PASSOVER: IT’S MORE THAN A GAME

As I sit at my computer to write I look down to see tiny bread crumbs at my desk sandwiched in between keys of the keyboard. How did I miss these crumbs too?

IN OUR BLOODLINE?

During this time of the year, people around the world have for generations begun spring cleaning their homes from top to bottom. It is something we culturally do with the new season after hibernating all winter. Or is it something we do because it is in our bloodline…?

Every year thousands of Israelites in preparation for the Holy Day are commanded to take out the leaven found in their home. They do this by cleaning their homes in search of the small crumbs. This was to represent the Exodus when God gave Moses instructions for the people in preparation to leave Egypt. When Pharaoh finally permitted the Israelites to leave Egypt, God did not want anyone to be held back because they had to wait for their bread to rise.

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 through the seventh must be cut off from Israel (Exodus 12:14-15)

Unleavened bread is a symbol of the Israelites’ haste when they left Egypt. “The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. ‘For otherwise,’ they said, ‘we will all die!’ So, the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing”

This year we decided to play along with the game of taking out the leaven in the home as tradition goes.

WHAT IS LEAVEN?

I learned that leaven is yeast. It is a living organism that feeds on sugars and when it does it will produce a gas that creates a rise; it becomes puffed up. God uses leaven as a way to teach His people about pride as it too is an inward trait that causes one to puff up.

If bread dough was set out for 18 mins it has been proven that it will start rising automatically. There are only two places for bread to be and that is either under the hands of the maker or in the oven. This is symbolic for us, too. If we sit and do nothing for God- then we will be fermented and influenced by the world, there is no way around it.

A MATTER OF THE HEART

As we worked hard looking for the leaven I began inwardly searching for my own leaven in my heart. I found that the more I searched physically the more I found spiritual areas of pride I had not seen. Every day as we “played” he would show me another area I was weak in. As we vacuumed couches, kitchen cupboards, swept under the refrigerator, cleaned the toaster all while searching for tiny bread crumbs, God was teaching me that I needed to purge my own crumbs within. That even a little leaven can raise the whole lump, and that my heart is still not pure. He taught me no matter how hard I cleaned, Holiness was not a matter of outward appearance. It is a matter of the heart.

As my own bread crumbs surfaced through this game I was reminded that if wrong things in our hearts go unattended, they will become deeply rooted and harder to deal with. The quicker you can detect a wrong heart condition and get it straightened out, the better off you are. The crumbs I found needed to be discharged.

TAKING OUT THE LEAVEN

The games continued when the grandchildren came over for Passover. After our meal grandpa played a cute game with the children. He had 10 broken pieces of bread he had hidden in the home (yes wrong day to play this…oops!) for them to go and hunt for. Prior to that, we talked about leaven being a sin and now we needed to find the “sins.” As the children located them one by one, they were not allowed to touch the bread as the “father” was to deal with these sins by scooping them into a wooden bowl with a wooden spoon. In the end, they wrapped the bread pieces in a white handkerchief representing the purity of Christ and Him taking these sins from us. Grandpa then took the wrapped hankie and together they went outside and threw away the bread.

This week I learned that preparation for the Passover is not just cleaning, but it is kept through self-examination. Self-examination began when we searched our house.  You search not a house made with hands, but you search your own spiritual house – yourself.  You search it from top to bottom, from the basement to the attic. You search every dark corner and every room – heart, soul, mind, motives, deeds. You search them all in order that the leaven of sin may be put away.

What started out as a fun game became a week of serious inner reflections as I began purging the leaven within and just like bread dough sitting out on the counter, I have only a little bit of time to get going in life before I start puffing up, again!