3.1 Key themes⤒🔗

• On the night when the Israelites left Egypt, they had to make unleavened bread for the journey.
• Years later the Feast of Unleavened Bread would remind them of how their lives had changed after that night.
• The message of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is, as God’s people, we are called to live new, holy lives.
• Just as the Israelites had to get rid of (clean out) yeast, we must get rid (clean out) of sin and live new, holy lives.
• The new, holy life is
  - a life of thanksgiving;
  - a life of rest;
  - a life empowered by God’s Word and the Holy Spirit;
  - a powerful life.

3.2 Exodus 12:11, 15, 17b←⤒🔗

^11. This is how you are to eat it—dressed to travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

…

^15. For seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. Surely on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off from Israel...

^17. ... because on this very day I brought your regiments out from the land of Egypt, and so you must keep this day perpetually as a lasting ordinance.

© NET Bible

3.3 Leviticus 23:4-8←⤒🔗

^4. These are the LORD’s appointed times, holy assemblies, which you must proclaim at their appointed time.

^5. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, is a Passover offering to the LORD.

^6. Then on the fifteenth day of the same month will be the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread.

^7. On the first day there will be a holy assembly for you; you must not do any regular work.

^8. You must present a gift to the LORD for seven days, and the seventh day is a holy assembly; you must not do any regular work.

© NET Bible

3.4 From Passover to the Feast of Unleavened Bread←⤒🔗

From Lesson 2 you will remember that the Israelites celebrated their first Passover when they were still in Egypt. That night they had to eat in a hurry. They could not even prepare dough and bake bread. They had to be ready to leave Egypt!

But God told the Israelites to do something unusual: They had to bake “unleavened bread” (bread with no yeast or leaven in it). Since the bread had no yeast or leaven in it, it would not rise. This flat, unleavened bread would be their food for the journey.

From that time the Israelites would have to do many things in a new way. Now that they were free from Egypt, their lives would change completely.

Years later the Israelites could use the Feast of Unleavened Bread to remember this sudden change and to explain it to their children. Every year the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were celebrated together.

The Passover feast came first. It was celebrated on the fourteenth day of the first month. The Feast of Unleavened Bread started on the next day. It continued for seven days, until the twenty-first of the month.

3.5 The message of the feast←⤒🔗

For this part of the lesson, let us imagine that we are living in the time of the Old Testament. It is time for the Feast of Unleavened Bread…

For this feast we’ve had to clean our houses from every trace of yeast. For seven days we are not going to eat normal bread or do our normal work. It is going to be a holy week of celebration.

The feast days are different, because God wants to show us a picture of the new life that he has given us. He has saved us from Egypt, so that we can live new, holy lives. Living holy lives means that we devote ourselves to God and that we keep ourselves pure from sin.

That is what we think about, when we remove all the yeast from our homes. For this feast God is using yeast as a picture of sin. He is telling us to get rid of yeast, because he wants to teach us a spiritual lesson: get rid of the sin in your lives!

Yeast is small. Yet it spreads quickly through a lot of dough. It affects everything around it. Sin is the same. It usually starts “small,” with a thought in our minds. But it grows quickly into something we do. Soon it affects our whole life and everyone around us. That is why we should get rid of sin, as soon as we see it in our lives.

As God’s people, we are called to live new, holy lives. That is the message of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

3.6 Celebrating the feast today←⤒🔗

We are not living in the time of the Old Testament anymore. We do not celebrate the feasts in the way that the Israelites celebrated them. But the message of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is still the same for us. Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, died to save us from our sin. Now we belong to him. Because we belong to him, we are called to be holy as he is holy.

That is exactly what the apostle Paul said to the Christians in Corinth. He wrote to them,

Don’t you know that a little yeast affects the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough—you are, in fact, without yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. So then, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of vice and evil, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8

If we belong to Christ, then we have his Spirit in us. By the power of his Spirit, we should clean out the “yeast of vice and evil” (sin) from our lives. We should continue to grow in holiness (“sincerity and truth”). That is our calling. That is how we should continually celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread! 

3.7 The new, holy life←⤒🔗

“If you live a holy life, God will save you.” This is the way that many people think. But it is not true. Remember that Passover comes first, and then comes the Feast of Unleavened Bread. God first saves us from our sin, through the blood of Jesus. Then he helps us to live new, holy lives!

This means that the new, holy life is a life of thanksgiving. When we were still sinners, God gave his own Son to die for our sins. Now we thank him for his salvation, by devoting our lives to him.

The new, holy life is also a life of rest. Sin destroys us and makes us weak. But Jesus Christ, the true Rest-Giver, leads us in God’s ways. In this way he brings rest, joy, and peace into our lives.

How does Jesus lead us in God’s ways? He works through his Spirit and his Word, the Bible. When you read or listen to the Bible, you are listening to the voice of Jesus. Through his Spirit he is teaching and helping you to leave your old ways of sin, and to live for God. Do you see? You are not called to live a holy life by your own strength. A holy life is a life that is empowered by God’s Word and Spirit!

Because a holy life is empowered by the Spirit, a holy life is powerful. If you have the love and peace of God in your life, you will be visible to the world. People will ask you questions. This will give you a chance to tell them about salvation in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:15).

May God use your new life, to work in the lives of others!