Ever since the Passover we have been reading about unleavened bread. Yeast is not allowed! If you’re like me, you have likely been wondering why God has such an irrational abhorrence toward leaven.
Well, if you Google that you are likely to end up with several folks telling you that it is because of Paul’s teaching in Galations 5:9 that, “a little leaven, leavens the whole lump.” But in the words of Kevin McAllister… I don’t think so. I find it extremely unlikely that God was pointing to leaven as a metaphor for sin without ever explaining that metaphor for hundreds of years… long after these people who started the practice were dead.
Another — better — explanation you will get is that the Egyptians chased them out so quickly that the Israelites didn’t have time to leaven their bread and so the practice points back to the Passover in that way. (cf. Exodus 12:31) And this sounds reasonable, until you realize that just a few verses earlier God told the Israelites that they would need to observe the coming passover with unleavened bread before the Egyptians ever chased them off. So this always seemed unlikely to me.
I was stumped
But as I was talking with my wife about this, she casually suggested that God probably just wanted the bread to be a special symbol. Talk about a lightbulb moment! The bread was set apart!
Think about it. You know that Passover is coming, so you are going to make a special, unleavened loaf. A loaf that was, from its inception, always meant for a sacred purpose. You were not going to grab a loaf off the shelf that was already made for something else and repurpose it! This bread would be set aside for God.
God doesn’t deserve our “sloppy seconds”. He deserves forethought and intentionality. Ponder that thought as you consider what you offer to God in terms of your time, talent, and resources.