Today's Reading: I Corinthians 5:6-8
Daily Lectionary: Exodus 18:5-27, Hebrews 12:1-24
Let us keep the festival, not with the old yeast..of malice..but with the bread of sincerity and truth. (I Corinthians 5:8)
When you make wine, yeast grows in the grape juice, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide--at its height you can see the wine bubbling away. But you must be careful, because other things can grow in the wine, including yeasts that make acetic acid. This turns your wine into vinegar. It all depends on which yeasts are growing faster.
What is growing in your life? St. Paul speaks of the old yeast of malice and wickedness. Do you put other people down? Resent their good fortune? Do you hold onto hurts and see others through your resentments? Perhaps you are preoccupied with yourself and your needs and can’t be bothered with those of others. This is indeed the product of the yeast of malice and wickedness.
But St. Paul tells us the good news, that our Passover Lamb was sacrificed. In the Exodus, the Israelites were told to kill the Passover lamb and paint some of its blood on the doorframe. Then the Angel (Messenger) of Death would “pass over” that house and not slay the firstborn son. This was the final plague that caused the Egyptians to free their slaves, God’s people. Christ is our Passover Lamb, who was slain for us, to deliver us from death. His resurrection means our deliverance from our enslavement to eternal damnation.
What is more, the Passover lamb was eaten by the Israelites to sustain them on their journey out of Egypt; so we are invited to eat of Christ our Passover, to sustain us through our life’s journey. Israel ate of the sacrifice that was offered for their sins, so we eat of the Lamb sacrificed for our sin each time we receive the Holy Communion of Christ’s Body and Blood in Divine Service. In fact, it was at a celebration of the Passover feast that our Lord Jesus instituted this Sacrament. And the “unleavened bread” of sincerity and truth is the life of faith, Christ in us, abounding in what pleases God, and serving others, from the heart.
Almighty God, who through Your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, did overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life, we humbly implore You that, as You put into our minds good desires, so by Your continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.(Collect for Easter Dawn)