Mark 14:1-2 Unleavened Bread
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: April 5, 2018, Mark 14:1-2
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Now it was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The high priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus secretly and to have him put to death, because they kept saying, “This must not happen during the festival. Otherwise, there’ll be a riot among the people.”
(Understanding the Text) Passover is a one-day holiday commemorating the time in Egypt when the plague of killing the first born passed over the Israelite houses. The Festival of Unleavened Bread starts on Passover day but goes on for seven days. It commemorates how the Israelites left Egypt so quickly that they were told not to leaven the bread. Thus, both feasts commemorate Israel’s flight from slavery in Egypt.
(Revelation of God) Passover happened while they were still in slavery. They killed a lamb and painted its blood on the entrance to their home. Passover is a symbol of our rescue by Jesus’ death. The plague of death is coming to all humanity. This is the second death from which there is no return-oblivion. However, Jesus’ blood covers us and protects us from this oblivion. When the glory of God finally destroys everything sinful in the universe, when God finally withdraws His life-giving Self from all that is sinful, Jesus’ blood will protect us and keep us connected to the Father. Our connection to Jesus will ensure that we are remembered and protected.
(Understanding the Text) The feast of unleavened bread represents the way we live after we have been saved by Jesus’ death. I originally was thinking that the yeast is a symbol of sin. However, I see that the Bible actually speaks of two types of yeast. The old yeast and the yeast of the kingdom of heaven. In the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Israelites were leaving behind the yeast of Egypt. They were not to keep the Egyptian ways in their hearts. This type of yeast represents our old worldly sinful ways. In Matthew 16, Jesus warns against the yeast of the Pharisees which is their hypocrisy and false teaching. Paul warns against a similar kind of yeast. “Your boasting is not good. You know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough, don’t you? Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, since you are to be free from yeast. For the Messiah, our Passover, has been sacrificed. So let’s keep celebrating the festival, neither with old yeast nor with yeast that is evil and wicked, but with yeast-free bread that is both sincere and true” (1Co 5:6-8). Thus, the spirit of pride, self, and boasting are the yeast that can infect Christians and ruin us.
In Galatians, Paul compares circumcision and going back under the law to yeast. “Such influence does not come from the one who calls you. A little yeast spreads through the whole batch of dough” (Gal 5:8-9). He is using the comparison because we have come out of the old ways of trying to appease God through outward behavior and entered the new covenant of having the law written on our hearts. Thus, we have been transformed from the inside out by the yeast of the kingdom of heaven. For the Galatians to try to institute an outward behavior as a criteria to please God, was to distort their relationship with God. It meant that they believed that God would not accept them without meeting one specific behavior. In viewing God in this way, they were on the path away from knowing God rather than to knowing God. The yeast of the world was trying to enter and corrupt the relationship to Jesus that was transforming the Christians into creatures of heaven.
(Application) The two feasts start at the same time, but one extends longer. I think it is sort of like justification and sanctification. Justification begins our relationship with Jesus. That is when we become cleansed by His blood and connected to heaven. Sanctification is where the kingdom of heaven spreads into every part of our being crowding out the yeast of this sinful world. In sanctification, Jesus becomes more and more a part of our being until we are pure (which of course is a process that is never ending on this sinful world because the wild yeast of this world keeps trying to enter in). We cannot protect ourselves from the leaven of this world by constantly guarding ourselves and being under stress. The only way to be protected is to maintain our connection to Jesus and remain humble knowing that our selves are weak. This is why Paul and Jesus compare the yeast to pride, self-aggrandizement, and false teaching. These are the big dangers that can corrupt our relationship to God.
The Pharisees had been so corrupted by the yeast of self and their false ideas of God that they believed that plotting to murder someone would be pleasing to God. Somehow God had become a reflection of themselves instead of them reflecting God. His will was whatever was pleasing to them. Their concern about not murdering Jesus during the feasts was not even about pleasing God, but fear of other people’s reactions. The very people who claimed to be the best servants of God on earth were, in fact, not serving God at all as they were actually planning to murder the Messiah that God had sent to them to rescue them from the old system. They were slaves in Egypt still, yet they did not know it. They were in bondage to sin, but they were blind to their chains. They believed in themselves rather than in the Father they claimed to serve. They were so full of the yeast of sinful self that they had no connection to God. This is the danger that Jesus warned against–the yeast of self deception and lies about God. This was the same yeast Eve fell for in the beginning.
(Prayer) I pray to see You more and more clearly and love You more and more. I pray that the yeast of self-deception and this world’s lies will fall away from me. I want nothing to impede my connection to You, Jesus. I want to be with You.