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I'm Pastor Richard, and in today's sermon about the Passover, we travel from Israel's Exodus from Egypt all the way to the modern tradition of a scavenger hunt for Levin. What does the Passover mean for us today, and how can we make more room for the presence of God in our lives?

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Good morning, sisters and brothers. This morning's uh scripture reading will be taken from the Old Testament and taken from the book of Ezra. I'll be reading from verses 9, 19 to 22. Ezra 6, chapter 6, 19 to 22. The Passover celebrated. On the 14th day of the first month, the written exiles kept the Passover. For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together. All of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the written exiles, for their fellow priests and for themselves. It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. And they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them. So that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

I don't know. So we'll just move right into the context of things because it's easy to lose the context. And so uh the return from exile for Israel, it happened in more than one wave. And so we're in this uh first wave, which is seen in Ezra chapters 1 to chapter 6. So we're at the end of this uh first wave. And so we know it was the Persian king Cyrus who allowed Israel to return to their homeland, led by Zerabbabel. Uh we haven't seen Ezra yet. Uh he'll be in the picture soon. And we just had the second uh temple construction completed and dedicated. And so our story today, these few verses today, it takes place just a few weeks after the events of um the last few verses, the last passage we've had. And looking ahead, uh, I believe we have a bit of a change in our sermon series for Holy Week as we're coming up to Resurrection Sunday. Uh but when we resume and we come to Ezra chapter 7, we're going to be traveling in time 80 years. All right. So this is the last of that first section that we're looking at today. So if you're taking notes today, uh the these few verses break into three parts quite easily, and that's preparation, Passover, and participation in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And so we'll we'll go into each of these three parts today and see. All right, interesting, but what does it mean for us? Now I want to ask you as we look at preparation, all right? We're starting with preparation. Do you remember what it was like preparing to go out on a date? All right. Um, of course, even when we're married, I hope we're not stopping going out on dates. But especially uh in the younger years, wow, it was the emotions were really uh running high on the inside. You're excited about it. And on the outside, if you're gonna go out on a date, you really want to look your best. You want to look your absolute best. So uh you've got an agenda, right? You're gonna take a shower because nothing turns people off like stale sweat and body odor. All right, it kills the date right out the door. Uh and you want to get your teeth brushed nice and clean because if you've got a piece of spinach from lunch stuck in your teeth, that's not gonna be helping out the date, is it? Uh if your breath is bad, it's just a message saying stay away. So you you want to prepare yourself for this thing. You spend some time in front of the mirror, and you want maybe you're gonna apply some hair product, you want everything styled just right. Clothes have got to be the right clothes, you want to be looking attractive, you want to say, yes, I know how to match colors. I I'm not colorblind here. Uh maybe you're gonna pop in a breath mint, you're gonna make yourself all set. Preparation. Preparation, my friends, is very important. It is very important. And before the celebration of the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread, and later on we'll we'll hear there's something also the feast day of first fruits. Verse 20, it tells us that all the priests and the Levites had purified themselves, all of them, no exceptions. All right, there is preparation leading up to this Passover celebration. And furthermore, we we read in verse 21 that all those returned from exile and those Jewish converts who had kept themselves pure from the spiritually corrupt practices of the land, who had kept themselves pure from the spiritually corrupt practices of the land, all of them together, they'd prepared themselves for Passover. And so the Israelites, they took these festivals to be uh important and holy. This was some serious stuff for them. They took the practice of preparing and purifying themselves and their homes uh as something very important before taking part. Preparation was important. And so, first, what they would do is they would go throughout their home, top to bottom, from the front door to the very back, everywhere, and remove any and all yeast, any and all leaven from their home. And what'd they do with their yeast so that after the festival, after everything was done, they could still have it to make their bread rise? I don't know. I don't know what they did with their yeast. But what I can tell you very clearly is they removed it completely from their homes. And uh then they would take care to properly to clean themselves, to practice ritual purity, all right, because there was a lot of things that had been uh laid out for them. And one more thing that they would do, this is all leading up to Passover, part of their preparation, is they would uh it was quite common to give alms to the poor during this time. All right, so this was all sort of the preparation uh practice leading up to the Passover. Now I've got to tell you a story that I I learned about uh this act of leaven cleaning. Leaven is we're talking about yeast to make dough rise, all right? And apparently uh this is something still being practiced today, quite commonly in many places. And so after spending a couple of weeks cleaning the home from top to bottom, and after removing all the leaven, uh there's a modern practice uh among Jews of hiding leaven the night before Passover, hiding uh some bread that's been uh leavened, and they hide it the night before the Passover. And the practice varies a bit, but either the man of the home or perhaps the children or the youngest child uh they're gonna seek it out. It's like a treasure hunt, a scavenger hunt for leaven. All right? This is something that's done. And so they'll they'll go ahead and after they found it and remove the leaven, uh, be taken outside of the home, and uh it may quite likely be burned the next morning. This is part of the practice. And my sister-in-law is a missionary to Israel. So when I read this on the internet, the first thing I did was contact her. Is this real or is this just fake news? She said, Yes, this is real. There are different practices, not to say every family practices this, but yes, this is something still being practiced today. And so, depending on how it's observed, they'll take a candle or a flashlight and search out every room, looking to find any leaven that has been hidden. It really is like a scavenger hunt. And so before the hunt for the leaven begins, there's a blessing that will be uh pronounced. And then after the home has been emptied of the leaven, uh there's a pronouncement to be made that the home is now clean, and if there is any leaven in the home that they're unaware of, it has nothing to do with them. And so this is all part of preparation for the Passover. A scavenger hunt for leavened food. It's very interesting to me. Uh, for those of us here who are Chinese, all right, and for those of you who might be listening in, uh, we can most easily understand Passover preparation by thinking of the traditions we observe for Chinese New Year. Think about it for a moment. What do we do every year before Chinese New Year? You want your home to be in order, you want it to be all cleaned. Because when New Year begins, there shouldn't be any sweeping, right? We shouldn't be doing any sweeping or any cleaning on that first day because the tradition or the superstition is that whatever takes place on that first day is what you're going to experience throughout the year. Is that right? Is that how it works? And so uh we we want to set the tone, we want to set our expectations, wearing new clothes, wearing red because we want prosperity in the new year. Um we we have the the the futze, right? Upside down because we want to see blessing poured out for the new year. All the traditions, right? This is preparation for our lunar new year. Uh when we take the oranges, what do we say? When when so all these traditions, um, I hope it helps us to understand it's all about preparation. And in our passage in Ezra today, although it's very short and not much is said, behind the scenes in those verses, there was a lot of preparation taking place for them. And so uh this uh this Passover celebration, it took place on the 14th day of the first month in the Hebrew calendar, is what the scripture tells us. And for them, it wasn't just as we prepare for Chinese New Year, uh, but this was really part of their national identity as God's people. And so, if you had not prepared yourself, if you had not purified yourself, if you had not cleaned your home, you were not eligible to take place in the Passover celebration. And so, if that was the case, it would be almost as if despite everything, despite all your years of learning God's ways, of learning the law of Moses, of doing all the things that you're excluded from the people. And so the preparation was something very serious for them. Now, the Passover, we're moving to the Passover now. The Passover or the Seder meal is in remembrance of the exodus of Israel out of Egypt. And so I think most of us are familiar with the story, but we'll just briefly go over it in case you're not. This was at roughly the 13th century BC. All right, a bit some time ago now. The people of Israel, they did not have their own land at that time. They were living in Egypt, and they had been sort of channeled into forced slave labor, was the situation they are in. And so God, he had chosen Moses to lead his people out of Egypt and uh and out of slavery. And so Pharaoh refused to let them go. He would not let them go, and so through Moses, God demonstrated his power by enacting how many plagues? Ten plagues, right? Ten plagues uh upon the land, beginning with the turning of the water, the Nile River, into blood in Exodus chapter 7, and ending with the death of all firstborns, whether human or animal, in Exodus chapter 12. These were powerful, powerful acts of God performed through Moses, and only the Israelites were spared from the death of firstborns. Everyone else in the land there, the firstborns died. The Israelites were spared only by the blood of the Lamb. And we were singing uh one of the worship songs this morning, right? It was so good, so appropriate. I'm sure that was intentional, not accidental. Because it's only by the blood of the lamb uh that we are spared. And so each household, they took a lamb, they killed it at twilight. So after the last light of the day had faded, uh they they would slaughter this lamb, and they took the blood and they they spread it on the doorframe of their home. And so when the angel of the Lord came home by home, putting to death every firstborn, and among the animals outside as well, he passed over those who had put the blood of the lamb on their doorframe. And so this is how uh we call this observance the Passover. All right, so we're on the same page. And so every year the Israelites were to share a Passover meal, remembering and recounting how God had spared them, particularly during uh that final plague upon all the firstborns. And so during the Passover meal, uh the tradition, the way they are supposed to remember it, is they would eat lamb with bitter herbs, remembering the suffering that they had endured and how they'd responded to God's grace by smearing the blood of a sacrificial lamb upon the doorframe of their homes. And so if we think, coming back to Ezra, right, we must realize for Israel at that time how important the keeping of the Passover was. This was something very important for them, remembering that they have been set free from slavery in Egypt with such dramatic power in miracles. Now, this Passover meal or Seder meal, it continues to be practiced by Jews around the world, uh even up until today. Or rather, this year, the Passover begins after sunset on the 12th of April, and it'll last one week until uh what we would say is Easter morning, because for uh the Jewish culture the day begins at sunset. We also know today, here, that the Passover meal foreshadowed Jesus, right? Because he is the spotless Lamb of God who came to be the perfect sacrifice once and for all time. And like the Passover lamb, Jesus, he was innocent, and just as sacrificial lambs are to be without blemish, Jesus was entirely free from sin or shame. And it's because Jesus' blood was spilled as a sacrifice that God is willing to pass over us with the judgment of our sins. Apart from that, we have no way to get rid of that stain of sin. We don't have a way, it is only by the blood of Jesus. And so this is why we have our hope of eternal life rather than eternal enmity with God, because our sins have been covered and washed away. And so the Passover feast has already been fulfilled. Amen. That is why Jesus at the Last Supper, he explained to his disciples that the bread was his body, and the wine was his new covenant, was the new covenant in his blood. And so every time we celebrate holy communion together, we're remembering that this Passover and this Passover tradition, this Passover meal, it has all been fulfilled in Christ. Now, well, the Passover it began on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, which as I say is the 12th of April after sunset. And this is the first month in the Jewish calendar, all right? The feast of unleavened bread, it began the very next day on the 15th, and it lasted for seven days. And so on the first day and the last day of the feast of unleavened bread, the people of God they were to gather together. And for that entire seven days, they were to only eat bread that was unleavened, no leavened, no yeast would be in it. Alright. So, what was so bad about leavened bread? I don't know about you. I I love bread a lot. I when you bake your own bread and you get to rise very nicely, and there's those little nooks and crannies inside of it, and you toast it, and the butter can just sit in there. It's so good. What was so bad about leavened bread? Well, it was a reminder to all of Israel about how sudden their exodus from Egypt was. And they didn't even have time to let their dough rise before cooking it. They had to quickly cook whatever bread they could without yeast. In Singapore today, it can be a bit hard for us to grasp this. All right. We're quite far removed from how things were at that time. So please allow me to just explain just a little bit about this. Okay, the Israelites, they're suddenly escaping Exodus. But there were no canned goods. They didn't have canned goods, they didn't have a 5kg sack of rice. Uh, there was no McDonald's, there were not going to be any coffee shops out in the desert, there are no sources of food that could sustain such a large people. And they were a large people. God had blessed them. They had really been multiplying in Egypt. And so, although it was super urgent that they leave, they needed to bake whatever bread they could because otherwise they're gonna have nothing to eat the next day. Nothing. They're gonna be hungry, the adults would grow weak, the elderly would perhaps become quite faint, the small children were gonna begin to fade away, they needed something to eat. And so they made the bread quickly. They must have cooked whatever they could, baked whatever they could without yeast as quickly as they could. And so the feast of unleavened bread, it remembers this that God's mighty arm in freeing them, it was sudden and it was rapid that they were able to suddenly leave Egypt. And so in Ezra, we note uh in verse 22 that they celebrate this feast with joy. All right, it was important to uh to God, through the author, to write down, they celebrated it with joy. They were thrilled to have been delivered yet again. Right? Because we we're not in Exodus and Anymore, not in the book of Exodus in Egypt, but now they have returned out of exile under Cyrus in charge of Persia. And so this second Exodus that they've come back from and they've seen the temple rebuilt, and now they get to celebrate. Now they're able to, the altar's been rebuilt as well, able to make their sacrifices, and they celebrate with great joy this feast of unleavened bread because it had great significance to them. And they celebrated with joy. Now, as we come to New Testament times, yeast has become a symbol for corruption. And if you read through the New Testament, you'll see that in different places. And really, it's because that's what yeast does, it corrupts the thing that it's been put into. That's why when we mix it in with a flour and the water, these gases form, which causes the bread to rise. And so when Jesus told his disciples to beware the yeast of the Pharisees, he was telling them to be on guard against corrupt teaching. Alright? Yeast in New Testament times was equal to corruption. Now, although it's not stated in our passage today, we have on the 14th day of that first month, we have Passover. On the 15th day, the feast of unleavened bread begins. On the 16th day, we have what is called the feast of first fruits. And so on this day, a sheaf of barley would be prepared, which was a reminder of God's provision in the promised land. Barley, it's a lighter grain than wheat, and so it ripens earlier. So this would have been the first crop according to their calendar, the first crop of the year that was ripening. And so they would take that and bundle it together as a sheaf and wave it before the Lord as an offering of firstfruits. And this offering would be also accompanied by the sacrifice of a one-year-old lamb without blemish and defect. Each feast that Israel observed, it also included an offering of firstfruits, although the crop varied depending on the month it was celebrated in. And all the Old Testament feasts, we've got to look at it not just as a historical thing, but as something spiritual as well. Because all the Old Testament feasts, they pointed forward in anticipation of the promised Messiah and his ministry, that is Jesus Christ. And so, for instance, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 20, it says, But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. And falling asleep is a euphemism for death, right? So just as the first fruits of crops look forward to the full harvest, Jesus' resurrection, it looks forward to the full resurrection that's going to take place for all those who are found in Christ. And that is our hope. Amen, church? That is our hope. That one day, although we may die a physical death, but we will rise again with Christ, and he will keep us in God's presence for all eternity. That is our hope. And so just to summarize these few things this morning, following the completion and dedication of the temple, Israel prepared themselves for the Passover. That preparation included cleanliness, it included purity, and it included the removal of all leaven. The Passover was celebrated, slaughtering the Passover lamb, and they kept the feast of unleavened bread with joy. It was a joyful time for them. And so what is our takeaway this morning? All right, so so maybe we we know a little bit more about these feasts and things. What is the significance of the feast for us today? What's our takeaway? Well, first, that Christ is our Passover Lamb. It's only by his sacrifice that we can escape the death penalty for our sins. It's only through Christ. It's not going to be by doing good works, it's not by other things. It is only through the blood of Christ that we can escape that death penalty. Second, is in this season of Lent, I think it's good for us to give attention to removing spiritual leaven, right? Remember that in the New Testament, yeast means corruption. It's good for us to remove spiritual leaven from our lives, to remove everything that corrupts us from our lives. And third, just as they offered the first fruits of their harvest, it's good for us to continue to offer the fruits of our own labor, uh, which we do through our tithes and offerings, right? Uh today is the fourth Sunday of Lent. We're in our Lenten season, and Lent is a time for simplicity and for purity. It's a time of the year that we can focus again on these things. And decluttering uh during Lent isn't just about uh organizing our homes or making space on a shelf, but I believe if we take this opportunity during Lent to declutter uh our lives, it's a symbolic act and it resonates deeply with the core principles of this season. And so when we we clear out our physical clutter, our emotional clutter, we create a more intentional atmosphere for prayer. We create uh space for reflection and for growth. And so as we we do this, we we transform from our outward actions to the internal, to renewing our faith. And one way uh it's been said is we can think about this way holding on to clutter prevents us from fully appreciating the space that we have, much like holding on to our sin or guilt can block our relationship with God. So I would just like to bring to your consideration, church, and for you maybe listening online as well, as we're in Lent, it may be a good time to do a bit of cleaning out of your home. I I try to start on this to go into the closet to be a bit ruthless. Okay, I'm I'm not actually ever gonna fit into this again. I have to be honest. Or this has sentimental value, but am I going to be wearing it again? Maybe not to start to just to remove some clutter from my life. Um the task is a big one, but trying to clean out some of the papers from my work area is what just to declutter. Because I think that's one of the things we can do during Lenten time. We we look to simplify our lives, we look to take out some of the things that are unnecessary, and it's an act with a purpose because we want more of God in our lives. If you want more of God in your life, but you don't make space for Him, are we gonna have more of God in our lives? If we want more of God in our life, but we spill uh we fill every waking moment with appointments and meetings and obligation and our employment and eating and Netflix and Spotify and all these things, is there room for more of God in our life? So, church, I would just like to encourage you to consider is this Lenten period a good time to declutter our lives in whatever area it may be? And declutter not just to fill it up with other things, but to simplify, to to do it as an act of saying, God, I I want more of you in my life. I want my life to be simpler, I want to be able to hear your voice more clearly, I want my my prayer times to feel like there's open heavens. So, church, this is what I want to present to you this morning, and it's my prayer that uh as a people together, we'll be mindful about not overfilling our lives, but making space for God. I believe each one of us, we we want to experience his presence. We want to hear his voice, we want to know that he is close to us. So let's choose to live intentionally to make that space for him. Amen. We pray that you've administered too by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Ishan Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.