Do you know who Popeye is? He’s a cartoon character, a sailor, whose girlfriend’s name was Olive Oil. Do you know what Popeye was famous for? His strength. Do you know what made him strong? Eating spinach. What you eat can drastically affect your life!
When I was little, I was always stubbing my toes and tripping over cracks. The ends of my big toes, my knees and my elbows were always skinned up. My older brother had a solution. He told Mom to feed me more carrots. Bob figured it must be an eyesight problem; I was falling and get hurt so much, he thought, because I couldn’t see well. He figured carrots were good for improving vision, and I definitely needed all the help I could get.
There are similar beliefs, or sayings, about other foods - like “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” That’s a belief that eating apples will keep you healthy so you don’t have to go to the doctor. Someone else joked, “An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but an onion a day keeps everyone away.” In other words, if you eat onions, your breath will be so bad that no one will want to come near you.
So my question today is: Why do we eat unleavened bread? The first and most important reason is because God said to (Leviticus 23:6). Why would God command us to eat, every day, for seven days, what Deuteronomy 16:3 calls “the bread of affliction”? It’s supposed to remind us of the time when the Israelites left Egypt in haste - God rescued them from slavery and oppression in Egypt.
But why would we want to remember what happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago in Egypt? It’s a physical example to help us understand what happens in our own lives. Before we have a relationship with God, we choose to do things that please ourselves. Many of those choices don't honor God. Romans 8:5 says “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh . . .” We aren’t thinking about the things that please God. In fact, Paul is pretty adamant, before we love God, we were slaves to sin (Rom. 6:20). We could not get ourselves free from sin. We were stuck.
Then, God sent His Son to rescue us. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, He paid for us. He bought us with His blood, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. That’s what the story so long ago in Egypt pointed to: someday God would rescue His people from slavery. God would bring us out of sin. He would rescue us from death by the blood of the Lamb. (Do you remember what we just celebrated yesterday? It was Passover, the day which helps us remember when the Passover lambs were killed in Egypt, the day on which Jesus was our Passover Lamb.)
So when God rescued them from Egypt, He didn’t provide airplanes. He didn’t instantly transport them to their own country. No, the people had to walk. They grabbed what they could carry and they left Egypt in a hurry. In the same way, when we leave sin, we don’t look back. (Phil. 3:13) When God rescues us, we don’t want to continue doing what displeases Him. We want to get out of that immediately. We want to start making choices that honor God.
The Israelites leaving Egypt didn’t have time to let their bread become leavened. They left in such a hurry that they just made unleavened bread. That’s why we eat unleavened bread - to remember how quickly they left Egypt, to remember that God rescued them from slavery, to remember those Passover events; as well as to remember our rescue from sin by the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.
So God commands us to eat unleavened bread for seven days. We are to take into our bodies something that reminds us that we have been bought from sin, that we are no longer slaves to sin but that we belong to God. And that only makes sense. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). Jesus Christ never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). So the analogy can be made that during the Days of Unleavened Bread, we are eating unleavened bread to remind us to deliberately choose what pleases God, to choose to walk the way Jesus would, to bring Jesus into our lives as completely as we can.
We eat unleavened bread
There’s another saying about food: you are what you eat. There’s some truth to that, although the lady who swallowed a fly, didn’t turn into a fly. If you eat an onion, you don’t turn into an onion. But what you eat is broken down into nutrients that your body uses. If you don’t eat the right nutrients, your body doesn’t have the right nutrients to grow and be healthy. In the same way, we don’t become unleavened bread because that’s what we’re eating. And we don’t become Jesus Christ because we eat unleavened bread. But eating the unleavened bread reminds us to make Godly choices in our life, to choose the things that are pleasing to God, so that we can become more like Jesus Christ.
We’ve been rescued, by God, from sin. We choose to walk worthy of the calling we’ve received. Eating unleavened bread is the reminder, for a week, that we choose Jesus’ way every day for the rest of our lives.
Unleavened bread is better than onions at keeping sin away. Unleavened bread better than an apple for keeping you spiritually healthy. Unleavened bread is better than carrots for helping you to clearly see the way to walk in this world without stumbling. And unleavened bread is better than spinach for making you strong in the Lord. Don’t forget to eat unleavened bread each day this week!
When I was little, I was always stubbing my toes and tripping over cracks. The ends of my big toes, my knees and my elbows were always skinned up. My older brother had a solution. He told Mom to feed me more carrots. Bob figured it must be an eyesight problem; I was falling and get hurt so much, he thought, because I couldn’t see well. He figured carrots were good for improving vision, and I definitely needed all the help I could get.
There are similar beliefs, or sayings, about other foods - like “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” That’s a belief that eating apples will keep you healthy so you don’t have to go to the doctor. Someone else joked, “An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but an onion a day keeps everyone away.” In other words, if you eat onions, your breath will be so bad that no one will want to come near you.
So my question today is: Why do we eat unleavened bread? The first and most important reason is because God said to (Leviticus 23:6). Why would God command us to eat, every day, for seven days, what Deuteronomy 16:3 calls “the bread of affliction”? It’s supposed to remind us of the time when the Israelites left Egypt in haste - God rescued them from slavery and oppression in Egypt.
But why would we want to remember what happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago in Egypt? It’s a physical example to help us understand what happens in our own lives. Before we have a relationship with God, we choose to do things that please ourselves. Many of those choices don't honor God. Romans 8:5 says “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh . . .” We aren’t thinking about the things that please God. In fact, Paul is pretty adamant, before we love God, we were slaves to sin (Rom. 6:20). We could not get ourselves free from sin. We were stuck.
Then, God sent His Son to rescue us. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, He paid for us. He bought us with His blood, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. That’s what the story so long ago in Egypt pointed to: someday God would rescue His people from slavery. God would bring us out of sin. He would rescue us from death by the blood of the Lamb. (Do you remember what we just celebrated yesterday? It was Passover, the day which helps us remember when the Passover lambs were killed in Egypt, the day on which Jesus was our Passover Lamb.)
So when God rescued them from Egypt, He didn’t provide airplanes. He didn’t instantly transport them to their own country. No, the people had to walk. They grabbed what they could carry and they left Egypt in a hurry. In the same way, when we leave sin, we don’t look back. (Phil. 3:13) When God rescues us, we don’t want to continue doing what displeases Him. We want to get out of that immediately. We want to start making choices that honor God.
The Israelites leaving Egypt didn’t have time to let their bread become leavened. They left in such a hurry that they just made unleavened bread. That’s why we eat unleavened bread - to remember how quickly they left Egypt, to remember that God rescued them from slavery, to remember those Passover events; as well as to remember our rescue from sin by the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.
So God commands us to eat unleavened bread for seven days. We are to take into our bodies something that reminds us that we have been bought from sin, that we are no longer slaves to sin but that we belong to God. And that only makes sense. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). Jesus Christ never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). So the analogy can be made that during the Days of Unleavened Bread, we are eating unleavened bread to remind us to deliberately choose what pleases God, to choose to walk the way Jesus would, to bring Jesus into our lives as completely as we can.
We eat unleavened bread
- because God said to.
- because it reminds us of how the Israelites were rescued from slavery in Egypt.
- because that teaches us of how we were rescued from slavery to sin by Jesus.
- because we know that Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life.
- because we know that Jesus was sinless; he was unleavened.
- because we want to take Jesus into our lives completely. We want to become like Him.
There’s another saying about food: you are what you eat. There’s some truth to that, although the lady who swallowed a fly, didn’t turn into a fly. If you eat an onion, you don’t turn into an onion. But what you eat is broken down into nutrients that your body uses. If you don’t eat the right nutrients, your body doesn’t have the right nutrients to grow and be healthy. In the same way, we don’t become unleavened bread because that’s what we’re eating. And we don’t become Jesus Christ because we eat unleavened bread. But eating the unleavened bread reminds us to make Godly choices in our life, to choose the things that are pleasing to God, so that we can become more like Jesus Christ.
We’ve been rescued, by God, from sin. We choose to walk worthy of the calling we’ve received. Eating unleavened bread is the reminder, for a week, that we choose Jesus’ way every day for the rest of our lives.
Unleavened bread is better than onions at keeping sin away. Unleavened bread better than an apple for keeping you spiritually healthy. Unleavened bread is better than carrots for helping you to clearly see the way to walk in this world without stumbling. And unleavened bread is better than spinach for making you strong in the Lord. Don’t forget to eat unleavened bread each day this week!
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