The Feast of Unleavened Bread teaches God’s people that they are both sustained by him and defined by him. Israel ate unleavened bread first because they left Egypt in haste and then because God was training them to depend daily on his provision as they journeyed with him. That pattern finds its fulfillment in Christ, the true Bread from heaven, on whom we must feed by faith for eternal life. At the same time, the removal of leaven marked covenant identity: those who shared the bread belonged to the redeemed people of God. In the new covenant, this symbolism reaches its climax at the Lord’s Table, where believers do not make themselves pure, but receive Christ by faith as those who already are “unleavened” in him—assured of their identity, sustained for the journey, and strengthened to live out who they truly are.

This sermon argues that the Passover meal in Exodus 12 was not merely about the lamb’s death, but about restored fellowship with God, as Israel ate in his presence because judgment had been dealt with through substitution; that meal functioned as proclamation (confessing past deliverance, present identity, and future hope), participation (real communion with God and one another), and presence (safely eating before God without fear). Jesus fulfills and transforms this meal in the Lord’s Supper, where the church likewise proclaims Christ’s death and return, truly participates in his saving benefits by faith, and communes with Christ who is really present by the Spirit. Because the cross has decisively ended hostilities between God and his people, the Lord’s Table becomes a present outpost of Eden and a foretaste of the coming feast in the new creation, where God’s redeemed people will dwell and eat with him forever.

God’s holy presence is a danger to people stained by sin and death, and no sincerity, effort, or moral improvement can make us fit to stand before Him. In the Passover, God teaches that only the blood of a substitute life can cleanse what death has defiled, so that judgment passes over and God can dwell without destroying. This same logic is fulfilled in Christ, whose blood both saves us once for all and continues to cleanse us as we walk in the light.