PURGING OUT THE OLD LEAVEN

 A MESSAGE FOR EASTER SUNDAY

Today’s very short Epistle may seem at first glance to be an obscure reference to the ancient Jewish practice of keeping Kosher for Passover.  St. Paul admonishes us to “purge out the old leaven that ye may be a new lump.”  How odd, we think, to be told on Easter Sunday that we should be a new lump…  A lump of what?  The Latin word used in the Mass more specifically means “dough”, continuing the baking analogy that St. Paul is employing.  Because Christ our Passover is now sacrificed for us, everything has changed.  St. Paul tells us that we must “keep the feast (of Passover/Easter) not with the old leaven, but with the new unleavened dough” that befits the Christians of the New Testament.

Christ was indeed sacrificed for us.  We call the day it happened “Good Friday”, which by no coincidence happened to be the eve of Passover.  We are all familiar with Passover, that old Jewish feastday commemorating the deliverance of the Hebrews from the Angel of Death.  In the time of Moses, the Jews sacrificed the Paschal Lamb and sprinkled its blood on their doorposts to ensure their safety.  Now it was an even greater Passover Lamb, the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world” who would be their deliverer.  Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross was the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover, made evident by the rending asunder of the veil of the Jewish Temple at the hour of his death.  His Precious Blood was now the Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant, replacing the old covenant made with Abraham promising the coming of a Messiah.  The Messiah had come, and a new Covenant was made between God and his people.

The day after Passover has a special name in Jewish tradition.  It was called the Feast of Unleavened Bread and lasted for seven days.  In commemoration of their deliverance from their slavery in the land of Egypt the Hebrews purged all the leavened bread from their midst and ate only unleavened bread for a week.  As the feast of Passover was celebrated starting at sundown on Good Friday, it followed that the Feast of Unleavened Bread began at sundown on Holy Saturday, lasting until sundown on Easter Sunday and then continuing for the Octave that followed.  This is the reason the Church has chosen this section of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians for Easter Sunday and why it is so appropriate.

The Sacrifice of our blessed Lord is the central event of our Redemption, and thus of world history.  It divides time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, a time at which everything definitively changed.  What is the leaven we are purging from our midst at Easter, but what St. Paul describes as the “leaven of malice and wickedness?” And with what are we to replace the leavened bread that we used to be?  With the “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 

Easter then, is a time for change.  The keeping of the feast of Easter is not an invitation to return to a life of gluttony and sloth after our Lenten penances.  Rather it is the opportunity for us to put into practice the lessons our fasting and prayers taught us and herald in a new lifestyle focused on the sincere commitment to a new life focused on pleasing God.