In Remembrance: The Bread

At the Last Supper, which is better referred to as the last Passover meal Jesus shared with his twelve before His crucifixion, Jesus initiated the present sacrament of Communion.

We all know what happened at that Seder.  Jesus took bread, thanked God, broke the bread and passed it among the twelve.  And He did something else, something quite unusual at the time. He told the twelve that the bread they held was his body, that his body was given for them and that they should continue the new and unusual ritual in remembrance of Him. (Luke 22.19)

Of course, the bread Jesus broke and gave to the twelve at that Seder meal was unleavened bread, commonly known today as Matzah; and Mosaic law demanded such be eaten at the Passover meal and, for that matter, the entire following week.

The Jews of Jesus’ time did not fully realize what the unleavened bread signified. They did know that their ancestors when fleeing from Egypt, were commanded to make their bread without leavening so as to not delay their departure waiting for their bread to rise.  And thus the use of unleavened bread was a way of reminding them every Passover of God’s great work in setting Israel free from Egyptian servitude.  But the unleavened bread told, and still tells of something far greater than just Israel’s liberation from Egyptian bondage.

However, it would seem that the use of unleavened bread in our memorial of Christ’s last Passover meal lost its significanace, purpose and importance not long after we gentiles became the majority and dominate force in the Christian fellowship.  That, of course, is not surprising.  As gentiles we are just not “Jewish enough” to consistently understand Hebrew/Jewish history, culture, customs, idioms and historic traditions. And it was not long into the life of the church that it was gentiles teaching gentiles (former pagans teaching former pagans) about Judaism. The worse of it, however, is that we often think we do have such a “Hebrew” understanding when studying Scripture. However, revisiting the story of the first Passover with a clearer Jewish understanding of its history can reveal much to us about the significance of unleavened bread in the Passover, then and now, and how is should play a role in our Communion memorial today.  So, before we reconsider Exodus chapter 12 to would benefit us to listen to what a Jew has to teach us regards unleavened bread.

David Kraemer, a professor and librarian at the Jewish Theological Seminary, wrote in March 2007 an article published in the Daily Forward, a Jewish/American newspaper published in NYC. In that article Kraemer stated:

“…food historians are of the opinion that leavened bread originated in Egypt, probably less than a millennium before the pyramids were built. Egyptian culture was the first to produce leavened bread, and leavened bread was a symbol of Egyptian culture…The recognition that leavened bread first emerged in Egypt is essential for understanding the place of bread — leavened and unleavened — for (Passover)… Leavened bread requires either time for the exposure of the dough (to ambient yeast in the air), or a piece of already cultured bread to transmit its culture from one generation of bread to the next. The Torah explains the demand to eliminate leavening by reference to the first method (Exodus 12:34), but leavened bread inevitably carries reference to the second, more common method, as well. (That leavened bread was equated with culture was to be taken for granted in that context.) Moreover, it is notable that the Torah’s command is as much to eliminate the leavened substance as it is to eat the unleavened (see Exodus 12:15 and 18-19).

In Exodus Chapter 12, within verses 8-20 unleavened and leavened bread, together, are mentioned a total of ten times. Five times leavening and/or leavened bread is declared as prohibited and to be purged from one’s dwelling, and five times unleavened bread is commanded to be eaten only — and not just for one night, the night of the Passover, but for seven full days!  Moveover, the first and seventh days of the unleavened bread commandment are declared to be Sabbaths!  The commandment to shun leavened bread and consume unleavened bread for an entire week casts unleavened bread in a rather significant light. And to have that week of unleavened bread bracketed by TWO annual (high) Sabbaths makes the focus of the event special indeed.

Exodus 12…

8 They shall eat the flesh (of the Passover lamb) that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.

14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. 17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. 18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened breaduntil the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19 For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

It has long been held that leaven in the scriptures represents sin and/or deviation from the Torah/Scriptures. And, as Professor Keramer pointed out, leavened bread represented the culture of Egypt, a culture Israel was constantly admonished to reject.  And Jesus warned of another culture to avoid, the culture/leaven of the Pharisees, their traditions and customs perverting and superseding the Scriptures enhancing the standing of the religious leaders and creating a distance between the common man and God’s written word. But fundamentally, leaven, as it pertains to the bread of the Passover Seder and of our Communion rembrance symbolizes a culture of sin — or more revealingly — the lack of such culture, the lack of sin, the culture of sin, in the body, the very person, of Jesus!

Of course the significance of Passover’s unleavened bread goes further than just a reminder of Israel’s escape from Egypt, the rejection of a culture other than God’s and as a representation of the Christ’s sinlessness.  For hundreds of years prior to the Passover Seder of the “Last Supper”, the unleavened bread also foreshadowed what the Christ would face and suffer on our behalf.  When Jesus told the twelve that the Passover bread was his body, He was alluding to the fact that His body would look just like that Passover bread once the authorities finished with him.  His flesh would bare the welts and wounds of a flogging, just as unleveaned bread displays like markings; His flesh would be pierced, just like unleveaned bread displays piercings throughout its surfaces and finally He would be broken, just as the Passover and Communion bread is broken before it is consumed. Yet, through all of that, He would not be leveaned, influenced or corrupted by sin, the very sin culture of that world and today’s world.

As the scripture declares regards the Christ:

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)  

And Psalm 22:16

“For dogs encompass me;  a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet –

So, with the unleavened bread, the Matzah, we have a visual reminder of who Jesus is and what He suffered for our sake.

Jesus instructed his twelve and, presumably, all Christians, to break the Passover bread in remembrance of Him. And not only in remembrance, but also (in the thinking of this writer) in continuance of its witness to who Jesus was, who He is and what, exactly, He experienced in our place.  Since our Lord instructed us to continue the Passover Memorial of Exodus Chapter 12 through an act He performed at a later Passover seder, what we gentiles call the Last Supper, then should we not be eager to carry out that instruction as He, Himself, performed it, and had been performed previously for 1400 years?!

It is true, of course, the breaking and eating of the Communion bread today is done in many different ways wherever Christians gather. Some, without any thought or intent to be contrary, use regular, everyday, leavened bread, some use specially prepared bread dedicated solely to Communion and which is believed by its Communicants to be supernaturally transformed at some point to the ACTUAL flesh and blood of Jesus (a pagan concept in my view).  Some do use unleavened bread in their Communion while even others purposefully use leavened bread to symbolize spiritual growth from Communion with Christ.

Wide array of Traditions & Conclusion:

Although I acknowledge there is a wide array of traditions as to what type of bread is used in Communion, I submit that any bread used in Communion other that unleavened bread (when it is available) falls far short of Jesus’ directive and purpose (both in the Old and New Testaments) and diminishes the sacrament in its full power of witness. Jesus asked his disciples, His friends, to break the Passoverbread in remembrance of Him, the only bread that identifies who Jesus is and what it was He endured for us.

Jesus did not say, “Do something similar to this in memory of me.” He didn’t say, “After this day do and use whatever you feel best in memory of me.”

I can only concluded that Matzah, the very unleavened, marked, pierced and culturally “separated” bread that has been used at every Passover since the Exodus and was used at the Last Supper, that last Seder meal before Jesus was crucified, is unquestionably the only bread suited to fully reveal to all in Communion who Jesus is, what it was He suffered for our benefit and how it communicates rejection of the culture of the this world and an acceptance of God’s way.  The purpose of unleavened bread from the time of the Exodus until the crucifixion was to foreshadow God’s provision for salvation and God’s calling out for His people to be separate — to be holy.  And since the crucifixion, its purpose has been to be a reminder of and continual witness to the saving work of God through the person of Jesus and our continued separateness and holiness.  As it is so readily available, or so easily made, why use any other bread at our Communion memorial than the unleavened bread our Lord, Himself, used for this very purpose?