Pastor's Corner - April 8th, 2022

We've reached the less than one week point to the Passover service, and over the past weeks, and likely this coming weekend in particular will see you de-leavening your homes, cars, offices, and places in which you live. This process, commanded by God to the Israelites as a part of the commemoration of the Days of Unleavened Bread is intended to illustrate the nefarious nature of sin, that something small can proliferate into something much bigger in our lives, as Paul said to the church in Corinth and the church in Galatia, a little leaven, leavens the whole lump...

As part of the process coming into the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread, we spend significant time and effort ridding our lives of the physical leaven. But in doing so, do we lose track of the entire point of the exercise? That physical leaven is not sin - it pictures sin. It represents sin, it helps us to recognize the ubiquitousness of that sin in our lives, and not only that - sometimes surprises us as to where that leaven is found.

But can we at times focus so much on ridding our lives of the physical leaven that we miss the point? That we should be ridding our lives of the spiritual leaven that is causing sin in our members?

James talks of these things in James 4:1-4.

... our pride, desires for pleasure, the lusts, covetousness, fights and conflicts--our closeness to the world and its ways.

These are the things we need to remove. The things we need to replace with the unleavened of spirit and truth.

So while the physical removal of the leaven is an exercise that is commanded, and it is critical that we go through the effort to find it - we need to ensure that we're not so focused on the trees that we miss the forest.

I hope that your Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread preparation is going well!

Happy Sabbath!

With Love,
Ben