The Feast of Unleavened Bread: A Ridiculously Long Week

by Rod Thomas | The Messianic Torah Observer

My Struggle With Time 

One of the many things I struggle with in this life is the issue of time.Time is an enemy. It is often stressful. There never seems to be enough of it to go around. Time moves by so swiftly. And I often find myself fearful of wasting it; losing it; time consuming events popping up on me suddenly.

Leveraging Time

The most successful of us in this life leverage time to our advantage (in the secular world):

  • Investments
  • Education
  • Careers
  • Families
  • Relationships
  • Health

 Time Seems to be On Our Side When We Are Young

Indeed, when we’re young, time does seem to be on our side. But it’s not until you get to the latter part of your life that many of us have not leveraged time as we should. And far too many of us come to the conclusion that time is no longer on our side. In fact, time suddenly becomes an enemy. In the secular world: did I put enough money away for retirement; did I take care of my health well enough; did I foster relationships as I should; did I raise my children properly; did I treat my wife the way I should have; achieve all I set out to achieve? When career was my focus in life, I worried about all those things and now having retired, I recognize that I did not leverage time as I should.

Maybe I Squandered My Time in my Youth

Looking back, I see now that I often squandered time. In fact, I did not use time well. I messed up in a lot of places in my life because I did not leverage or use the time allotted to me by the Almighty as I should.

Time is Precious 

I’m particularly sensitive to time as it relates to our Faith. We’ve been allotted just so many years of this life:

Psalms 90:9-10–“For all our days pass away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh. [In fact] The days of our years are seventy; and if any by strength live eighty years, yet their pride is labor and vanity; for it soon passes and we fly away.”

Time Does Matter to YHVH, but Moreso It Should Matter to Us

Time matters to Father–but time matters greatly for mankind. Father created time to achieve His purpose in the earth
Remember the time the Israelites made and worshiped the golden calf after they had covenanted with YHVH to be their Elohim and after seeing the mighty wonders Elohim performed on their behalf. Abba told Moshe:

“I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Let Me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they” (Deuteronomy 9:13, 14).

Father didn’t say to Moshe that He’d wasted His time on Moshe’s brethren and to just forget the whole thing. He proposed to start over with Moshe and get it right the next time–THAT WOULD TAKE A LONG TIME. What about when the spies returned from scoping out the Promised Land and they reported the presence of giants and caused the people to refuse to enter and take the Land as He had commanded them to do.

So what did Father do? He postponed the people entering the land for 40 years–until the generation that left Egypt died in the wilderness. 40-YEARS IS A LONG TIME TO GET IT RIGHT.

Thus Father instituted the Feast Days in His Torah. These are all time sensitive. For the Feasts and Torah are shadows of good things to come according to the writer of Hebrews.

The Feasts Outline Father’s Plan of Salvation for Humankind

We recognize that the Feasts of YHVH, among other things, is a beautiful outline of the Plan of Salvation–Redemption–Restoration for mankind from start to finish:

  • Passover–The sacrifice of Messiah for the sins of the world.
  • Unleavened Bread–Illustrating the elimination of sin from our lives.
  • Shavuot/Pentecost–The receiving/imparting of the Holy Spirit in the lives of His people and the final touches to preparing His people to enter His Kingdom.
  • Trumpets (Yom Teruah)–The return of Messiah to establish His Millennial Reign upon this earth.
  • Atonement/Yom Kippurim–Ridding of the planet of the Enemy–hasatan.
  • Tabernacles/Last Great Day–The 1,000-year reign of Messiah–the final judgment of mankind and the world–The New Heaven and New Earth.

Each Feast Has a Defined Time 

Each of the Feasts on the Creator’s Calendar occurs at a time and for a duration that Father alone determined. To me, this is all beautifully laid out and I look forward to each and every one as it comes. But one thing intrigues me about the feasts: and that’s the time Father has allotted for them: For Pesach (Passover)–Firstfruits–Shavuot (Pentecost)–Trumpets (Yom Teruah)–Atonement–Last Great Day (Shimeni Atzeret) are just one day moedim or feast days.

The Two Week-Long Feasts

Yet Unleavened Bread and Tabernacles are 7-day observances and celebrations. Why? Why not just 1 day for these festivals. The impact these have on the lives of God’s people is always something that one is forced to deal with: jobs–families–life situations. It requires alterations in our lives–major in some cases.

For most of us, Tabernacles is a much appreciated Feast. We get to leave our homes and go to hotels or other places where we set up temporary abodes. We get to be reunited with friends and family. We get to have a wonderful time of celebration: usually great teachings–activities–food–talking, talking, talking–food–sleeping. Our focus is on the Millennial Kingdom and the World Tomorrow–A VERY POSITIVE/DESIRABLE FOCUS. It often seems as though it’s over before it’s begun and we are sad to have to leave and return back to our day-to-day lives.

But then there’s Unleavened Bread. It’s NOT LIKE TABERNACLES/SUKKOT. For we are required to eat unleavened bread and NOT consume any leavened products for 7 long days and take off from work 2 of those 7 days. For many of us who love baked goods, it’s a very difficult and challenging time. Our focus in terms of the spiritual is ridding sin from our lives: NOT A VERY POSITIVE FOCUS. In fact, when we look at this thing from a carnal perspective: The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a RIDICULOUSLY LONG WEEK.

Why Is The Feast of Unleavened Bread a 7-Day Observance?

Why not 1 or 2 days for this feast?

To the carnal mind it seems natural to wonder why Father places such a burden upon the people He claims so much to love.

Apart from the obvious reason: YHVH IS SOVEREIGN AND HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE CHOOSES TO DO; or simply: BECAUSE YAH SAID SO! 

Yeshua informed us that our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and Scribes in order to be permitted entrance into the Kingdom of YHVH (Matthew 5:20). In other words: As Yeshua’s disciples, we must exceed the standards of righteousness that the Pharisees placed upon their disciples.

 The Feast of Unleaven Bread Illustrates a Journey Every Disciple Must Take

This is a journey to perfection. For YHVH set and provided for us the standards of perfection by which we must live. As well as He gave us His Son, Yahoshua, as the very image of those standards of perfection. It’s not about Yeshua keeping Torah perfectly during His earthly ministry so that we today don’t have to. Indeed the the fundamentalists contend this to be the case, which they say is the basis for their outright rejection of Christians keeping Torah.

 Yeshua Clarified and Elevated the Meaning of the Feast For Us

However, this is about Yeshua clarifying, elevating, explaining and modeling Torah for us–the standards of perfection requires of His children. Furthermore, just after Master departed this world, He sent us Father’s Holy Spirit (ie., Father’s Ruach haKodesh) to help us in our journey towards perfection. (And the Spirit of the Almighty enables us to overcome this sinful existence and live the life abundance that Master preached and taught about.) 

BUT WE STILL MUST PUT IN THE WORK TO ACHIEVE PERFECTION–NO FREE LUNCHES.

 The Standards For Entry Into the Kingdom of YHVH Are Very High

Thus, Father says to us, look, I’ve given you the standards by which I require you to live by in the form of Torah. Here’s what living by those standards look like in the person of My Son, Yeshua. And oh by the way: knowing that you will encounter difficulties living up to those standards by virtue of your flesh, I will endow you with My Holy Spirit. All you have to do is ask for it and you will receive. But you got to let my Spirit take control of your life, otherwise, you will stumble and never achieve the standards I’ve established and expect you to meet.

Now go and walk and live out those standards. There’s no excuses for not living the perfect life.

BUT THE PROCESS FOR ACHIEVING PERFECTION TAKES TIME. In fact, it takes a lifetime.

The Feasts Embody Life Processes in the Great Plan of Salvation

Father gave us two 7-day feasts–Unleavened Bread and the Sukkot. Both foreshadowed and embodied processes and journeys that mankind would go through towards perfection:

  • Unleavened Bread would be a journey and process towards living a perfect life THAT IS WHOLLY AND ACCEPTABLE TO YHVH (the sanctification process).
  • Tabernacles would be a journey whereby creation would be brought back to its original perfect state, to be returned to Father on the Last Great Day (aka Shemini Atzeret) in that perfect state.

 The remainder of the moedim or set-apart days are inserted processes and events in the great work of redemption, restoration and salvation: Passover–Yeshua atones: Pentecost–My Holy Spirit; Trumpets–Yeshua coming back; Atonement–I’ll deal with satan; Last Great Day–A New Heaven and New Earth. (Father takes care of these things for us!) 

BOOM!

 As it relates to Unleavened Bread, however, the process of sanctification by which we are required to endure takes time and has a lot of twists and turns embedded in it.

 The Answer to Why The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a Ridiculously Long Week

Why is the Feast of Unleavened Bread a ridiculously long week? Because the process for sanctification takes a lifetime to complete.

Abba demands perfection in His people. But Abba knows that achieving that perfection takes time.