Today's Reading: Exodus 13
"Commemorating Deliverance"
Quite often in Scripture, the Lord instructs His people to celebrate. To rejoice in what God had done and what He is doing on behalf of His people. Today's passage is one such instruction. Take some time to pause and remember the deliverance of the Lord and enjoy a feast to commemorate His blessings.
This is part of the instructions given by God to
the Israelites after they had been freed from slavery in Egypt. The context is
the celebration of the Passover, which commemorates the night when God spared
the Israelites from the last of the ten plagues that he had inflicted upon the
Egyptians.
Here, God commands the Israelites to eat unleavened
bread for seven days as a reminder of their hasty departure from Egypt. The
absence of leaven in the bread represents the haste with which the Israelites
had to leave Egypt and the fact that they did not have time to let their bread
rise. The seventh day of the feast was to be a special day of celebration and
feasting dedicated to the Lord.
In the New Testament, unleavened bread is most notably
associated with the Last Supper, which Jesus shared with his disciples at the
Passover before his crucifixion. During this meal, Jesus took bread, blessed
it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take, eat; this is my
body broken for you" (Matthew 26:26 ESV).
Just as the unleavened bread eaten during the Passover
commemorated the Israelites' deliverance from slavery in Egypt, the unleavened
bread used by Jesus during the Last Supper represents his body, which would be
broken for the salvation of humanity. By using unleavened bread, Jesus was
connecting his sacrifice to the deliverance of the Israelites and to the
broader history of God's redemption of his people.
The statement "this is my body, broken for
you" is a powerful declaration of Jesus' sacrificial love for humanity and
his deep connection with his followers. Knowing this truth makes every day a special
day of celebration and feasting dedicated to the Lord.