Yeast, an Image of Sin

By request, I am posting last week's bulletin article.

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. 1 Cor. 5:7-9

One of my friends has an allergy to gluten. As such, she is constantly reading labels and choosing her foods carefully to avoid becoming ill. Last year, I had a student with a severe peanut allergy. If he consumed any food that had even touched peanuts, he could go into anaphylactic shock and even die. As I was reading a label one day on some snacks I was buying for my class, I noticed it said, “Product was made in a plant that also processes peanuts.” Even though there was not a single peanut in the snack, he could still have a reaction from a seemingly “clean” food. I could not risk the possibility that it may have come in contact with the dust of peanuts. If it had, the results could have been catastrophic for that young man. For him, the price of eating a peanut could be death.
In the Scriptures, we are told that the wages of sin is death. Oftentimes, God uses yeast to symbolize sin. God even told His people to prepare the grain offerings without yeast. With yeast, the offering was unacceptable. Without yeast, it was an aroma pleasing to the Lord. During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the people were commanded to prepare and eat only unleavened bread for seven days in order to commemorate the quick flight out of Egypt. They were told to do this every year so that they would always remember how God had saved them from their bondage to Egypt.
God called His consecrated people to share in the feast. In fact, in 1 Corinthians, Paul connected the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Jesus. He reminded the people that in Christ, they were a new batch without yeast. He told them to keep the Festival with the bread of sincerity and truth. How interesting since Jesus referred to Himself in John 6:35 as the Bread of Life; and in John 6:51 He said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”
All things considered, I decided this year to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread out of reverance for God, who ordained the Feast, and love of the Messiah, who personified the Feast. For seven days, I checked every label on every package to make sure the food I ate had no leavening agents in it. During the seven days, every meal reminded me of God who saved His people out of Egyptian bondage and who saved me from the bondage of sin. At the end of the week, God spoke. He taught me a lesson that humbled me in a mighty way.
You see, my friend checks labels to avoid getting sick; the young man stays away from peanuts so he doesn’t die; I scrutinized everything that week to avoid yeast in order to honor God. Yeast represents sin. Sin leads to death.
As I contemplated the events of the week, the Lord brought to mind a fantastic realization. As closely as I checked those packages for yeast, God wants me to check my life daily for sin. Sure, I avoided yeast, the symbol of sin, but did I avoid sin itself? Do I typically search my heart and scrutinize my actions in an effort to glorify God? The Feast of Unleavened Bread lasts only seven days, but my commitment to become holy just as He is holy is an ongoing process.
The days before Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jewish families totally rid their homes of all yeast as God commanded them to do. Traditionally, it is the most thorough house cleaning of the year. The removal of the yeast from the home is a reminder to them and to us to eradicate all traces of sin from our lives. Our bodies are the temple of God. Our bodies are holy; and as God’s redeemed people, there should be no sin in us. “He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning.” 1 John 3:5,6.
The lesson I learned from the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Messiah, 1 Cor. 10:5; to make the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart pleasing in God’s sight, Ps. 19:14; and to purify myself just as He is pure, John 3:3.
Jesus is the Unleavened (Sinless) Bread of Heaven…the Bread of sincerity and truth. Anyone who eats of this Bread will not be hungry. Blessed be God who has given us the Bread of Life.