Celebrating the Festival of Christ’s Passover

Easter Sunday| 1 Corinthians 5:6-8| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| April 20, 2025

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)

The Old Testament Passover feast was connected to the seven-day long Feast of Unleavened Bread. Israel celebrated their first Passover in Egypt, when they sacrificed their Passover lambs at twilight, smearing the blood of the lambs on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, so that when death passed through Egypt, killing the firstborn sons of Egypt, he would pass over the houses of the Israelites, sparing their children. The day of Passover was the first day of Unleavened bread. For the Passover, the Israelites were to cleanse out the leaven from their houses, and then keep their houses clean of leaven for seven days, eating unleavened bread. This is why the bread we eat for Communion is unleavened, because Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper at the Passover, where only unleavened bread would be eaten.

Year after year, the Israelites would celebrate the Passover with the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. By cleansing the leaven from their homes, they were reminded that they were cleansed from the idolatry and sin of Egypt. The leaven represented the uncleanness of Egypt. They were not to take any of it with them into their new life as free children of God.

St. Paul tells us that Christ is our Passover Lamb, who has been sacrificed for us. This teaches us that the Passover Feast of the Old Testament was a prophesy of Christ, which He fulfilled. Jesus’ blood now marks the doorposts and lintels of our hearts, so that death and God’s judgment pass over us, so that we may live as free children of God in the promised land! The celebration of Easter replaces the celebration of the Passover, because Jesus has shed the New Testament of His blood, abolishing the Old Covenant, as Hebrews 8:13 states, “In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” Christ’s resurrection proves that all the Old Testament festivals and sabbaths are fulfilled in Him, because He has done what none of them could do. He has taken away our sins and grants us eternal life through faith in Him.

Yet, St. Paul points out, if we are to celebrate the Passover Sacrifice of Christ, we must also celebrate the New Testament Feast of Unleavened Bread, that is, we are to cleanse out the old leaven, because we are a new lump of dough! We must not keep any of the old leaven from before Christ’s blood was smeared on our hearts. Yet, by leaven Paul does not mean yeast, which the Jews swept from their houses and scoured between surfaces to cleanse from their homes. Rather, Jesus and His apostles teach us that leaven is whatever opposes the Christian life, whether false doctrine or immoral living.

Jesus told His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, referring to their false teachings (Matthew 16:6). St. Paul calls leaven malice and evil. In this context, he is writing to the Corinthian church, because they were tolerating a member of their congregation committing gross fornication. He tells them to deliver this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his soul might be saved on the Last Day. By this he shows concern for the man’s soul and teaches the congregation to bring him to repentance. But then he also warns the congregation, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” By this he warns them that a congregation that tolerates open sin without repentance will be overcome with sin. As yeast spreads through a lump of dough, so open sin spreads through a congregation. This applies not only to a congregation, but to the individual. If you do not daily cleanse yourself of your sin, then your sin will overwhelm you and control you.

The Corinthians misunderstood the message of Jesus’ resurrection. They thought that since Jesus had set them free from the consequences of their sins, that they were free to sin! But they were greatly mistaken! St. Paul wrote of Christ’s death and resurrection to the Romans in this way, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:8-11)

As the Passover Feast resulted in Israel leaving bondage in Egypt, so that they could not bring the yeast of Egypt with them, so also our Passover Feast results in us being free from bondage to sin, so we must not bring the yeast of our former bondage with us. Rather, we must cleanse out this yeast every day. As we learned on Thursday night, we though many have become one loaf of bread by joining ourselves to the one Bread of Life Christ Jesus. This Loaf of Christ is unleavened, free from the leaven of false doctrine, malice, and wickedness.

Christ’s death for our sins has not only rescued us from the consequences of our sins, death and damnation, but from sin itself. We will live and reign with Christ in righteousness and purity forever! As Christ is risen from the dead, so also will we rise from the dead. And as Christ does not live to sin, but lives to righteousness, so also, we will live to righteousness in our new perfected bodies forever. We will forever be free from jealousy, pride, arrogance, laziness, sexual lust, drunkenness, hatred, greed, and every vice. Rather, we will live in perfect peace with one another, loving each other as God has always intended. That is what our resurrected life in resurrected bodies will look like. We are a new lump of dough in Christ Jesus, keeping none of the leaven of our old lump.

And what St. Paul teaches us is that we are a new lump now! Today! If you are celebrating Easter, you are celebrating the sacrifice of Christ the Passover Lamb. That means that you are cleansing out the old leaven today. There is no other way to keep the festival. Obviously, you cannot keep yourself sin-free. There is no man alive who does not sin. St. John reminds us, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8) But John’s point is not that we just put up our hands and shrug saying, ‘Well, I guess I’m just a sinner, so I might as well keep on sinning,” Like a mother who doesn’t change her toddlers muddy clothes, because he’s still in a mudpuddle. Rather St. John exhorts us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

A Christian’s response to sin is always to purge it. This means to avoid it at all costs, praying, “Lead us not into temptation,” as Jesus teaches us to pray daily. And when you do fall into sin, as no one living can live without sin, to repent of that sin and drown it in the forgiving blood of Jesus. But a Christian does not accept sin as a welcomed part of his life.

Why doesn’t a Christian accept his sin? Why don’t we just let ourselves do what we want, indulge our flesh, live for this world, neglecting God’s preaching and Word, indulging in sexual immorality, taking Christ’s forgiveness as a free pass to sin? Because Christ has made us into a new lump! And if we embrace these sins and do not cleanse them from us, then we will return to being an old lump, which must be discarded with its filthy leaven. St. Paul warns us, “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21)

Now Christians struggle with this for some reason. They know that we do not save ourselves. We are all sinners, but Christ has saved us from our sins. Yet, we are taught that we must flee from sin and purge it from our lives. This confuses some Christians. How can we purge something that Scripture tells us we will always have in this life? And why cleanse ourselves of sin, if Christ forgives our sins? Yet, when Scripture teaches us to cleanse out the old leaven from us, that is, to repent of our sins and turn from them, it is teaching us nothing less than to believe in Jesus! Believe that Jesus has died for your sins! Believe that He has cleansed you and made you into a new lump, indeed, has joined you to the one Lump of Christ.

No, you cannot completely remove your sin from you, just as you cannot remove all the dirt from your house. Yet, there is a great difference between dirt that lies around the house and dirt that is swept into the dustpan and is on its way to the trash. The Christian life is a life of such sweeping. Israel celebrated the Passover once a year and the Feast of Unleavened bread for seven days. We celebrate the Passover always. Every day as a Christian is a celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for we daily repent of our sins and turn to Christ.

This may seem exhausting to the lazy who are not bothered by their sins. But this is indeed very comforting. Your sins are the cause of your death and damnation. Yet, Christ has provided you a means to cleanse yourself from them. Without Christ’s sacrifice for our sins, we would be able to do nothing with our sins except move them around superficially but always be polluted with them. Yet, since Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed, we can actually remove our sins from us. We have a place to put them! We are able to sweep up our sins, that is confess them, and God actually forgives them! You are able to daily take your sins and place them on Jesus, and His blood washes them away forever!

We celebrate the Passover every Sunday, when Christ our Passover Lamb’s blood is smeared on our hearts through the preaching of the Gospel and through eating His body and blood in the Sacrament. And then for our seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, we daily sweep our sins from our hearts and pour them into Jesus’ blood until we return to celebrate the Passover the next Sunday. This is the Christian Life. This is how we celebrate Easter. Our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. Let us celebrate with sincerity and truth today and always. Amen.

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!