Grace Lutheran Church Easter Sunrise Sermon, April 16, 2006

The Rev. Evan Gaertner

Easter Sunrise "The Sweet Bread of Easter"

April 16, 2006 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

God sent Moses to the Israelites to set them free from the slavery of the Pharaoh in Egypt. When God was about lead the Israelites out of Egypt he instructed them in how to eat the Passover meal the night they started. An angel of death was going to come over the whole land of Egypt and kill the first born of all those whose homes had not been painted with the blood of the lamb. Annually the Hebrews would celebrate the Passover as remembrance of God's deliverance that last night in Egypt. The feast was celebrated for seven days. An urgent part of the Lord's command was that on the first evening of the festival all of the leaven and leavened bread were to be taken out of the home and no leavened bread was to be eaten for the seven days. Only unleavened bread was to be eaten during the feast.

In the original Passover meal they were to include no leaven in their bread because the leaven would take time to rise. But this meal was to be eaten dressed for travel, shoes on, ready to go. The bread they carried with them as the left Egypt for the wilderness and Promised Land was not supposed to have any of the leaven they had purchased or secured or made in Egypt.

In terms of making bread leaven is an agent that causes the bread dough to rise. Yeast is an example of a leavening agent. Yeast nowadays can be bought in any grocery store and kept for a long time before it is used. But it used to be that a portion of the unbaked dough would be set aside to ensure a supply of leaven for the next batch of bread. That set aside dough would then be folded into the next batch so that the new batch would rise. Each batch of bread would contain a portion of the old bread dough.

The apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians admonishes to live in the new life of Christ by saying, "Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened."

Paul uses the images of the Passover feast requirement to clean out the old leaven from a household when talking to the Corinthians to help them understand the true character and purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

In the first Passover celebration, which Moses commanded, the lamb was sacrificed and eaten by the family. The blood of the lamb was painted on the door posts and lintel. The angel of death passed over the home because of the promises of God that were believed by the people.

With thoroughness the house would be searched for leaven to get rid of it. Paul encourages us with the same thoroughness to participate in the New Testament that Jesus Christ gives us by thoroughly purging our lives of the old leaven, which he defines as malice and evil.

Paul explains the kingdom of Christ in terms of the Passover because Jesus Christ is the true Passover lamb that has been sacrificed to take away sin of the world. Just as in the first Passover the blood of the lamb marked the home as people of God's promise. The blood of Christ marks us by faith as people of God's promise. The blood of Christ that we are marked with is not only colored by his death but also alive with his resurrection.

Christ is in all and through all his believers.

Christ is the free gift of life. He is alive. He has defeated death and gives to us freely this new life of victory. To those that have heard the gospel and believe in Jesus: You are invited to eat this sweet festival bread of Easter. Everything that is foreign to Christianity in both doctrine and practice should be purged from our lives. Do not smear the sweet bread of life that is yours by faith in Jesus Christ by folding, mixing, including, into this new life the malice and evil of your old life.

It is the nature of leaven that even a small quantity that is mixed with a lump of bread dough will spread through and fill the whole lump.

False doctrine and wicked living that is allowed to be folded into your new life in Christ are not harmless. Christ is alive to give us the new life of a restored relationship with our heavenly Father. This new life and restored relationship were necessary because sin had irreparably harmed our relationship with God. Indeed apart from the grace of Jesus we cannot have a relationship with God.

The fate of the church in Corinth would have been destruction if Paul had not called them to repentance, to stop putting old leaven into their relationship with Christ.

Evil entrenches itself into our lives. We self-justify our behavior and stop putting the magnifying glass of God's law upon our actions. Unstopped evil has the power to pull us away from God and to trust in our own righteousness.

Old leaven, even a small portion, that is mixed into a new lump of dough soon spreads throughout the bread dough to the point that it cannot be separated. The new lump infected by the old leaven cannot be refashioned into something desired. It must be thrown out. There is no room for compromise. We are dead in our sin. We cannot fix our relationship with God. It is broken on account of our sin. The wages of sin is death.

But why does Paul tell the Corinthians to cleanse themselves of the old leaven of malice and evil? Because they are a new and unleavened lump of dough.

Easter is not a celebration of pulling out of our lives our sin. Easter is a celebration that we are given a new life in Christ Jesus. We are a new lump of dough.

Thanks be to God that Jesus Christ died on the cross. He became the leavened dough that is thrown out in the beginning of the Passover festival. He was thrown out on account of our sinfulness. He mixed into himself the punishment of sin, death, and the devil upon the cross, though he was innocent. True God and true man, his sacrifice was given in sincerity and truth. He was accepted by our heavenly father and so was made alive. Jesus is alive. He is a new lump of bread dough and He gives this to us.

Even while we are declared to be a new unleavened lump of bread dough we are at the same time admonished to cleanse ourselves of the old leaven. How can these two things be true at the same time?

This is the Christian life. The Christian life is born through faith in Christ. You are born again into a new life through your faith in Christ. Easter is the celebration of the new sweet bread of life that Christ gives to us by grace. But yet something of the old life remains. We are at the same time given the new life of Christ Jesus by faith and constantly working and striving to wash our lives of whatever sin remains.

Through faith in Christ we have a new life declared to us. Our old leaven, our old sinfulness is forgiven, and not counted by God against us. The good news of Easter is that Jesus is no longer dead. He is alive. Because his life is victorious, we are victorious, the angel of death has no power over us. Feast upon Christ. He is the sweet Easter bread of life.

Soli Deo Gloria

Grace Lutheran Church

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