UNLEAVENED BREAD
The Israelites pitched camp at Gilgal and kept the Passover there on the fourteenth day of the month, at the evening in the plain of Jericho. On the morrow of the Passover they tasted the produce of that country, UNLEAVENED BREAD and roasted ears of corn, that same day.
One of the opportunities which Lent offers us is the chance to remember and retell the many ways in which God has been active in our lives. Remembering is writ through the pages of the Biblical narrative. These verses from the Book of Joshua remind us of the preparation in haste of bread without yeast, the Exodus from Egypt, and the keeping of Passover. These are primal memories for the Israelites and their retelling binds them in deeper communion.
The yearly eating of unleavened bread reawakened the memories of God’s decisive action in leading the Israelites from slavery to freedom. Some scholars see unleavened bread as pure, simple and humble. It’s a bread that is entirely new, using nothing of the old. I find this helpful.
In the New Testament we find more layers of meaning added to our understanding of unleavened bread:
Throw out the old yeast so that you can be the fresh dough, unleavened as you are. For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ;
let us keep the feast, then, with none of the old yeast and no leavening of evil and wickedness, but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ( I Corinthians 5:7-8)
For St Paul we now are called to be unleavened bread. We are called to leave behind the old and, in Christ, become something entirely new.
How has Christ called you this Lent to leave behind the old and embrace the new?
(Joshua 5:9-12, Fourth Sunday in Lent, C)