Holiness: Time to Clean the House

”Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders.” Ex. 13:7

During this season, as you talk to people in Israel you will very often hear the phrase, “ I am very busy cleaning the house and preparing for Passover”. In many homes the people are following God’s command that “nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you …”.  And so the tradition is to deep-clean the house from all yeast and filth, and for the father to “look” with a candle for any yeast that is left in the house and to burn it.

Today I was talking to someone on the phone, and I apologized for something I did against him. His reply was “ Repentance and forgiveness you ask for on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and not on Passover”. I replied “Yes, but what good is it if we just clean the house and not our hearts?”

Rabbi Sha’ul (Apostle Paul) put it this way when he wrote to the Corinthians: “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. 1Cor. 5:7 – 8

As many of us are preparing to celebrate Passover, as we deal with the busyness of cleaning the house, preparing for the Seder, spending time with our kids who are home for vacation, last minute work that has to be done before the Passover… or in other words, our day to day busyness, may I encourage us all to not forget the importance of cleaning the “yeast” from our lives. Clean the inside first so that we may live the Holy lives that the Lord has called us to live.

May we “Pass Over” and leave behind all of those things that keep us slaves to sin, and may our lives radically reflect the fact that we have been spared by the sacrifice of the ultimate Passover Lamb, Yeshua.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Passover!