The Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth

As we begin to talk about the Passover, the nights we much observed, Days of Unleavened Bread, this is a very significant time of year. And as I said, Passover is the most important evening of the year for a Christian. They involve symbols and rituals during this time of year that are unique to us. And in a modern world, we might wonder sometimes why would we be tied to ancient symbols and rituals like foot washing, taking bread and wine, and putting out the leaven and eating unleavened bread during this period of time. These next few days will contain several truths that are very important to who we are, our identity as God's people, and they define a relationship with God, the actual rituals that we do. And we have very few rituals in the Church, but this season of the year is where, in a sense, those rituals seem to come to the fore as we go through them. But they are very deeply meaningful, they are beautiful, and done properly with respect and reverence, they are very moving when we sit down to do these. And they are very important parts of our life within the Church, and certainly to us individually in our relationship with God.

We have to have that contact. Doing this as a community or as a group of people within the Church is very, very important. That's why I was commenting for a few minutes about our prisoner there. Any time a person has had to take the Passover service by themselves for perhaps sickness or whatever reasons, it's certainly allowable and should be done. But it's not the same as coming together in a group setting with other converted minds, baptized members, to do that. We need that human contact. Today, with the technology of the Internet and the potential there for people to be fragmented solo on their own, there are so many different things that have developed through the Internet that keeps people in one sense apart. And that can be dangerous because, again, human contact is very important. And I've noticed even in religious worship and certain rituals, you could go to church each week on the Internet if a person chose to do that. I mean, even in the Church of God here, we have Internet services. And those are certainly valuable but they are not a substitute for regular fellowship and coming together. I've even read where people, not in our Church, but people who, you know, just on a regular basis, their church service is on the Internet. Jews will take a Passover cedar, their version of the Passover, on the Internet in a kind of a virtual world. And that much is possible. People can pray. They can take communion in other religions in a virtual world. In a sense, virtual religion is available for a person, in a sense, in the privacy of their home, doing it that way. That is not, in a sense, I don't think, fulfilling the true intent and heart of what God wants whenever He gives us rituals and commands as part of His way of life to do. That's certainly not, you know, the norm. Again, circumstances beyond our control, situations, or sickness, or whatever, you know, we do what we need to do. But I think we all recognize that we need to come together for regular fellowship. And certainly when it comes to the rituals that we have, God gives them to us within the setting of a group and the fellowship of the church. When you look at what God instructed Israel about the Passover, even, in the Old Testament, He mentions something that's very, very important to us. In Exodus 12, we will turn there, verse 26. In this chapter in Exodus 12, where the instructions begin to develop regarding the very first Passover as the Israelites came out of Egypt, down in verse 26, there is a statement that God makes to Israel. It's important to us today.

Exodus 12, verse 26, it shall be when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? And this was the Passover service with the lamb and blood on the and the door on the door and staying inside while the during that evening. He said, this is what you will say. It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households. So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. And so God tells us what to say when people say, what do you mean by this? What does all this mean? And it's a good question for us to kind of review ourselves as we prepare to take part in these rituals and in these symbols. What do these things mean to us? What do they mean? Let's not take them for granted. Let's remember and let's learn once again. What we do represents the most elemental teaching about God. God gives us these rituals.

And whether it's the ritual of the Passover or baptism, eating unleavened bread, putting out leaven from our homes, whatever that may be, they teach us something about God and His purpose.

These speak to the most important forms by which God establishes a relationship with us.

When we go back to the book of Genesis, even earlier here in the Nexus, we see them in the first few chapters. In Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, we find that after the sin, first sin committed by Adam and Eve, as they're banished from God's presence here in the garden.

God says something to the serpent beginning in verse 14.

And then in verse 16, to the woman, to the actual human beings, He said this, He says, I will greatly multiply your sorrow. No, I'm sorry. I'm going to go back to verse 15 as he was speaking to the serpent. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. Now, this is the first prophecy and reference in the Bible to the promise of a seed or to the Messiah, to Jesus Christ. This is well understood to be the very first prophecy about Jesus Christ and the enmity that would be there, and ultimately the triumph that Christ would have as He would bruise the head of the serpent. And through His death, Jesus Christ effectively terminated the rule of Satan and ended His kingdom in that sense, and accomplished that by becoming the sacrifice of this particular seed. But it's the promise of a seed. When you look into chapter 4, you see the story of Cain and Abel. There, in that relationship between the two brothers as it develops in chapter 4, we see the need for humility in our relationship with God and with our fellow man. You remember that when Cain slew his brother Abel, and the burden was too much for him, God said to him, sin lies at the door.

And here we begin to see the impact of sin on the conscience and upon the mind, and being a factor in cutting off a relationship with God. Sin lies at the door of a mind that does not understand repentance. And so here, very early on, there is the seed, there is the repentance, there is the importance of sin, and what it does in cutting off a relationship with God.

Abel himself, when he brought the sacrifice in the story, he brought a firstborn animal to be sacrificed to God. He brought that which was of his finest. He understood that it was to be unblemished. Cain didn't understand that. That's why God accepted the sacrifice from Abel and not from Cain. In that episode, we also understand that when we give ourselves as a sacrifice to God, we must give ourselves completely to God. So here in these earliest teachings, we see some very important matters that later come to a fuller development within the meaning of the days of Unleavened Bread. We see the need for the promise of a seed. We see the element of sin cutting off man from the relationship with God. We see the need for a firstborn and an unblemished sacrifice to be brought before God as one that would be acceptable, symbolizing our complete devotion to God and, you know, a total sacrifice of our life and of our will to the will of God. And so the rituals that God begins to, in a sense, relate to man with, teach us many different aspects about Him and about our relationship. We also do what we do in answer to that question from Exodus 12 and verse 26. We do what we do, not just because they teach us things about God and most important basic relationships, but we do it as well because God tells us to do these things. He tells us to do them, and that's important. In Exodus 12, He introduces us to the Passover, and He tells Israel and He tells any who would be His people to do this throughout your generations. That is repeated over and over again throughout the Scriptures to do this throughout your generations and to rehearse them with your people, rehearse them with everyone, and explain why this is to be done. Verse 24 says, You shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and for your sons forever. Keep this service.

In Exodus 12, in Leviticus 23, when God gives the Holy Days, there too this is brought out, this is mentioned, in that we do this because God commands us to keep these festivals, these feasts of the Lord. Let's just turn over to Leviticus 23. Just look at that. In verse 2, where it says, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts. They are God's feasts. It goes through to talk first about the Sabbath, and then Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread. Verse 4, These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim with their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover, and that will be tomorrow evening, will be the fourteenth day of the first month on God's calendar.

And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. And on the first day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary working on it, but you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation. You'll do no customary work on it. So we'll have a holy day service on the first day on Tuesday, and then a week later on Monday we'll have the seventh day, the last holy day of Unleavened Bread. Again, just as God has laid it out to be kept and to observe, we'll go through those meanings in more detail. These are not mere Old Testament examples and teaching that ended here. We understand fully that all of the sacrifices, the holy days, and particularly wrapped up in the Passover and Unleavened Bread picture, they point to Jesus Christ. And Jesus Himself left us an example of observing and keeping these days and keeping the Passover in this period of time when we turn back to the book of Luke, chapter 2. We find that Jesus learned this from the earliest years in His family. He was born into a good Israelite family. That was not something that was taken for granted. And we find Him in Luke, chapter 2, verse 41, that with His parents, He went to Jerusalem, His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.

And so the custom of the family, Jesus' family, Mary and Joseph, was to keep the feast. And He attended with the parents. This was one of the several pilgrimages through the year, three times in a year, in which people would go up to Jerusalem. And it became a... it was a major significant event, just as it is in our lives, as they observed this. We find in John, chapter 2, during His ministry, Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover season. John, chapter 2, verse 13.

When the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There would have been a lot of people there. It would have been an opportunity for Him to teach, which He did.

And in this particular occasion, He goes on and He drives the money changers out of the temple, and overturns the tables. And He makes a statement about, destroy this temple in verse 19, and in three days I will raise it up, a reference to His own death and resurrection, central to the message here. And He was there during that, obviously at the time of another event, at the very final days of His life, when He was in Jerusalem during the time of the final Passover. His example carried over with the disciples, and they fully understood that Jesus Christ was their Passover and was the Lamb of God. In verse 29 of John, chapter 1, since we're here in the first part of John, let's just look at John, chapter 1, and verse 29.

Just the testimony of John the Baptist.

When He saw Jesus coming toward Him, He said, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And so the understanding, teaching carried throughout the Scriptures, very, very plain, very, very clear that Jesus was the Lamb of God, whose life and sacrifice was to take away the sin of the world. In 1 Peter, chapter 1, 1 Peter, chapter 1, 1 Peter, chapter 2, 1 Peter, chapter 3, 1 Peter, chapter 3, 2 Peter, chapter 3, 1 Peter, chapter 3, and look at verse 26. This is where Christ began to give the instruction that began to change certain elements. Matthew 26, verse 26, As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. He took the cup, and He gave thanks, and He gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. So again, the elements of the bread and the wine right here within this service are right here and certainly began to be modified. Christ began to substitute the bread and the wine as the symbols of His body and blood, signifying a new relationship between He between God and His people. You know, it's interesting. I was doing some reading in another book that I'd picked up regarding some of these teachings of Jesus. And they bring out that, it seems that in the time of Jesus, the Jews, as they were still, the Jewish community, were still observing the Passover at that particular point in time. When they would come to this part of the service, and they were eating it, obviously, with unleavened bread, they would break off of a piece of that bread and kind of set it aside until toward the end of the Passover meal. Then they would bring that piece out. They would have their meal with bread, but then they would, toward the end, bring out this piece that had been broken off and make the statement that it was the Messiah, that it represented the Messiah, who was certainly looked for and longed for by the Jews because through all the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures and the prophecies regarding the Messiah. They looked for that, and they had this part of their ritual. And so it could be, then, that as Jesus broke part of this bread, that that would have been a part of the ritual that the disciples associate and understood as part of the way that it was kept. But then when he said that, take and eat, this is my body, he was associating himself with that which the Jews had said would represent the Messiah, and he was saying that he was the one. And so when he said that, it could be, this is again, it's not part of the scripture in that sense, but this broken piece of the bread could represent that. That very fact that as he said this to them at that night, he was identifying himself with the bread, the unleavened bread, in a direct way based on the ritual that they had set up. As we break that bread on the Passover night, we understood just as Jesus says here that this is my body. And that body was broken for our sins.

And we fully recognize and understand and appreciate the significance of that as we break that unleavened bread. First of all, the unleavened bread represents the sinless body of Christ, but it also represents a body that was broken for us, but it all points to what Jesus did. We think very, very deeply about those, about the life and the death of Jesus Christ. We think of a perfect life, and we also think of a period of suffering prior to his death. I was writing my weekly letter to you this week. I wrote about the importance of us contemplating the aspect of the suffering that Jesus went through in these hours leading up to his death, that it began many, many hours before the first lash was ever laid to him, the suffering that he would go through. And it was a mental anguish and a mental torment that we also should understand as we approach the symbols of that sacrifice, because that suffering, as well as his death, is a very, very important part of the whole package and the whole picture of what took place during this particular period of time. Jesus was thinking about certainly the physical pain that he would have to endure as a man. He was fully human. He was thinking about the emotional loss of even the companionship, because he knew that the disciples would flee in fear of the authorities, which they did, and he would have to face what he had to deal with all by himself.

And then, as is echoed in the words where he was hanging near his death, and he said to his father, why have you forsaken me? And recognizing that for a period of time, he would, in a sense, as his body was in the grave, there would be a separation. And it was the ultimate expression of faith, in the sense that Jesus had to go through, that he would be resurrected, that he would regain that relationship with his father, but he was facing a moment of separation that he had never experienced before. So there was a great deal of suffering and emotional anguish that he dealt with in that period of time, as well as the physical pain that he had to go with. We keep this. We think about all these elements to whatever degree you and I prepare.

And I know that you have begun to do that. You will finish your preparation prior to coming together tomorrow evening. But we fully understand what we're doing. We understand that we keep a Passover service and spirit of Jesus Christ of the New Testament, a new covenant, a new relationship. We never have understood ourselves to be keeping something that is an Old Testament ritual or part of the Old Covenant because we've just known better than that. We've always understood it to be kept in the way that Jesus did it. We actually do it at the time. Jesus did it. Sometimes you can get caught up in the discussion and the contention of when was the Passover of Exodus 12, whether it was at the beginning of the 14th or at the end of the 14th or into the 15th, the actual first day of the 11th bread. These are discussions that have been kind of ongoing in arguments. We've written papers. We have papers that explain very thoroughly the situation. But, you know, this is one of those issues that you cut the trunk of the tree off right at the nub and you realize that what we do is based on Jesus's example. We've never kept an Old Testament Passover. We don't keep a Jewish Passover. We keep a New Testament Passover. We keep it at the time, in the manner, and in a complete way by which Jesus did it. End of discussion. When you understand that, he began to keep it. It's very clear at the beginning of the 14th, as we have always done. So the timing is really not anything to argue about, but it's just a matter of year by year, you and I, delving deeper and deeper into the spiritual symbols, what that means to us, what the sacrifice of Jesus Christ means to us.

You know, and there's much to gain from the entire Bible on the whole subject of the Passover and the symbols and all of this. You know, you go back to Exodus 12, and you look at the way that it was kept, as God initially gave it to the Israelites before they ever left Egypt. Think about it.

They were in a home setting. They were keeping it individually by families, and maybe a few families would come together. It is the picture that you get there, because if you have a small family that says you got a lot of food, the idea is a few families could come together for that Passover meal, as the death angel was about to pass through the land of Egypt. But it was in a smaller family setting. All of the tribes didn't come together in some big, big mass, catered Passover meal. It was small. And you also look at the instruction that shows that the head of the household was responsible for leading in the observance. There was a personal accountability. There was a very intimate manner in which it had to be kept, which also shows us some of the elements today, because it is an element of accountability. It has to be done by a certain ritual in a certain way. In Exodus 12, we find that they were to select from their flock a lamb and set it aside for a few days before they were to kill that Passover. And as that instruction would have been carried on, it would have, year by year for an Israelite family, they would be making a sacrifice from their own herd. But they would have to set it aside and look at it, in a sense, if you really stop and think about it. Because at some point, they would select a lamb, firstly, without blemish. It would have to be a good one. It couldn't be the runt of the litter. It couldn't be a throw-up cast-off. And then they would have to look at that lamb. Maybe they would set it off to the side, fatten it up a bit. I don't know.

Throw some corn to it. But they would have to look at it.

That to me speaks a bit of an examination, doesn't it? You have to look at that lamb. And think about it, in a couple of days, you're going to have to kill that lamb. That's a sweet little lamb. Cute lamb. You kind of draw closer to it as you look at and realize this one lamb is going to be the one you're going to sacrifice this year. And the kids begin to get closer, attached to it. You have to, you know, you can think of all the human emotions and connections there. But even in that, there's an examination. Paul said to examine yourselves in the light of Christ's perfect example as the Lamb of God. So before killing it, they would have to look at that for several days, which really speaks to us setting aside time, making a commitment to think about our relationship with God and with His Son Jesus Christ. And so then the household would personally kill the lamb. There'd be some sadness mixed with joy because they'd also partake of that lamb. And in that, there's a meal and there's a joy there. But you look even there in Exodus 12 and it reveals an experience that would produce much of the same results we experience today, even though we don't do it that way. We are to examine ourselves or our relationship to God. We come together on the Passover. There's a certain sobriety. But when you come, when you leave that night on the Passover night, at least I've always personally have always felt a measure of joy, a measure of joy. Another year, another Passover, you can walk out clean spiritually with a sense that God has been merciful to us and recognizing that our sins are forgiven. Now, the foot washing service that we also have as a part of it in John chapter 13 tells us of another important thing because John is the only gospel account that records the foot washing. In John chapter 13, we won't turn to read that. You'll read that tomorrow night. And we should all know that that is an attitude of service. In the ancient world, a servant did the foot washing for people who came into a house.

We kneel down and we wash one another's feet in an attitude of humility and complete total service to one another. And that is a very sobering reality as well.

To wonder, well, I never really wonder whose feet I will wash. You know, you kind of line up and you go and you get paired up with somebody and you wash each other's feet.

And maybe it's somebody that you're close to, maybe it's someone you're not close to, maybe it's someone that you've had issues with before, maybe it's someone with whom you've reconciled, maybe it's with someone you need to reconcile with. You know, just you should never try to eyeball who you're going to get lined up with and hold back or whatever. Just take it as it comes and let God be the one to pair you up in that sense as it works out.

There's a smaller group here, so, you know, there's fewer choices in that sense. But we come out of that with an attitude of humility that indeed we love one another and we could submit ourselves to one another and serve one another, in spite of all of the calluses, in spite of all the hardened flesh that we might have. You stop and think about it. I don't want to dwell too long on foot washing, but stop and think about washing someone else's feet. It's always a scary thing.

But there are many, many lessons there. You draw your own from it. But it's an addition that Jesus made to show something that his servants would always need to have throughout the ages in order to stay in the proper spirit of what those symbols ultimately were to teach and to be a part of the body of Christ. The Unleavened Bread. We could just comment for a moment on that. Seven days. We were to eat Unleavened Bread, a picture of the sinless life of Jesus Christ within us.

We put the Unleavened Bread from our homes. So you got another 24, 36 hours to get that done. Our vacuum bag went out yesterday with the Friday morning trash. And I was told by Debbie that if I ate anything on the car coming up, make sure I got all the crumbs out. Well, I couldn't resist going through McDonald's and getting a chicken biscuit this morning. So I had to unleaven my car, but I was very, very careful. And I stopped at the rest area down here and gathered up my bag with my McDonald's wrapper and put them all in there.

And I, oh, there's a crumb right there in my seat. So I got that crumb and I was about to leave, shut the door, and I saw a crumb down there in the bottom of the car.

But I got that out, too. So I think I got it all out of the car and made sure I dusted off my shirt and my sweater at the time.

I don't normally get that meticulous and worry about it so much. We do put it, we do go through our cleaning and we do gather up all the leaven. We put it out. I know every year that there's some somewhere that I didn't get. I found it at times. At times, I haven't found it. There may be a time when I would, in the past, may have forgotten and eaten the piece of leaven. I can't recall anything in recent years or certainly in most of my adult life where I've forgotten, but I do remember once or twice when I was a young man forgetting about the Days of Unleavened Bread.

But I think I've been pretty good about that in my adult years. But I'm sure and I'm certain that there's been times that I've missed a crumb or two or certain other elements. I've stopped worrying about that. I certainly don't obsess about it because I recognize that when you fully understand the Days of Unleavened Bread, you do your part. It's more important to focus on the spiritual than the physical. And God is, through the sacrifice of Christ, able to forgive us spiritually, even the sins that we don't always see and may be in ignorance of, that the grace of God covers that.

That's the most important thing to learn. We eat unleavened bread and should strive to eat unleavened bread during the Days of Unleavened Bread as well, to picture Christ's life within us, to put that perfect life within us each day during that period of time. That is also an important thing to do. That unleavened bread, as we know, represents and symbolizes Jesus' sinless life. And as we put that in us, it symbolizes and teaches us something very important in terms of the life of Christ being lived within us, His perfect life being lived within us.

Really, the Days of Unleavened Bread are to teach us the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His life in us. We keep and celebrate that central fact of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus Christ through the Days of Unleavened Bread for seven days. It's more than just a one-day experience. The world observes an Easter Sunday sunrise or an Easter Sunday to commemorate the resurrection, but God gave to us seven days to represent and to symbolize and to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And as we put that unleavened bread within us and keep that period of time, we are focusing upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ as God intends it and as God has shown us to do it.

We've always done that. We've always understood it. Perhaps not always at any given time did any of us individually fully appreciate that, but we should. And on the first holiday, we'll talk more about that. But that is the key at the heart of the Days of Unleavened Bread. We learn the need for a total reliance on God to cover our sins with the blood of Christ, to save us by His grace, and even that physical act that we go through serves to bring us back to the ultimate grace of God.

We know that our putting out 11 product has nothing to do with our salvation. That work doesn't save us. It teaches us. It connects us to the deeper spiritual matter. And that's really the whole point of, again, going back to the rituals that we do have. They teach us the deeper spiritual lessons that are there. That's why we do them.

That's why we do them. Not to save ourselves, not to because through that work we merit pardon, we merit grace. That comes freely from God. But the ritual teaches us something. And that's what's important. That's what's important. As I said, we don't have a whole lot of rituals in the Church of God, but God gives us just enough.

And it is a lifetime to focus on those and to learn the deep spiritual lessons from them. And we have a number of them right here at this season of the year. They teach us something that God wants us to learn. They don't save us, but the Bible shows us that works, in a sense, are important in the process of relating to God and understanding salvation and how salvation is being brought to us. The works don't save us, but they teach us and they keep us in mind and they're a necessary part of God leading us spiritually. God ultimately will save us. But we can only give a certain expression to our relationship with God through a physical action, through a physical form. And when we're baptized, we know that that water-regraved water by itself doesn't cleanse us. We're cleansed by the blood of Christ. That is a symbol of a body that's, in a sense, been put to death into a water-regrave. And that's another one of those symbols that teach us a very important spiritual lesson that can only be taught, in a sense, by certain symbols. Now, the man got off a long time ago with traditions and rituals and forms of religion that, you know, whole religions are built around. You know, we're so, you know, we meet in a school. We meet in a facility usually that's not our own. We don't build a building with symbols in it, as Catholics or other religions do. But if you go to the great cathedrals of Catholicism, or study that subject, you must understand that every aspect of a cathedral is symbolic of something. The stained glass windows, the actual layout of the building, that is, many of them are laid out as a cross. The arches, the altars, the statuary, everything about it is designed as a symbol of something. Now, you could, you know, there's a whole study of that. You could spend your whole lifetime doing that if you chose.

But it's important to at least understand that human religion has carried a lot of this to an extreme that God never intended. True, the temple had its symbols as well. But we know that, you know, God doesn't dwell in a building made with hands. And the temple was destroyed twice. So we, you know, we understand that we have a whole different relationship with God now. But again, there we understand that symbolism, but we don't carry it over into the forms that, let's say, other human religion will do. But we have just enough. And I think that's the beauty of God's plan. God's spirit moving, working always through His church, keeping us mindful of what we need to do without getting bogged down with ritualism, physical works. But we have just enough to do to keep us mindful of the core, simple truths that are important to having a relationship with God and being plugged into the truth. That rituals are there. You know, even I was thinking about this this morning and thought came to me that, you know, in Hebrews 8 and verse 5, maybe you could just quickly turn there, talks about the tabernacle, the priesthood and the rituals that was all there that served as a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle.

For he said, See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.

And then in Hebrews 9 and verse 23, it says, It was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens would be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. The temple, tabernacle, the rituals that God gave were copies of things from the, you know, spiritual matters. They were copies of things in the heavens.

That's another way of just saying that it's a physical representation of a spiritual reality or spiritual truth, whether it was an altar, whether it was a part of the building as God gave to Moses and the design to build it, they were all copies of things in the heavens or the spiritual things. And we, again, as they say, we know what to keep and what to hold on to. But I was thinking about this in regard to even Christ himself, because when you read in the first chapter of John, and we can, if you will, let's just turn over there, we know that Jesus Christ was the Word, as John tells us. Verse 1 and chapter 1 of John, and the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, the Word was God, and the beginning, he was in the beginning with God.

As John begins to reveal that Christ was the Word, the logos, he was with God, he was God, and he goes on through and he was sent from God, verse 4. John was sent from God, I'm sorry. And John was a witness. He was not the light, but he was to bear witness of that light, and he did bear witness of Jesus. But in verse 14 it says, And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Even as the Word became flesh, dwelt among us, we beheld the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. That is, through Jesus Christ, John is saying, we were able, they were able, and he's bearing witness, of God. They saw God in the flesh.

They tasted, lived with, and were visibly able to see God in the flesh. And had we been among that group, and we would have watched Jesus in his life, we would have been watching God as he would have acted in the flesh. And it was a perfect life. And we have the example through the teaching through the Gospels, and we strive to live by that and understand that. But even as God was manifested as a man, it was God showing us what the spiritual was and is, and how it would be in the flesh, and leaving us an example in that sense. I don't want to go try to go too deep into that. It's not my intent. I'm just showing that when we look at the spiritual truths of the Bible, dealing with salvation, God gives us enough ritual and symbols, and what we're dealing with here in this season, they impress upon us very important matters. Peace of the love and bread represents sin. It's not sin of itself, but it is a symbol of sin. Justification, salvation, these are spiritual concepts. You know, humility. When we wash someone's feet, we go through a physical action to teach us a spiritual truth. The spiritual truths take shape and form in the words and the acts that we perform as part of the reveal pattern of worship that God gave through Moses, and it's perpetuated within the church. Under the New Covenant, we understand through God's Spirit what remains as essential and what is no longer necessary. We don't kill a lamb and put the blood on the door post. The lamb I carve up tomorrow is already killed. I'm just going to carve it up, and we're going to enjoy it, but I'm not going to take that piece of meat and go to my front door and hit it three times, you know, and the door post and whatever. It won't happen. We know not to do that because Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. But we know what to do. We deeply understand the spiritual meaning behind all that we do, and we understand the necessity of following the example of Christ and the apostles.

And we do that as we should because we are observing something that is older than time, older than time, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world. First Peter 1 and verse 20 tells us, he was indeed foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. So we do something as we take the Passover service that is older than time, in a sense, as part of the plan of God, that there would be a seed, that there would be a need for a sacrifice. And we do that following the example of Jesus, the disciples, and all who were part of the church, part of the people of God, from that period all the way down to our time today. I know I've read this several times to you, and I can't remember the last time I read this, but I wanted to read it again just for myself and share it with you. I've read this defense of the faith by the church leader that we traditionally recognized as a true minister more than 160 years after the death of Jesus, a man by the name of Polycrates who, around the year 190 AD, during a time of tumult within the faith where people were abandoning the Passover, the days of unleavened bread, wanting to keep Easter, wanting to take on the traditions and the customs of the pagan world and baptize them into the Christian faith and the heresies that were developing and the strife within the church at that time.

And this comes down to us through the church histories of a man by the name of Polycrates who gave a response to another bishop by the name of Victor, and it's a very stirring defense of the faith. I'd like to read it again because it really does show what people were doing more than three generations after Jesus Christ's death, within the in holding to the faith and holding to the truth. But he wrote this about the year 190 AD, and it was Polycrates writing to another minister who the other minister, Victor, was wanting to take the church into heresy and keeping Easter and everything else, and Polycrates was a part of a group that was resisting that. He wrote to him and he said, We for our part keep the day, speaking of the Passover, scrupulously, without addition or subtraction. For in Asia great luminaries sleep who shall rise again on the day of the Lord's coming, when he is coming with glory from heaven and shall search out all his saints. There's John, who leaned back on the Lord's breast and who became a sacrificing priest, wearing the miter, a martyr, and a teacher. He too sleeps in Ephesus. And he goes on to mention a number of other faithful ministers. And he says, All of these kept the fourteenth day of the month, and the beginning of the Passover festival, in accordance with the gospel, not deviating in the least, but following the rule of the faith.

Last of all, I too, have a number of people who understood what they were to do, and why and were not going to be cowed into abandoning their faith. And that has marched down with us down to this day. And you can kind of trace that thread through history. It's an interesting story of the truth among people, whether or not they were the Church of God, God only knows, but you can find people in the Middle Ages still keeping the days of an oven bread. Along with the Sabbath, and other things that are familiar to us as teachings, it seems as people keep the Sabbath, they, faithfully, they tend to understand, in many cases, the Holy Days. But that thread has endured, and is still a part of us today. So why do we do what we do? Well, we do it because God tells us. We do it because they are important to our physical rituals that teach us the larger, deeper, more important spiritual truths of salvation, of grace, and of faith toward God. So as we gather up ourselves in our time, let's be sure that we do keep the feast, keep it with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.