Matzoh!

Exodus 13:3-10

           I am capable of making some really good bread. On more than one occasion the loaf is at risk of being eaten immediately along with a stick of butter, slice by warm slice until it is gone. Bread is a bit of a guilty pleasure.  I can hardly imagine going for a whole week eating nothing but unleavened bread. But as Christians this is our common history, it is the faith of Jesus.

            Matzoh has a powerful story to tell though and one we should heed. Sometimes life is too hurried and there is no time to take in the 'bread' of the world. Life can be so very complicated it seems, full of obligations, angst, death and  worry that go along all the joys of living. It is in some of those worst times of life however that God sustains us. We may feel we are just getting along, merely sustaining ourselves (with matzoh) but God is with us the whole while with love and the promise of not only a bright future but eternal life. In that way I think Christians can easily embrace the Jewish custom and mandate that they refrain from leavened bread for a week. Could we use a reminder that our lives feel unleavened at times? That we are merely surviving?

              There is a great deal of matzoh on sale right night in the stores around here, perhaps it might be a good idea to replace some of your favorite bread or snack with a piece or two. What is life life when you are so hurried you don't even have time to make bread. Perhaps not a modern reference but certainly one we can translate into some other modern practice we don't have time for. Don't have time to cook a meal? Don't have time perhaps to set aside for God? Perhaps time for your spouse? A child? Always hurried it seems.  Are you pressed with some darkness that leaves you feel unleavened?

         Eating unleavened bread is a reminder of the promise and the fact God is always with us. God always provides love and support in every occasion, at every time in our life. God is what truly sustains us.

Moses said to the people, ‘Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by strength of hand; no leavened bread shall be eaten. Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this observance in this month. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen in your possession, and no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory. You shall tell your child on that day, “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.” It shall serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the teaching of the Lord may be on your lips; for with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt. You shall keep this ordinance at its proper time from year to year.