Read: Exodus 13:3-10

Have you ever watched bread being made? What starts as a small amount of dough, grows bigger and bigger as it is left to rise. Yeast is added to the dough to make the bread rise. This little bit of yeast spreads through the whole lump of bread.

Every year, after the Passover, the Israelites in the Old Testament had to celebrate the feast of unleavened bread. Unleavened bread is bread that doesn’t have leaven, which is like yeast, in it. For seven days they were only allowed to eat this bread without leaven.

What was God teaching the Israelites with this feast? What is he teaching us? One thing that it taught them was that sin had to be removed from their lives. Just like a little bit of leaven would spread through the whole loaf of bread, so a little bit of sin spreads through our whole life. In the New Testament, Jesus said that a little bit of sin left unchecked will spread throughout the whole church. Leaven was a picture of this sin spreading throughout everything.

And so, for seven days, they had to get rid of all the leaven from their houses. This was showing that they had to get rid of sin completely from their lives. And this is what we must do to. Sin must be removed from our lives.

But, while we still live on this earth, we are still sinful. And even though we want to remove sin from our lives, so often we say those nasty things again, or get angry or disobey.

This feast of unleavened bread pointed ahead to Jesus Christ. Even though Jesus himself never sinned, he took all of our sins on himself, so that we can be forgiven. And even though we still struggle with sin today, Jesus has removed the leaven or sin from our lives and filled us with his Spirit instead. And one day, on the new earth, this will be completely fulfilled. There will be no sin at all left in our lives.

Reflection with your child:

What does the feast of unleavened bread teach us?

Source: Sermon by Rev. K. Dekker