Where We Are Right Now As The Appointed Times Of The Spring Feasts Continue To Unfold…
Coming to the end of the week of the Feast Of Unleavened Bread (Chag HaMotzi)
Chag HaMatzot חג שמח
From 14th Nisan and at evening, that is, between 3:00 pm to sundown, and continues through Nisan 15. Strictly speaking, then, Passover always begins on Nisan 14 and is followed immediately by The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Chag HaMotzi) and continues through and beyond Nisan 15 for 7 days and includes First Fruits within that week.
Here is a brief summary of the feasts of
Nisan 14 = Thursday sundown the first day, which is the start of Passover and also the day of the Seder. Jesus/Yeshua was arrested and the mock trial was held, (also called Maundy Thursday which remembers when Jesus/Yeshua washed the feet of the disciples.
The next morning was the crucifixion and that afternoon was called Preparation Day (as they were preparing for the weekly Sabbath). Jesus was taken down from the cross and buried.
Nisan 15th, which was the Friday sundown and a weekly Sabbath day began the second day. It is also the first day of Unleavened Bread and Jesus was in the tomb the entire day.
Nissan 16 began the third day at Saturday sundown, during the night Jesus/Yeshua was resurrected.
Passover is the celebration of the release of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage and celebrated with a meal called Seder, which means ‘order’ and tells the story, (or Haggadah which means ‘the telling’), of the miraculous deliverance. Jesus and all the disciples and New Testament/Brit Chadashah authors celebrated Passover.
First: Seder is the name of the Passover meal and includes what we call and understand as communion,
it puts Paul’s writing of one Corinthians 11:17–26 into perspective.
Second. Unleavened bread begins 15th Nissan the day after Passover. (Nissan also spelled Nisan.)
In Exodus 12:15-20 God instructed the Jews to eat unleavened bread for seven days, beginning on the first day of Passover, from Nisan 15 through Nisan 22. Chag HaMatzot therefore represents a Holy week spent without leaven in our lives, a time to ‘clean house,’ removing and sweeping away all signs of sin.
It’s a picture of our deliverance from the corrupting influences of the world in response to the redemption of the LORD (Matt. 16:12; Mark 8:14-15; Luke 12:1; Rom. 6:13-22; 1 Cor. 5:6-8).
To the Christian, the Festival of Unleavened Bread is a celebration of what Jesus, the true Passover Lamb has done for us, in that He has delivered us from bondage to sin and it’s penalty by His blood. Paul told the congregation, -“You are in fact, unleavened”, that is, without sin because the blood of the Lamb has washed them all away.
The prophetic and symbolic lesson of ridding your life of the leaven of Egypt is that you get rid of sin and replace it with purity and humility. Upon redemption, we are to become a sanctified, “unleavened people.”
Chag HaMatzot, or the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when no Chametz may be eaten or possessed for a full seven days: Chametz is considered a corrupting influence, a hidden uncleanness that manipulates purer elements. Like the influence of a lump of leaven in a batch of dough, ‘spiritual’ leaven functions as an evil impulse within us that corrupts and sours our soul. As such chametz is considered a metaphor of sin which we are commanded to put away from us. The removal of chametz is a metaphor of our sanctification.
We are to undergo our own inward ‘bedikat chametz’ and become a ‘new lump’ that is untainted by the sour and rotting influences of our past life. Since the Mashiach has been sacrificed as our Passover lamb, we are a new creation made unleavened by the power of Holy Spirit. Therefore we put away from us the old nature – the yetzer ha’ra – and purge from us the old leaven of Egypt, (a type for sin), that inwardly cankers us and makes us sick.
(Yetzer also spelled Yetser means the evil inclination.) )
For our souls sake we should walk in the truth of the love of God without hypocrisy.
But what is the connection with Jesus/Yeshua?
First, unleavened bread is a picture of His holiness, purity and sinlessness. His life and sacrifice was ‘unleavened’ without the taint of the curse of death, and therefore He was considered ‘a lamb without spot or blemish’ for the ultimate Passover sacrifice (1Pet.1:19).
Moreover, after He was buried, Yeshua did not suffer the natural process of corruption (i.e., decomposition of the body). His body did not “return to dust” which was the very curse given to Adam and Eve in Gen.3:19; Psalm 16:10. As the last Adam (Adam haSheni), His death ‘killed the power of death’ by putting away sin through the sacrifice of Himself (Heb 9:26).
Jesus was resurrected during Unleavened Bread on FirstFruits.
Thirdly: First Fruits. According to Deuteronomy 8:8, Barley was the harvest. Then according to the Scripture in Leviticus 23:15, verse 6 puts the second feast on the next night: “On the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Lord; seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.”
The Confusion over the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover being called Unleavened Bread occurs because amongst the Israelites, the first day that they ate unleavened bread was on the Passover feast. So while Leviticus 23 mentions that the Feast of Unleavened Bread started on the 15th day, they interchanged the day of Passover as the first day of Unleavened Bread.
Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying and to him, where will thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover? Matthew 26:17 Also called the day of unleavened bread
After two days was the feast of the Passover, and of another wrote: and the chief priests and scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. Mark 14:1
Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. Luke 22:1
The feast of the first fruits Leviticus 23:10–14
The Unleavened Bread was due to the haste of their departure from Egypt and it had no time to rise. As leaven represents sin so unleaved was again the sinless sacrifice.
Leaven or yeast in the Bible symbolized sin and evil. Unleavened bread, eaten over a period of time, symbolized a holy walk, as with the Lord. Unleavened bread, in the B’rit Chadashah [New Testament] is, of course representative of the Body of our Lord.
He is described as ‘the Bread of Life’ (Lechem haChayim). He was born in Bethlehem, which, in Hebrew, means, ‘House of Bread’ (Bet Lechem).
See https://www.minimannamoments.com/may-this-be-a-shannah-of-shalom-a-year-of-peace/ for more information on House of Bread
The Meaning of Unleavened Bread
Unleavened Bread is called the “bread of affliction” (i.e., lechem oni, literally, “bread of humiliation” or “bread of humility”) it is not “of affliction” because it is unleavened but it is unleavened because it had been born out of affliction. In other words, since the Israelites had no time to prepare their bread on account of their affliction, the bread had no time to rise.
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The matzah, then, is not so much the remembrance of bondage as of the deliverance from bondage, and that which had originally been of affliction now became, on account of God’s deliverance, the token of freedom.
Partaking of this bread means humbly identifying with the suffering and afflictions that Yeshua performed on your behalf... As the prophet Isaiah wrote about the Messiah, our Suffering Servant
Look at the matzah and see that it is covered in small holes,
“They shall look upon me whom they’ve pierced,”
He was pierced for our sorrows which includes our grief sadness and broken hearts
See the dark brown areas that resemble bruises. He was bruised for our iniquities sins and transgressions
He was sinless and pure, without any leaven, as His body was without any sin.
Finally see how it is striped: “By His stripes we are healed”.
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There is the Passover custom of burying, hiding and then resurrecting the second of three pieces of matzot (the middle piece), which represents the Gospel and is called (Afikomen).
To the Israelite, the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread commemorates being delivered from bondage to Egypt
for the purpose of worshipping God, as they left so quickly their dough didn’t have time to rise/leaven.
The elements of wine and unleavened bread are the original root and beginning of what we call our communion and are part of a weekly service for the Christian congregations. It is rooted in the weekly Sabbath service held in synagogues worldwide where the remembrance of the exodus is recalled for the Jewish population that has not yet accepted Jesus/Yeshua as their Messiah.
For Messianic Jews those who have accepted Jesus as their Messiah Yeshua, they now have a full revelation of His sacrificial atonement.
Leaven and the Sacrifice of Yeshua
Traditionally ‘the leaven package’ is burned at the time of morning prayer on Nisan 14 during the Bi’ur Chametz ceremony.
That is the exact day in which the Mashiach Yeshua was crucified, removing our sin and spiritual leaven forever.
Of course Jesus’ crucifixion and subsequent resurrection are the most focused on aspects of this season. This post is not ignoring them but rather trying to highlight other happenings both lesser known and some forgotten which reveal deeper meanings behind the order of prophetic events that God had set in place millennia ago.
Below are some more Hebrew words
connected to this feast
one of His
Yom Tov Holy Day
(The origin of our word holiday, it is interesting to note how the use of the word vacation has replaced the reference to it being a Holy Day.)