasts in the Old Testament
through His chosen people Israel, and then He fulfills the feasts through His
Son in the New Testament!
What then is required of us? How do
we apply these truths to our lives? Simply believe and trust in what He has
done; be fascinated by Him and His divine Word; and allow yourself to believe
and hope in the life that is beyond this life—the eternal life that is in His
Son!
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