These days – so many of us suffer from what sociologists are calling short termism. And one of the things we do is we forget the past. The Good things that God has done. Maybe, maybe it’s time to remember

One of the terms that you hear bantered around these days by sociologists, people who study our culture and how we live, is this word, “short-termism”. Or maybe its two words, I don’t know. And what they’re talking about is the fact that we’re all so focused on spending up big on our credit card and then paying off debt, that we’ve stopped thinking longer term. We’ve stopped thinking about the future and dreaming and planning and hoping.

We’re all walking around looking at our feet because the load that we’re carrying is so heavy that we’re stooped over. And when you think about it, what an incredibly sad way to live life. We work hard all week to eke out a living. To pay the mortgage. To put food on the table. And the furthest we seem to be able to look is the weekend so we can flop on the couch exhausted.

So short-termism is about the fact that we always focus on the short-term. But as well as stopping us from looking forward, it also stops us from looking back. And whilst none of us should be living in the past, it turns out that the past has an awful lot to do with feeling secure about the present and having hope for the future.

Think about it. We’re made up of two things. The first is our DNA. Essentially who we are. Our natural gifts and talents and abilities and skills. And the second thing are our experiences. Take two identical twins. Exactly the same DNA fingerprint. Put one in a loving home to grow up and the other in a horrible home and they’re going to grow up to be two profoundly different people. Who we are naturally is shaped by our experiences. Good, bad. Positive, negative. Beautiful, ugly. And that makes us who we are. The problem with short-termism is that we forget the things that our experience has taught us.

In the olden days, which is what I used to call my parents experience and it’s what my kids now call my experience. Back in the olden days, people were interested in a whole bunch of things from the past. Their ethnic heritage. Their family heritage. Where they come from. The traditions of their communities and their families. Not quite so true anymore. Because we’re into short-termism.

I was talking with a father recently, a man about my age with 3 adult children. And he’s been trying to get some family traditions going amongst this extended family. Trying to establish some family roots for his kids and their children. But his adult children, well they’re not interested. That’s because our culture has shifted from those roots that we used to rely on, to short-termism. Buying the next thing. Making it through to the weekend.

What’s all that got to do with Easter? Turns out, quite a bit. Last week on the program we took a look at this whole Easter thing through the incredibly rich symbolism of the Jewish Passover Festival. Because Jesus was crucified during the Passover Festival. And what He was doing, well He very closely tied it to that celebration of the Passover. The questions is, what is the Passover and why were they celebrating it?

Well, Passover history in a nut shell is this. Israel were slaves in Egypt for 400 and something years. And then, in about 1270 BC, Moses came along and said to Pharaoh, “let my people go.” Pharaoh didn’t so God sent 10 plagues upon Egypt and the last one was the death of the first-born of everyone in an Egyptian household. And Israel was protected from that because God said to them, “You go and slay yourself a lamb. Paint the blood of the lamb on your door posts and you’ll be safe.”

And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. So began their exodus out of Egypt and the 40 years they spent in the wilderness on the way to the land that God had promised, centuries before, to Abraham.

But to make this happen, they had to slaughter a lamb for each household. And paint the blood on the door posts. Roast the lamb with bitter herbs and eat it with unleavened bread. Those were the instructions. But now listen to what God commanded Moses about this Passover for the future. You can read this if you like in Exodus chapter 12:

God said, ‘This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You will celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. Throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove all leaven from your houses for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day will be cut off from Israel.

One the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly and on the seventh day a solemn assembly. No work will be done on those days. Only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared by you. You shall observe the Festival of this unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt. You shall observe this day throughout your generations as a perpetual ordinance.’

It was a day of remembrance. A week-long festival of remembrance. To remember the good thing that God had done for His people. And so they did. For the most part they celebrate it every year, this festival. Each year to remember. And over and over and over again, throughout the Old Testament, God reminds them of the thing that He did:

So you shall remember and do all my commandments and you shall be holy to your God. For I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.

Why is this so important? Because when we shape our lives around the short-term, things that pass away, we’re like a cork in ocean. Being tossed to and fro. We don’t have any roots. There’s nothing solid. But when we throw our anchors deep down into God and who He is and what He’s done for us. Then we find a life that, no matter what storm blows in, it’s a life that’s lived on rock solid ground. We rely on the good things that God’s done in the past to know that we can get through the present and get on with the future.

And at the Passover celebration, that final supper with His disciples in the upper room, as Jesus broke the bread and poured the wine, this is what He said:

‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And in the same way He took a cup also, after the supper, saying ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as your drink it in remembrance of me.’

Easter is a time of remembrance. That’s why Christ followers, the world over, get together regularly and celebrate what we now call Communion. The bread and the wine.

I wonder, as we just stop and think and survey the landscapes of our own lives. The good things. The stressful things. The uncertain things. Whatever, good and bad. And we consider how we’re dealing with that.

Let me ask you this question. What if you lived your life, lived it in a way that’s deeply anchored in the rich memory of the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made, on that cross, just after that Passover celebration? A celebration that, for Him and His disciples, was about the very first Passover of Israel from the plagues of Egypt over 1300 years before.

If you live your life rooted deeply in the memory of this act of amazing grace, where the Lamb of God went to the cross and took away the sins of the world, your sin and my sin, how would it change your life today? How different would life be if, no matter what came along? No matter what the world hurled at you today, tomorrow and the next day and week after. You just lived your life in the memory of this Lamb of God who died for you.

Short termism breezes through Easter without a second thought. But Easter is a time to remember. Because that memory can profoundly change our present and our future.

One of my absolute favourite meals is roast lamb. Fabulous. And it turns out that roast lamb has a whole lot more to do with Easter than chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies. But what’s it mean and why is it important?

One of my absolute favourite meals is roast lamb. You know, you take this leg of lamb and you throw it in the oven with some herbs and then you slow roast it on a low heat for 3 or 4 hours. And it comes out so tender, falling apart, it just melts in your mouth. And the juices, you kind of pour them over the meat, they run over on the plate and you dunk some bread in them to soak them up. You getting the picture here? Roast lamb. What a fantastic meal.

And as it turns out, roast lamb has a whole bunch more to do with Easter, the Easter we’ve just celebrated, than chocolate Easter eggs. Or those painted hard-boiled eggs we used to do when I was a kid. And we’re taking a look at Easter again this week because Easter’s a time we’re supposed to remember. Remember that amazing gift of grace that happened when Jesus died for us, for you and me, on that cross to pay for our sin.

Maybe that word ‘sin’ jars with you. But it’s the word that God uses to describe that consistent human trait of turning our backs on Him. And Easter, as we saw last week, that very first Easter happened at the time of the celebration of the Jewish Passover Festival. And that was the time of year that they ate roast lamb. Turns out, there was a reason for that.

Of course the Jewish Passover Festival that thousands of people had crammed into Jerusalem to celebrate on that first Easter. It was the festival that the disciples and Jesus celebrated with that traditional Passover meal at the Last Supper.

This festival goes back 1300 years before Jesus. When Israel was slaves in Egypt and God sent the plagues over Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let God’s people go. And the last plague was the death of the first-born in every household of Egypt. This is how this plague passed over Israel:

God said, ‘Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, they are to take a lamb, a lamb for each household. If the household’s too small for a lamb then join with the closest household and the lamb will be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat it. Your lamb will be without blemish, a year old male. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month. Then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the door posts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 

They shall eat the lamb that same night. They shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire with its head, it’s legs and its inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains you shall burn. It shall be eaten in one house. You shall not take any of the animal outside the house and you shall not break any of its bones.’

It all seems a bit weird to us but back then all the nations had their God’s and invariably they executed blood sacrifice of animals as part of their worship. In the case of Israel though, it wasn’t about appeasing God but rather making sacrifices for their sins to be forgiven.

And here, God taps into this tradition in a very special way. He gets them to kill this lamb and take the blood and paint it on the door posts. The doors the place where you come in and out. It’s the symbol of freedom. And God passes over the Israelites houses and they don’t suffer the loss of their first-born in the way the Egyptians do.

They eat the lamb, roasted with bitter herbs. They’ve painted blood on the door and this is an act of faith in painting the blood. And then consuming the sacrifice so that it, very literally, becomes part of you.

And so it is, when Jesus comes 1300 years later. John the Baptist cries out, “Behold look, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” See Easter is about doing away with the sacrifice of lambs and having the Lamb of God. God’s only Son dying once and for all, the final sacrifice.

Now the blood thing is all a bit gruesome to us but its rich symbolism to the Jews of that day. We’re happy to take the roast lamb, a delight to eat. And that’s what God uses here – a lamb. Because Easter, the message of Easter, is the message that the lamb was slain for you and me and it’s a delight to consume. You see the rich symbolism in this?

The lamb of the Passover in 1270 BC was a sacrifice that set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt. And here, the Lamb of God, that first Easter, Jesus, is a sacrifice that sets you and me free from the slavery of our sin. All we have to do is consume it. To swallow it. To believe it. And just to make sure that we don’t miss this connection between the Lamb of God on the cross and the Passover, it’s there to the finest detail.

Have a listen, in Exodus chapter 12, verse 46. It says, ‘The lamb will be eaten in one house. You won’t take any of the animal outside the house and you shall not break any of its bones.’ Right, remember that. Now let’s look at an account of the crucifixion of the Lamb of God, Jesus, 1300 years later in the 1st century AD, on the cross:

When Jesus had received the wine He said, ‘It is finished.’ Then He bowed His head and gave us His Spirit. Since it was the day of preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the Sabbath especially because that Sabbath was the day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with Him but when they came to Jesus and saw He was already dead, they did not break His legs. Instead one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and at once water and blood came out.

Do you see this? Jesus legs, His bones, were not broken. Just like the Passover lamb 1300 years before. You can’t miss it.

I want to share something with you today. Maybe all this talk of sacrifice and men being crucified and blood and broken bones makes us a bit squeamish. But strip all that back and this is what you have. Jesus the Son of God, the Creator of the universe becomes a man. He humbles Himself like a lamb. Can you get any lower than that? And then He allows Himself to be falsely accused and crucified, nailed to a cross.

This is an ugly message. It’s a brutal message. But at the heart of this message is the message of the most amazing grace. You and I, we know that we’ve done some bad stuff in our lives. We have. And when you stop and you think about it, you have to front up to God on that day of judgement, one day and explain yourself. You realise of course you’re in serious trouble. And the only way we can avoid the punishment for our sins and eternity, that’s forever, separated from God in hell. The only way is to put our faith in the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.

One day, when I stand before God on that day and the devil comes to accuse me of this and of that, all the stuff I did. I’ll look my God in the face and say, “Yes Lord, I did all those things and that’s why I believe in Jesus. The Jesus who died for my sin and rose again to give me eternal life.”

That’s why I believe in the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world and God, God is a God of His word. His word says that, “whoever believes in this Jesus will be saved.” That’s what Easter’s about. That’s it!

At that last supper – Jesus poured a nice smooth red into a cup and passed it round to His disciples. He seemed to indicate that this was like His blood. All kind of weird. But actually, it has everything, everything to do with life here in the Twenty-First century.

Alcohol is something that’s, well, it’s pretty much accepted across society these days. Most people drink beer, wine, spirits. But sadly, alcohol is responsible for so much pain and destruction.

I was reading an article in my local newspaper, recently, about the emergency ward at our hospital. And something like eighty per cent of the people under the age of thirty that front up there every weekend, are there because of something alcohol related. Violence. Injury. Illness. It’s pretty scary.

And yet you read about Jesus at the Last Supper, this Easter thing that we’ve just been through. And He was clearly pouring wine to give to His disciples. The real stuff. Not non-alcoholic grape juices as some people would have us believe.

Wine is talked about throughout the Old and the New Testaments, about 234 times. And Jesus, at the Passover meal, that Last Supper, poured out some wine and He said this to each of His 12 disciples, ‘Drink from it all of you for this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’

What was that all about? And what, if anything, does it mean to you and me, here and now? He was kind of saying that wine was a symbol of His blood. That’s what Jesus was talking about.

First, let me say this whole “wine” and alcohol thing, let me lay that to rest. Whenever I talk about wine on the program I always get letters of protest and people say, “Well, you know, you shouldn’t be talking about this.” Let me tell you. The Bible is full of it and it’s talking about real wine. In Psalm 104, verse 15 says that God made, “Wine to gladden the human heart.” Grape juice doesn’t do that.

So am I advocating drinking? No. If you drink alcohol in moderation and you don’t get drunk, that’s fabulous. If you have a problem with alcohol, for goodness sake steer clear of it. If you just don’t drink, that’s fine too. So please, enough said. Please don’t write to me about this wine thing.

Because the stuff that Jesus poured into the cup, on that night was alcoholic wine, and wine, throughout the Bible, is a symbol of God’s blessing. It’s the fruit of the vine. The notion of abundance and overflowing. Like the wine that Jesus made for the Canaanite wedding.

And here at the Passover meal, Jesus is pouring out a glass of wine which each of the 12 disciples is to drink from and this was part of the Passover celebration. Part of the tradition. Looking back and celebrating the pass over which occurred in 1270 BC. Remembering the great redemptive act of God. Taking Israel out of 400 plus years of slavery in Egypt and sending them on their journey to the land that He’d promised to Abraham.

And the tradition is, at the Passover meal, to drink 4 cups of wine and they symbolise the 4 distinct redemption promises of God, to the Hebrews, as told in Exodus chapter 6, verses 6 and 7. The 4 promises are these.

I will take you out of Egypt.

I will deliver you from the Egyptian slavery.

I will redeem you with a demonstration of my power.

I will acquire you as a nation.

See, it’s each of these cups of wine symbolises an action that was performed by God. Jews, still today, fill a small cup or a small glass with wine at 4 different points in the Passover meal and drink from each cup of the wine. It’s how it works. It’s kind of a liturgy to the Passover meal celebration.

And that’s what was going on here, at the Last Supper. Jesus passes the wine, rich with this symbolism of remembering the Passover of old. The promises of God to save His people and He says to His disciples,

“Drink from this all of you for this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

A covenant is an unbreakable promise from God. And here, Jesus is talking about a new unbreakable promise from God. A new covenant made through the spilling of His blood on the cross. Why blood? Why did they have blood sacrifices in the Old Testament? And why now in the New Testament is Jesus talking about His blood? Because in the Hebrew culture blood symbolises life. Blood equals life. The pouring out of Jesus’ blood on the cross means the shedding of His life.

Back in the Passover, in 1270 BC, the blood of the lamb saved people from destruction:

God said, ‘Tell the whole community of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family. One for each household. Take care of them until the 14th day of the month. Then all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and the tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.

‘On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike every first-born, both men and animals, and I will bring judgement on all the God’s of Egypt for I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are and when I see the blood, I will pass you over. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.’

So the Passover was about the Israelites being saved by the blood of the lamb. The lamb that had to die to shed its blood. And that gave God’s people life. Way back there, 1300 years before this Passover meal at the first Easter. But when we get to this Last Supper, Jesus is promising a new covenant. The shedding of His blood, the Lamb of God. He loses His life so that we can gain ours.

Easter is about life. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.” And again. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. So that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Jesus poured out His life so that you and I may have ours in abundance eternally. The forgiveness of sin set free.

This isn’t some theological or legal or forensic thing. It’s life. It’s real life. The biggest thing that God ever set me free from was me. My sin. Those bad habits that were so deeply ingrained in who I was. Anger. Selfishness. Ambition. I tell you, I would crawl over anybody and everybody to get where I was going and if you were in my road you had better watch out. Those things ruin our lives.

Easter’s about a couple of things. Firstly, forgiveness. Jesus pours out His life so that He takes our punishment so that you and I might be forgiven. And secondly, Jesus’ resurrection, the empty tomb, is about a new life. Here and now. We start a new life with the slate wiped clean. A new life that lasts for all eternity.

Can you imagine the impact that this Passover meal had on His disciples when, only a short time later, they saw that when 3 men had been crucified, Jesus and 2 other criminals? And Jesus was already dead and the 2 criminals were dying and so they broke the legs of the 2 criminals. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they didn’t break His legs. Just like the Passover lamb. Where the bones were not allowed to be broken.

Instead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and at once blood and water came out. Jesus was clearly dead because the white and the red blood cells had separated. His blood, His life poured out into the dirt for them. For you and for me.

What a powerful picture. What a sharp juxtaposition between the tender roast lamb and the smooth red wine of the Passover meal. And the Lamb of God, crucified on the cross. His blood spilled from His body onto the ground. His life poured out, taking the punishment that you and I deserve, before God, for our sin.

That’s the whole point of Easter. It’s about life. New life.

At that last supper – the Passover Meal – that Jesus sat with His disciples just before He was crucified, they ate roast lamb, cooked in bitter herbs. Most likely horse radish. And those bitter herbs were part of the Passover tradition. Why?

I want to share with you something really frankly today, as we look back on Easter in this series, over the last couple of weeks, that I’ve called The Passover Blessing. And it’s this: When I discovered Jesus, when He came to me a decade and a half ago. And finally, finally I gave my life over to Him. It was such a bitter, painful time of my life. It really was. Because I was living out, at the time, the consequences of years of selfishness and ambition and greed.

And those things have consequences, bitter consequences. The best way I can describe it was my life was like biting into a grapefruit. It was bitter and it was painful. And that bitterness, well it took a while to go away. Even though I gave my life, lock, stock and barrel over to Him, the consequences lingered on for a few years. Until I worked my way through them and things resolved themselves and my attitudes changed and I started to grow up.

And as we head towards the end of this two-week series. Looking at the incredibly rich symbolism. The meaning of the Passover Festival that was being celebrated in Jerusalem at the time of that very first Easter. It’s the notion of bitterness that I want to explore today. Because my hunch is that there are few of us still carrying around a root of bitterness in our hearts and that, that is what Jesus wants to set us free from.

We’ve talked, all over the last couple of weeks, about the fact that Easter has its tradition rooted in the Passover Festival that happened 1300 years before that very first Easter. 1300 years before Jesus sat down with His disciples to eat that Passover meal.

They crucified Jesus during this festival. Remember, the Passover was remembering how Israel had been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years. And then God sent Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Pharaoh refused, so God sent ten plagues. The last of the plagues on Egypt was the death of the fist born of every Egyptian household.

Israel didn’t suffer that because God had a plan for them. Let me just quickly read it to you from Exodus, chapter 12:

God said, ‘Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family. A lamb for each household. Your lamb will be without blemish. A year old male, it may be a sheep or a goat. You’ll take it until the 14th day of this month. Then the whole assembled congregation of Israel will slaughter the lamb at twilight. They shall take some of the blood, put it on the 2 doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat. They shall eat the lamb that same night and they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs.’

And so the angel of death passed over the Israelites house and their first-born weren’t killed. There’s a rich symbolism here between Easter and the Passover that happened 1300 years before Easter. About the amazing salvation of God to take His chosen people out of slavery in Egypt, through His powerful miracle and send them on a journey to the Promised Land.

And they were commanded to celebrate this Passover every year. One of the three major festivals on the Jewish calendar. And each year they celebrated it. There was a time when they strayed away and God brought them back. And over the 1300 years or so from when it happened through to Jesus’ day. And still today in fact. The Jews celebrate the Passover. The Passover meal, as I’ve just read, is lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Probably the herb they used back then was horseradish. A bitter herb. And there’s a reason for that. To remind the people of the bitterness of their slavery. Slavery is a bitter thing and it’s not a place that we want to go back to. And so each year, they cook their lamb, in memory of the Passover, with bitter herbs to remind themselves of what slavery looked like.

This great saving act in the New Testament at the Passover celebration. This first Easter was where Jesus died on the cross. The Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world. And that’s what we’ve been looking at over the last couple of weeks on the program.

But I just want to spend a few moments, together with you today, to talk about these ‘bitter herbs’. Because there is so many people I know who, well, they believe in Jesus okay and yet they’ve never let go of the bitterness of their slavery. What do I mean by that? Simply this.

Before we give our lives over to Jesus we have a whole bunch of things going on in our heart that we kind of know they’re not good for us. Anger. Resentment. Greed. Selfishness. Horrible things. Ugly things. But we hang on to them because, well, we’re entitled, right? And so, perhaps, what drove us back in those days was selfish ambition. Or greed. Or perhaps the thing that stunted our growth was resentment. You know what it was in your life.

And then, one day, one day along the journey you meet Jesus on the road. It’s an amazing experience. You realise that God has come to us and that God wants to set us free. So we say ‘YES’. I want that. I want to be free. I accept Jesus, this Jesus into my heart. And I love how Jesus said, referring to Himself, that:

If the Son of man sets you free, you are free indeed.

Think of those Israelites. They were in slavery for 430 years. Then God sent the plagues on Egypt. And then the miracle of passing through the Red Sea. And then Pharaohs army chases them and they get drowned in the Red Sea. And there they are, sitting on the other side of the Red Sea, looking back on all that. Man, they were free indeed, weren’t they?

And it’s the same deal when we put our faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross and that empty tomb of the Easter message. We are free indeed when we believe in that Jesus. But then, then what we do is we want that freedom but we still want to hang on to the things that causes bitterness in our slavery of sin.

Hebrews chapter 12, says this:

Pursue peace with everyone and the holiness without which one cannot see the Lord. See to it that no-one fails to obtain the grace of God so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble.

Freedom’s an amazing thing. When we get rid of the anger. The resentment. The selfishness. The unforgiveness. All that stuff that makes us slaves to our own selfish desires. The stuff that makes us bitter in our hearts. It’s such an amazing freedom. Because a couple of things happen.

Firstly, other peoples failures and weaknesses and the stuff they do, that stuff stops hurting us. It ceases to rob us of our peace and our joy and our freedom. And secondly, all those negative feelings disappear and God replaces them with His peace and joy. That’s it!

Now it may seem like a strange thing to talk about over these last few days over Easter. About the bitter herbs. The Passover lamb that was roasted with them. The unleavened bread. But my hunch is that God’s got a plan today to set a few people free through the memory of these bitter herbs. Slavery is bitter. We’re meant to remember that. And for that reason, we don’t want to go back there.

Is there a root of bitterness that’s taken hold of your heart? What is it? What impact is it having on your life? The point of this bitter herb is to remind us of the bitterness of our slavery, of our sin. So often we just don’t see it. It’s ruining our lives and we blame everyone else and we blame our circumstances and we blame God.

The whole point of Easter is that Jesus, the Lamb who died for us, the Passover lamb is setting us free. Maybe today is the day for us to hand some bitterness over to Him. The bitterness that we’ve been hanging onto and be set free from that.

I believe God is calling us today to examine our hearts. He’ll show us what it is that’s keeping us in the yoke of slavery. He’ll show us the root of bitterness. He will. Because He wants to set us free. And when we hand this over to Him that’s exactly what He’s going to do.

Bread without yeast is called unleavened bread. And that’s the sort of bread that Jesus and His disciples ate at that last Supper. The Passover Meal. They did it because it had thus been commanded by God. Weird! Why?

Often, times I’ve been sitting in a Church and they hand communion around. You know, little pieces of soft white bread neatly cut into identically sized cubes. And little cups of wine or grape juice. And well, don’t take me the wrong way but I’ve wanted to scream. Because these little cubes of soft, white, fluffy bread. Well anyone would think that Jesus was some soft, white, fluffy saviour.

Communion in Churches is a way of remembering that Jesus died and rose again for us. To pay for our mistakes so that we could be forgiven and have the slate, with God, wiped clean. And that’s an awesome thing to do because, remembering that, I mean really remembering it in our hearts. Not just going through the motions and the ritual. It utterly and completely transforms your life. It’s about freedom. The real freedom. The sort of freedom that we’ve always been looking for. The sort we could never find.

That’s the freedom. That’s the new life. The abundant life that comes when we finally realise we can’t work our way into God’s favour. All we can do, all we need to do is to place our faith in this Jesus. The one who came and died for us. And yes, He’s a loving Jesus. A gentle Jesus. But He is anything, anything but a soft, white, fluffy Jesus. That’s my problem you see.

Of course, the type of bread people used in communion, it’s completely irrelevant. It’s a symbol that causes us to pause and remember. That’s it. But if we go back to that first communion, the Last Supper, that final meal, the Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with His disciple’s hours before He was crucified. The thing is, they didn’t have soft, white, fluffy bread. They were eating unleavened bread. That’s bread without yeast or bi-carb or anything to make it rise. It’s a bit like the pita bread or the Lebanese bread that you can buy down at the local deli or the supermarket.

I want to explore that a bit today because there’s some rich symbolism in this bread. It really has something to say to us. Of course the Passover celebration is what we’ve been looking at over the last couple of weeks. The Passover, the first Passover happened 1300 years before that first Easter. And it was the time that God set His people free from slavery. 400 years of it in Egypt.

Remember God sent ten plagues over Egypt and the last one was the death of the first-born in every household. But the Israelites, who were slaves in Egypt, their’s didn’t because they were commanded by God to kill a lamb, to paint its blood on the door posts and that night the angel of death passed over their homes. And, of course, that’s what the Passover is about. That’s what Jesus and His disciples were celebrating.

And as Israel, this nation in slavery, prepared for the coming plague, the Passover meal, the eating of the lamb. They’re instructed to eat a certain type of bread. A bit weird. Have a listen. It’s really important:

This is how you shall eat the Passover meal. Your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand and you shall eat it in a hurry, it is the pass over of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night. I will strike down every first-born in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals and on all the God’s of Egypt, I will execute judgement for I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live. When I see the blood on your door posts I will pass over you and no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. Throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you will remove all leaven from your households. For whoever eats leaven bread from the first until the seventh day will be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly and on the seventh day another solemn assembly. No work will be done on those days, only what everyone must eat, that alone may be prepared by you. You shall observe the festival of the Unleavened Bread. From this very day I brought your companies out of the land of Egypt. You shall observe this day through your generations as a perpetual ordinance.

So what’s that all about? Well we looked at the lamb and the blood on the door posts. We looked at it over the last couple of weeks. And so they kill the lamb. They paint blood on the door posts. They sit down to have a meal. To have roast lamb and unleavened bread. This flat bread. Not the soft, white, fluffy stuff that they usually ate. But this time, a different bread. Unleavened bread.

Why? What’s the difference? What’s the significance? And then, they’re only supposed to eat that sort of bread for the next 7 days. And eventually it becomes a whole festival, a seven-day festival of the Unleavened Bread. Why? Here’s the reason. Exodus chapter 12, verse 11:

This is how you shall eat the Passover meal. Your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand and you shall eat it hurriedly, it is the pass over of the Lord.

Because God was coming that night to destroy the first-born of the Egyptians. And straight after that, they would have to flee Egypt. They would then be pursued by the Egyptian army. They had to be ready to leave this place of slavery and get with God’s plan for saving them. They were in a hurry. They didn’t have time to do the soft, white, fluffy leavened bread that you and I are used to. ‘Cause it takes a long time to bake. You have to knead it. You have to wait for it to rise. You knead it again. Wait for it to rise a second time before you can bake it.

It’s a comfort food. It’s nice. It’s the sort of bread that you have when you’re comfortable. But what God was saying to His people here is this. You don’t have time for the luxuries and the comfort of life right now. I’m about to save you. You need to be in a hurry. Because the journey I’m about to take you on isn’t some comfortable, arm-chair, virtual eco tour. No, you’re going to flee from your oppressors. And I’m going to save you.

And it’s going to be hard. And you won’t have time for luxuries. So instead of mucking around with leaven bread, you’re going to eat unleavened bread on the Passover. And not only that, you’re going to turn it into a festival to remind yourselves that that’s the way it is. A festival to be observed always.

Leaven, yeast, is also a symbol for sin. Comfort and sin go together. The things that we’re going to have to do without, on God’s journey of salvation. And when Jesus and His disciples celebrated that Passover meal, just before He was crucified, that’s the bread they had according to God’s command and Jewish tradition – unleavened bread and listen to what He said about it:

He took a loaf of the bread and when He had given thanks He broke it and gave it to them saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’

There is rich symbolism in this unleavened bread. This uncomfortable hard bread. He said, ‘This is my body and if you’re going to be taking it and eating it, this is what you have to remember. This bread is unleavened bread and the reason it’s unleavened is because you’re on a journey of salvation and you’re in a hurry. This is how you should eat the Passover meal. Your loins girded. In other words, your tunic tied up so you don’t trip on it. Your sandals on your feet. Your staff in your hand. You shall eat in a hurry. It is the pass over of the Lord.’

When Jesus calls us to follow Him to freedom, it’s not going to be a 1st class plane ride. Get ready for the journey. Put on your sandals. Tie up your cloak. Eat in a hurry. Have your staff in your hand. Get ready. You eat this bread. You accept me. You put your faith in me and you’re in for a ride. Not a soft, white, fluffy, gentle ride. An unleavened ride. Without suspension springs. Without soft, white, fluffy seats.

Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction and there are many who take that one. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life and there are few that find it.