Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Moses said to the people, ‘Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by strength of hand; no leavened bread shall be eaten.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, October 8, 2019
by Daniel D. Maurer, Clergy Stuff
I’ve always wondered about the connection between leavened and unleavened bread and its importance to the passover. Was it because leavened bread (bread which is allowed to rise) takes longer to bake?
“The late Bible scholar Jacob Milgrom, in his commentary to Leviticus, explained that “Fermentation is equivalent to decay and corruption and for this reason is prohibited on the altar...” Leaven is a symbol of both death and life in that it smells like death and yet produces the growth of the bread or the beer or the wine. While it is acceptable for people to eat leaven during normal times, it is prohibited on the altar as an offering to God because God is life itself and death cannot be in God’s sanctuary. Thus leaven is not fit for sacrifice.”
So it seems that it was more than just needing to get out of Egypt quickly that the Israelites were instructed to eat unleavened bread (matzah). It was also that the bread had to be pure, without contaminants. In times of stress in our lives, perhaps it’s a good instruction to think about clearing out that which does not need to be dominant any more in our lives.
What “extra junk” can you clear from your life?
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