Eternal Perspectives

If a pastor were ever so desperate as to allow me to speak on Easter morning, Paul’s above charge to the Corinthians would be my text.

Now, I recognize that the overflowing pews on Easter morning are a target-rich environment, a veritable killing field of an opportunity to preach the gospel to all those strange faces that find their way to church for this one Sunday out of the year. And because Easter is such a great social and cultural event in our country, most messages on that Spring morning tend to have an evangelistic thrust to them.

There is certainly nothing wrong with evangelistic messages, and preaching them to unbelievers is a good idea. But is Easter always the time for that? I didn’t become a Christian until I was 25 and, for the most part, only darkened the doors of churches on Easter mornings – if then. To be honest, though, I didn’t think there was much reason to come back on any other Sunday: every time I came to church on that one day out of the year, the message sounded a whole lot like the one I had heard the year before and the year before that and . . .

It made me wondered why people came every Sunday: didn’t they get tired of the same basic sermon week after week?

But now as a Christian (for 30 years) it seems to me that Easter – if it is to be singled out and celebrated on a particular day – should be an in-house event, something to be observed by those who are members of the Body of Christ because they have trusted in Jesus as their Savior. It should be a memorial for believers, not unbelievers.

This, however, seems to get lost in an effort to “get the gospel out” yet again to people who have already heard it so many times that they’re immune to it. For many it has become a yearly innoculation, kind of a spiritual flu shot: come to church on Easter Sunday, hear the gospel (or not hear it, more accurately), make sure nothing’s changed, and then go home with the confidence that you’re good for another year.

That is not what Paul’s command is about, of course: he was not telling the Corinthians to observe Easter and the resurrection of Christ. Nor is it a call to dwell on the true Passover Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world. The feast in view here is not Passover: that feast is over – “our Passover also has been sacrificed” – and the immediately following feast is what Paul is telling the Corinthians to observe.

The question, then, is what feast is he talking about?

To find that out, we have to look at the Jewish calendar and what followed Passover. Moses commands the Israelites in Ex 13.3-10 to observe the week-long festival in remembrance of their delieverance – salvation – from Egypt as a result of the Passover. They were to eat only unleavened bread; not only that, there was not to be any leaven anywhere within the community of believers during this time.

Leaven – or yeast – in the Bible is usually (but not always) a symbol of sin. Grain offerings at the Temple were not to contain any leaven, and when Jesus warned the disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, He was talking about their sinful influence. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was a call to eliminate sin in each Israelite’s individual life and in the corporate life of the nation.

Christ did not save us so that we might gorge ourselves with yeast-filled bread. A person might choose to do this as a Christian, but it is unbelievably stupid. It is to remain in the worst imaginable prison after the price for our freedom has been paid and we have been given the keys to the door.

What Paul is saying, and what the celebration of Easter should remind us of and call us to, is a life of holiness and purity. It is because we have been redeemed, forgiven of our sins, given eternal life, and made into a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit that we are to respond by setting ourselves apart from sin. We are not, as Paul says, to live a life characterized by malice or wickedness; we are to live in sincerity and truth.

(The order here is critical. An unleavened life is supposed to follow salvation, not be the means of salvation, and a leavened life affects our fellowship with God and other believers. It does not diminish or negate the efficacy of the blood of our salvation.)

Easter, then, should be a time to look forward and consider what should be our reasonable response to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is a day to examine ourselves carefully, to identify the leaven that may have slipped undetected into our lives, and to turn from it and walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called (Eph 4.1). It is a time to remember that we are not our own, that we have been purchased with a price, and that we ought to therefore glorify God in our lives (1 Co 6.20).

Even as the Israelites were to avoid leaven and to rid their nation of sin, so individual believers must turn from sin and to cleanse the church from sin. This is the feast to be celebrated following salvation.

Our Passover has been sacrificed. Our immediate response should be to celebrate with a life free from sin.