Tuesday, March 9, 2010
1 Corinthians 5:7-8 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast--as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
OUT WITH THE OLD!
The Apostle here connects the picture of getting rid of yeast (KJV, leaven) with the Passover and therefore, with Jesus, the ultimate Passover Lamb. The rite of ridding the house of yeast is so much a part of Passover to this day that even non-Jews are familiar with "Mazoth," the unleavened bread Jews eat the week of Passover. God commanded the Passover celebration in the Old Testament. The eating of the Passover meal marked the beginning of the week-long Festival of Unleavened Bread. That whole week no product made with yeast was to be eaten -- or allowed to remain -- in a Jewish household.
Unleavened bread at Passover vividly recalls Israel's hasty departure from Egypt that first Passover night. There was no time to wait for bread to rise before baking, yet food for the journey was a necessity.
But our text says this is more than a remembrance, it's part of a continuing reality. And not just for people of Jewish descent. In fact, whether Jew or Gentile, only those who know Jesus as their Passover Lamb can truly celebrate what God has worked in "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
When God brought Israel out of Egypt, He set them aside for Himself -- a people consecrated to God. For it was God's plan not only to free Israel from physical slavery, but to free them from sin-slavery as well. And then to use them to bring into the world the Sacrifice that would make this possible for them and for the whole world.
Redemption from physical slavery is a wonderful blessing. But such freedom is only for this life. There are other forms of slavery that are worse. Slavery to sin finally results in eternal separation from God, but all who trust in the Lamb once slain for sinners have been redeemed and set free. Every day when we remember this and turn to Christ for strength to live as His people (Remember Your Baptism!) we get rid of the "yeast" -- the nagging sins that would infect and corrupt our lives and return us to the slavery from which Christ has set us free.
