Exodus 12:15-20: a reflection

15“‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. 16In the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no kind of work shall be done in them, except that which every man must eat, only that may be done by you. 17You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this same day I have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance forever. 18In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty first day of the month at evening. 19There shall be no yeast found in your houses for seven days, for whoever eats that which is leavened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a foreigner, or one who is born in the land. 20You shall eat nothing leavened. In all your habitations you shall eat unleavened bread.’”

As part of the Passover, God commands the Feast of Unleavened Bread: for seven days no leaven, no yeast, is to be found in their houses; they must thoroughly remove it, searching it out and putting it away. The removal is to be complete, whoever eats leavened bread during those days is cut off, and it becomes a lasting ordinance. The people are to purge every trace of leaven from their homes and eat only bread without it.

The New Testament tells us what this pointed toward. Paul takes up the image: Cleanse out the old leaven, he writes, that you may be a new lump, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed; let us keep the feast not with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Leaven, which works its way silently through the whole loaf, becomes a picture of sin, which spreads quietly and corrupts the whole. The command to purge leaven is a call to purge sin.

That gives the passage its enduring point. As Israel searched out and removed every trace of leaven from their homes, we are called to search out and remove sin from our lives, not tolerating even small amounts, since sin, like leaven, spreads and corrupts the whole. The call is to a thorough, deliberate cleansing, not a casual tolerance of a little evil here and there. Search out the leaven in your own life, the quiet corrupting sins you have let remain, and put them away deliberately. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed; keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Lord, you commanded Israel to search out and remove every trace of leaven from their homes, and Paul showed that leaven pictures the sin that spreads quietly and corrupts the whole. Help me take that seriously. Give me the diligence to search out the leaven in my own life, the quiet corrupting sins I have let remain, and to put them away deliberately rather than tolerating a little evil here and there. Christ my Passover has been sacrificed for me; help me keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Cleanse out the old leaven, and make me a new lump.