The Feast of Matzo

The Feast of Matzo
A Passover/Communion Message
It may provide a helpful illustration to use actual broken matzo in this communion service.

The Word

Text: Exodus 12:15-20; 39

Introduction

God pre-figured all the things that concern us long before they were actually fulfilled. The feasts of Israel contain parallel points which meet the truth that has been revealed in the new covenant through the Lord Jesus Christ. This is more than an academic study of a historic feast—it is analogous to a truth the Lord wants to work in us (John 8:32).

The feast instituted here was called The Feast of Matzo, or the seven-day feast of unleavened bread, taking place immediately following the one-day Passover feast. This is the only case of back-to-back feasts, and through which God establishes a principle:

As soon as your key to deliverance is established [Passover], immediately launch a feast in which you partake of that which is without leaven.

As we take the broken bread, we’re partaking of what Jesus taught the night before He was crucified (Matthew 26:26-28). Jesus opened up the Passover Seder to being more than a religious observance—it becomes a communion table in which He invites us to partake of His fullness and life.

The Passover established; the parallel clear

The Passover feast accomplished the effective deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, and was to be established as a continuing ordinance from generation to generation. Two things were accomplished:

1. The protection from judgment and death that was coming upon the land

2. Deliverance from the place where Israel had been enslaved

The parallel is clear that Jesus is the ultimate Passover lamb. He was signaled as such by John the Baptist, the last and greatest prophet of Israel (John 1:29). From the inception of His ministry, Jesus was called the Lamb of God even before He was called the Messiah or the Son of God. It was clear that He was the instrument:

To make possible a covering so that people can be shielded from the impact of death on mankind that separates us from a living relationship with God;
By the blood of Jesus, through His Cross, we can experience an exodus out of the bondage that enslaves us to our own fears, doubts, will, selfishness, lusts, and pride.

Back to back with the truth that Jesus is the Passover Lamb comes the fact of the unleavened bread. Not only am I the Lamb whose blood is shed for you, says Jesus, but He takes the matzo, the unleavened bread, and He says, This is my body. Jesus literally embodies Himself in the truth of this feast being launched with the Passover.

Leaven is a picture of sin

Leaven is yeast that makes bread rise, that puffs it up and adds a certain flavor. Throughout the Scripture leaven is picture of sin and what it does to human flesh (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). The Bible speaks about the relationship between our bodies and bread, not just that we need bread to sustain the body (Matthew 4:4), but that Jesus took the bread and broke it and said, This is My body.

Sin, like yeast, affects the shape of your life, and the tastes that govern your thinking. Swelling in a life comes when there is something alien or something absent:

Like a tumor, there are invading forces that corrupt the soul
There are people starving to death in their soul, just like the belly of a starving child whose stomach is distended and whose body is consuming itself.
Sin causes the loss of a person’s appetite for the things of God, their taste for what’s best for them. They slaver after those things that destroy them.
There is the puffing of the mind with pride or fears.

The sinless Jesus is the unleavened bread of life

Moses did not see the significance of the unleavened bread—in fact, it was launched without any planning by the children of Israel (v. 39). But it was clear to Jesus who said, This [unleavened bread] is My body, broken for you (1 Corinthians 11:23).

There were three pieces of matzo at the Passover. The center piece was broken, and half of the broken piece was hidden and not partaken of until the end of the feast. Many Bible scholars are convinced that the Lord was symbolically giving them the picture of the Trinity and that the broken, hidden piece was Jesus. The Lamb that would be slain would also be the unleavened bread that would be broken, cut off.

In the days of His flesh, Jesus was “unleavened.” There was no puffing influence of sin in Him.

His sinlessness is first attested to by the Father (Matthew 17:5)
His opponents were speechless to accuse Him (John 8:46)
Pilate could find no fault in Him (Luke 23:14-15)
Jesus Himself said, The Father bears witness to Me (John 8:18)
Three times during Jesus’ lifetime a Voice spoke from heaven, This is My Son (Matthew 3:17; 12:18; 17:5)
John the Baptist senses Jesus’ inherent righteousness (Mark 1:7)

Jesus did not parade His righteousness, but stood with the woman accused of adultery (John 8:7). The only person who had the right to cast a stone was Jesus, and He said, I forgive you; go and sin no more. I don’t condemn you. Jesus demonstrated the purpose of His sinlessness, to make possible freedom from bondage of sin in the flesh—from the bondage of “leaven” in the “bread.”

At the end of the Passover Seder celebrated by Jesus, He took the hidden piece and said: This is my [unleavened or sinless] body, broken for you—in effect, I’m unfolding a secret to you. What has been hidden till now is here for you to partake. It was the pathway of real release in the power of God.

There’s a hidden possibility in this feast, found in feeding on Jesus. It’s not accomplished by your own righteousness, but by receiving what He gives, which, like food, assimilates into your system. When you feed on Jesus, His life begins to happen in you. Many believers wrestle with failure and inadequacy. But as your life fills with Him, it begins to flush out other things.

The flow of His life flushes out the leaven

God established the Feast of Matzo without Israel’s having time to obey or disobey (v. 39). The deliverance happened so fast, they didn’t have time to get the leaven in the bread. That’s a powerful picture of what happens to people who let Jesus happen in them. If we feed on Jesus, the flow of His life will continually flush the “leaven” out of us. (1 John 3).

The Feast of Matzo was seven days—seven is the number of completion, and what the Lord is saying is that He’s going to bring to completion His purpose in us.

Get the leaven out

Something is required of us. Twice the children of Israel were told to get the leaven out of their houses (v. 15, 19) which they did by a search. The problem with us is that we don’t know where we keep the yeast.

1. Your physical house (1 Colossians 6:19)

What are you feeding on in the “dining room” of your heart and your mind?
Is your “bedroom” filled with the sin of restlessness and worry?

2. The gathered house of the Lord’s people (1 Corinthians 5)

This doesn’t mean you tell people they’re yeast and kick them out of the church, but refers to whatever has latched onto the life of the assembly. Get rid of the leaven by having a feast, an instrument of deliverance.

Make it a Jesus feast

Unleavened bread doesn’t seem to be all that satisfying until you begin to feed on Him a while. Then what Jesus offers you (Psalm 23:5)—the fruit of the Spirit, the meat of the Word, the bread of life change your taste. Satan runs his own fast “food” service—Hell-In-The-Box. It’s fast, it’s easy, but Jesus isn’t calling us to that. Jesus says if you open your heart, He’ll come in and have dinner with you. (Rev. 3:20).

When we come to the Lord’s table, be encouraged to enter into a feast and consider entering a fast. There is a feast in fasting where you can find meat you’ve never known about; possibilities in yourself that have been hidden.

As we partake of the Lord’s table, trust that your need will be met for salvation, deliverance and/or healing. Feast on Jesus, let yourself be filled with Him.

Deliverance and miracles day after day

Israel was still celebrating the seven-day Feast of the Matzo when they:

launched out from Egypt
came face-to-face with the Red Sea
passed through the Red Sea
came to the bitter waters of Marah and the Lord turned them sweet

The Lord’s ushering us into a pathway of deliverance and miracles day after day as we continue to partake of the power of Jesus’ sinless life.

That’s enough to get you excited when you come to communion—that’s the way Jesus felt when He took that hidden piece of matzo saved for last at the Seder. When He said, This is My body that’s broken for you, He didn’t only mean broken as a substitute, but broken in your interest, so that it can be distributed and we can partake of it. Jesus says, Come and dine. Let’s do that.