The Liturgy of Liberty: Purging the Old Leaven Text: Exodus 13:3-10
Introduction: A War on Amnesia
We live in a revolutionary age, and all revolutionaries have one thing in common: they are at war with memory. They want to tear down the statues, rename the streets, rewrite the histories, and sever every generation from the one that came before. The goal is to create a rootless people, a people with historical amnesia, because a man who does not know where he comes from cannot know who he is, and a man who does not know who he is can be molded into anything. This is the great project of our secular, progressive moment, to create a new man, unencumbered by gratitude, obligation, or history. They want liberty, but it is the liberty of an orphan in a hurricane.
Into this deliberate chaos, the Word of God speaks a command that is itself a declaration of war. That command is "Remember." The liberty that God gives is not a liberty from the past, but a liberty established and defined by a great, historical, redemptive act in the past. Christian freedom is not amnesia; it is anchored memory. God does not save us and then tell us to forget all about it. He saves us and then builds an entire culture, an entire liturgy, an entire way of life around the perpetual remembrance of that salvation.
This is what the Feast of Unleavened Bread is all about. It is not some dusty, antiquarian ritual for an ancient tribe. It is a paradigm. It is the pattern for how a redeemed people are to live in the world. It is God's blueprint for building a culture of gratitude, a pedagogy of redemption, and a society that knows what it is, because it knows what God has done for it. What we have in this text is not just a dietary restriction; it is a worldview. It teaches us that true freedom requires a clean break with the old slavery, that this freedom must be taught to our children, and that it must govern our every thought and action.
The modern world wants you to forget. God commands you to remember. These are two contrary masters, and you cannot serve both. You will either build your life on the shifting sands of the present moment, or you will build it on the bedrock of what Yahweh has done.
The Text
And Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a strong hand Yahweh brought you out from this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten. This day, in the month of Abib, you are going out. And it shall be when Yahweh brings you to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall do this service in this month. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to Yahweh. Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and nothing leavened shall be seen among you, nor shall any leaven be seen among you in all your borders. And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what Yahweh did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ And it will be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of Yahweh may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand Yahweh brought you out of Egypt. Therefore, you shall keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.
(Exodus 13:3-10 LSB)
The Foundation of Memory (v. 3-4)
The instructions begin with the central command, the linchpin of their entire identity as a people.
"And Moses said to the people, 'Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a strong hand Yahweh brought you out from this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.'" (Exodus 13:3)
The first thing to notice is that their identity is grounded in an event. "Remember this day." Their existence as a people of God begins here. Before this, they were slaves in Egypt. After this, they are the redeemed of Yahweh. This is why memory is so crucial. To forget this day is to forget who they are. To forget this day is to return to a slave mentality.
And what is the nature of this event? It is a sovereign rescue. "By a strong hand Yahweh brought you out." They did not negotiate their way out. They did not win a war of independence. They did not form a committee and vote on emancipation. They were helpless. God broke the door down and carried them out on His shoulders. All Christian theology, all right thinking about our relationship with God, begins with this understanding. We are not partners with God in our salvation; we are the recipients of a unilateral, strong-handed rescue. To forget this is the first step toward pride, self-righteousness, and every form of works-based religion.
This remembrance is not a mere mental exercise. It is immediately tied to a physical, tangible act: "And nothing leavened shall be eaten." The internal posture of memory must be matched by an external act of obedience. You cannot say you remember your deliverance from Egypt while you are still snacking on Egyptian food. Leaven, throughout Scripture, is a symbol of corruption, of sin, of impurity that puffs up and permeates everything it touches. It represents the old life, the ways of Egypt, the sin that enslaves. To eat unleavened bread was to declare, "We are done with that. We are making a clean break." It was the bread of haste, because you do not linger in the burning house. You get out. This feast is a celebration of that decisive break.
The Perpetual Purge (v. 5-7)
This is not a one-off ceremony for the generation that came out of Egypt. It is a perpetual statute, a foundational part of their worship in the land God was giving them.
"For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread... Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and nothing leavened shall be seen among you, nor shall any leaven be seen among you in all your borders." (Exodus 13:6-7 LSB)
The command is comprehensive. For seven days, the number of covenantal perfection and completion, they are to purge all leaven. Notice the totality of it. Not only is it not to be eaten, but it is not to be "seen among you... in all your borders." This is a national house-cleaning. Every Israelite home was to be searched, swept, and purified of the slightest trace of this corrupting agent. You could not be a true Israelite and tolerate a little bit of leaven in the corner cabinet. You could not say, "I am personally against leaven, but I don't want to impose my views on my pantry."
This is a picture of sanctification. The Apostle Paul picks up this exact imagery and applies it directly to the Christian life. "Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). Our justification is the Passover night; Christ's blood has been applied. Our sanctification is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the week-long, life-long process of diligently, ruthlessly purging the sin, the malice, the wickedness, the hypocrisy, the "leaven of the Pharisees," from every corner of our lives, our homes, and our churches. It is a total war on sin, prompted by the memory of our great deliverance.
Covenant Catechesis (v. 8)
But how is this memory to be preserved? How does one generation pass this identity on to the next? God is very practical.
"And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, 'It is because of what Yahweh did for me when I came out of Egypt.'" (Exodus 13:8 LSB)
Here we have the central engine of covenant succession: fathers teaching their children. The liturgy of the feast is designed to provoke a question from the children. "Dad, why are we eating this cracker bread? Why did we spend all last week cleaning the house?" The ritual is a pedagogical tool. And the father is commanded to have an answer ready. The faith is passed down not through osmosis, but through catechism.
And look at the content of the answer. It is personal testimony grounded in historical fact. "It is because of what Yahweh did for me." The father owns the story. He doesn't say, "Well, a long time ago, God did something for some people we are related to." He says God did it for me. Each generation must appropriate the redemption for itself. This is our story. This is what God did for us. This is the foundation of a covenant household. The father is the theologian-in-residence, the pastor of his own home, charged with the duty of telling his children the story of their salvation.
Embodied Theology (v. 9-10)
Finally, God describes the function of this entire ordinance. It is to be a sacrament, a visible sign of an invisible reality that governs the whole man.
"And it will be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of Yahweh may be in your mouth..." (Exodus 13:9 LSB)
This is profoundly physical, embodied language. This act of remembrance is to be a "sign on your hand." That is, it must govern everything you do. Your actions, your work, your craft, must all be shaped by the reality of your redemption. It is also to be a "memorial between your eyes." It must govern how you see the world, your worldview, your philosophy, your every thought. Your hands and your head, your deeds and your doctrines, are to be marked by the Exodus.
And what is the result of this embodied memory? "That the law of Yahweh may be in your mouth." When your life is governed by God's redemption, your mouth will be filled with God's Word. You will speak it, sing it, confess it, and teach it. Obedience is not a grim duty performed in order to get God to save you. Obedience is the grateful, joyful, talkative response of a people who have already been saved. And it all comes back to the foundation, stated again for emphasis: "for with a strong hand Yahweh brought you out of Egypt." Grace is the engine. Gratitude is the fuel. Obedience is the motion.
Therefore, this is not optional. It is a perpetual statute, to be kept at its appointed time. God's people are a people who live on God's calendar, structuring their lives around the rhythms of redemption He has established.
The Feast We Now Keep
We are not required to clear our pantries of yeast every spring. We are in a new covenant, and the sign has been transfigured. But the reality it points to is more intense, not less. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. We have been brought out of a greater Egypt, the house of bondage to sin and death, by the stronger hand of God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And so we too are commanded to remember. We do this every Lord's Day, and particularly when we come to the Lord's Table. That meal is our memorial. It is our "Remember this day." In it, we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
And because we have been redeemed, we are commanded to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We are to purge the old leaven of malice and wickedness from our lives. We are to be ruthless with our sin, not because we are trying to earn our salvation, but because we have already received it. We are to live lives of sincerity and truth.
We are to have the sign on our hands and between our eyes. Our baptism marks us, head to toe, as belonging to the Triune God. That mark should govern every thought in our heads and every action of our hands. And we are commanded to tell our sons, and our daughters. We are to sit at our dinner tables and tell them what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We are to teach them the story of their salvation, so that the law of Yahweh, the gospel of grace, might be in their mouths also.
The world is at war with memory. Let us be a people at war with amnesia. Remember what God has done. Purge the leaven. Teach your children. For by a strong hand, He has brought you out.