Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:6 – 8

Christians have festivals!  This is the real Festival that is life indeed.

It is a bit strange for us who seldom think about leaven.  I just take it for granted that leaven is just fine.

For the Jews, their history is marked with eating the unleavened and leavened bread.  To begin their feast, they removed the old leaven that they had in their kitchens – a huge decision, to get rid of leaven that they have been using.

The sacred writer explains that the old bread that is the result of the old leaven is contaminated with malice and wickedness.  That must go!  Then they are required to bake new bread without any leaven at all, it is sincerity and truth.

However we read this, the Lord is urging us to live in the newness of life that Christ made possible for us.