“‘This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord – a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day until the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do. ‘Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.'” (Exodus 12:14–20)
It was never about bread. It is always about holiness. It is about remaining clean.
Don’t leave any yeast in your houses — for as with sin, just a little spreads and causes pain.
God is starting them off clean. They left Egypt with the blood still on their doorframes, but they left clean. Their houses were bloodied but they were clean before God. The whole idea of no yeast was not to allow anything to quietly creep back into their lives.
Jesus picked up this same image centuries later. He warned his disciples, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1). Hypocrisy is yeast exactly because it works unseen.
What may be quietly working through your life right now? What is festering under the surface? It may only be a small thing — a small conversation you wish you could have. You may be carrying anger and pain that needs justice.
Is it worth checking on yourself? Is there yeast lying there?
Missions Paul 