The Passover is fulfilled, but Christ still calls us to be unleavened. It’s not about the bread on the communion table. It’s about us. Will I be pure in heart for my Saviour?

Everything about this festival was meant to call to mind the events of the great exodus from Egypt. There was even a lesson in the bread that they ate. For God said, “You shall eat no leavened bread with the lamb; seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread…the bread of affliction” (v. 3). That humble bread was of great importance. So much so, that Passover sometimes went by a different name: it was called “the Feast of Unleavened Bread.”

So what was it about that bread, made without yeast?

Unleavened bread is hard to chew, tough and dense. Why eat these sorry loaves? There’s at least two reasons.

First, see how God calls it “the bread of affliction.” Sometimes we talk about “comfort food,” meaning food that makes us feel good inside. It might be spaghetti or lamb stew with flatbread—stuff that brings back good memories of home and family. The unleavened bread did the opposite: it reminded them of Egypt’s hardships and misery. Gnawing on “the bread of affliction,” the Israelites had to think about how they used to be lacking in every comfort, and how God delivered them.

Moses gives a second reason for the bread: because “you came out of the land of Egypt in haste” (v 3). When you’re baking bread, you have to wait an hour or two for the yeast to do its work in the dough. But when Pharaoh finally relented, the Israelites had to leave at once—even if they were in the middle of something, like baking bread. So the unleavened bread also reminded them of that frantic but wonderful night when God brought them out.

And God took this aspect of the meal seriously: “No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days” (v. 4). It wasn’t enough that the Israelites eat bread without yeast at Passover; there wasn’t allowed to be any yeast, in any of their homes, the whole time of the festival!

The whole nation was to be completely unleavened.

Bible explainers aren’t sure why God commanded this total ban. Some say that leavened bread is moister and would quickly go bad; covered with those little spots of blue mold, the bread would be impure, and impurity wasn’t right for a people celebrating a holy festival.

Being yeast-free could be about avoiding moldy bread, but there’s probably more to it. We just spoke of purity, and that’s probably still the chief concern. In Bible times, the leavening process—when you add yeast to dough—wasn’t considered entirely clean. For yeast is a kind of fungus, whose microorganisms will spread in a lump of dough. As it reacts with the other ingredients, it forms the little air pockets that make bread so soft. Maybe you’ve seen a starter jar for sourdough bread: a bubbling, growing, mush of yeast and bacteria. Looks terrible, but it makes delicious bread.

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