Exodus 12:15 “For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.”

God was deadly serious about Israel keeping the yeast out of their bread at Passover. Even more, he wanted the whole house purged. Why?

Yeast offers us a natural picture or symbol of sin. As it feeds on and spreads through whatever has become its host, it has a corrupting influence. Its spread is difficult, if not impossible, to stop. And once yeast is introduced into a place, traces of it are everywhere. Actually ridding your house of all yeast is a daunting task. Today, devout Jews go through a ritual of “nullifying” any yeast in their homes twice in the twenty-four hours before Passover. In the ritual they renounce ownership of what little might remain because it is so hard to get rid of.

Is it hard to see why God would choose this to teach us about the nature of our sin? Ever try to get sin out of your life on your own? You could work at it your whole life and you would never succeed. Some people may feel that they only “dabble” in certain sins, but there is no dabbling in sin, is there. When I was a boy I liked to collect things. I dabbled in collecting rocks, collecting coins, collecting Hardy Boys mystery stories, and building models. When the time came, it was easy enough to give those things up.

You can’t pick sin up like a hobby and then put it down again. Long before you took hold of any particular sin, sin took hold of you and me. You know how difficult it is to shake your taste for attitudes or activities you know are wrong. And when we look at the broad sweep of sin in our lives, all the different parts of me that it has corrupted, all the nooks and crannies in which it lives and grows, we know its presence is everywhere. As yeast lives in bread dough, sin lives in people, people just like you and me.

So God had his people eat bread without yeast at Passover, a picture of the kind of people without sin who could be considered his own. But how many people qualify? All by itself, this picture would not make us more sure of God’s love. It would create more doubt and uncertainty. It would lead us to despair. How can we become such sinless people? Only one man ever lived whose life was not infected by the yeast of sin. He is God’s solution for our sin. In fact, he used the unleavened bread sitting on the table at his last Passover supper to give his sinless body to his disciples. That is better understood from another part of the Passover meal.

The Passover also involved the sacrifice of a lamb. This sacrifice was roasted and eaten by the participants. The perfect, innocent lamb sacrificed at the Passover was a picture of sinless Jesus. The Apostle Paul tells: “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.” Just as the Passover lamb died instead of the sinful people who offered it, Jesus gave his life to spare us from our sins. John the Baptist cried out, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

But how can I be sure Jesus’ sacrifice counts for me? I don’t see my sins vaporized after God tells me I’m forgiven. I wasn’t at the sacrifice when Jesus died on the cross nearly 2000 years ago. I didn’t even exist yet. I’m still committing sins every day. How can I be sure?

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, “Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?” The Passover lamb was more than a sacrifice. It was a meal. The people at the meal knew that they were partakers in what that sacrifice accomplished. They received the benefits of the sacrifice, that they had a personal connection to the sacrifice and its blessings when they ate the lamb. This was a personal and individual way in which they were involved. How could they miss the point that this lamb died for them as they ate the very flesh of the animal that gave its life?

Jesus’ sacrifice took place long ago, and it doesn’t need repeating. We didn’t get to see it. But our sin was present and paid for. Jesus’ sacrifice does count for me. And just to make us sure, God miraculously takes that same body sacrificed so many years ago, and he gives it to us to eat in the supper he sets before us at the communion table. It’s a personal and individual way by which he applies the forgiveness, life, and salvation flowing from Jesus’ cross to each of us.

Analogies for this are hard to think of, but consider this: I have a box of high school mementos at home which still contains a boutonniere from a high school banquet my wife and I once attended. It was a real part of that event that I can touch and see.

As interesting and meaningful as such a keepsake might be–more than a picture, but an actual artifact from the past– all it can do is conjure up a memory. It doesn’t actually bring me anything. In the feast Jesus sets before us, he does more than display an artifact from the past. He gives more than fond memories. We receive the body of God’s own Son. With it come God’s own promise of forgiveness and love. Here we see God’s real solution for the problem of sin, the sin he pictured as yeast, the sin our Passover Lamb removes.

Zechariah 9:10 “I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

If you know a little about Israelite history, you know that at the time of King David’s grandson Rehoboam, the nation was split in two. The northern kingdom, which took the name Israel, was sometimes referred to as “Ephraim” because that was the dominant tribe where the capitol city of Samaria was located. The southern kingdom was named Judah, and it was ruled from the city of Jerusalem. Sometimes the two nations had a peaceful coexistence, but they never liked each other much and often went to war.

The prophet Zechariah sees Jesus as the King who will put an end to the fighting between God’s own people. The weapons will be taken away from Ephraim in the north and Jerusalem in the south. They will live and act as one people once again.

Historically, the northern kingdom had pretty much disappeared from the face of the earth about 200 years before Zechariah. There was a little remnant of their people, but they never existed as a separate, identifiable state any more. What the prophet is giving us is rather a picture of the divisions among God’s people, internally–with each other, and the promise that Jesus will put an end to them.

Externally Christianity may still look very divided, with more flavors than Baskin Robbins. But spiritually, invisibly, we confess our faith in one holy Christian and Apostolic Church. Inwardly, faith in Jesus unites those who trust in him. We may not be able to see this yet, because faith is a hidden thing, a matter of the heart. We Christians may be forgiven, but we still struggle with sin and stubbornness and false beliefs that get in the way of our unity. Still, our King has given us his powerful word which attacks those divisive problems now, and the day is coming when “the battle bow will be broken.” All his true people will be gathered as one around his throne.

The benefits of living under this King are not limited to people living in one country or descended from one race. Part of the good news is that his reign is universal. “He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

Some people criticize Christians for spreading their faith and trying to change people who already have a religion. That’s because people on the outside of the Christian faith don’t understand what our King has to offer. If we were trying to provide clean drinking water or a cure for malaria in some other part of the world, no one would complain about lack of respect for other cultures and faiths.

Jesus brings something far better and far more important, and he is the only source for what he has to give. No one else, no other belief system, can provide free forgiveness of sins, peace with God, and life that never ends. That’s why this King is spreading his kingdom “from sea to sea,” and “to the ends of the earth.” Wherever the gospel is preached, and people are coming to faith, people of every color and nationality are getting the same King we have, and the same blessings he brings.

There is no greater peace people can share. There is no greater unity we can know.

Zechariah 9:9 “See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Candidates for office make a lot of promises about what they are going to do for you. Sometimes they would have to be king to be able to do all the things they say they are going to do. Mostly their term begins, and then it ends, and things stay about the same, at least in my experience.

When Jesus comes as King, he comes with no small promise in hand. He has salvation. He isn’t promising to rescue us from a bad economy, stagnant job growth, low wages, high taxes, global warming, Islamic terrorists, or a crazy dictator in North Korea. He brings salvation from our own sins. Have you slept with someone you shouldn’t? He forgives that. Ever lied to stay out of trouble? He pardons that, too. Have your actions ever broken up a family, cost someone their job, contributed to someone’s delinquency, shattered someone’s faith, separated close friends, or gravely disappointed your parents? Forgiven, forgiven, forgiven, forgiven, forgiven, forgiven.

You realize that this isn’t some insignificant political trick like preventing thermonuclear war or keeping the polar ice caps from melting. This is huge. By bringing salvation from sin, Jesus has just presented us with the cure for death, not just until the next time we get sick, but forever.

Put that on your average politician’s resume–the salvation of the world–and his head would swell as big as a small planet. But is that the kind of person we see riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday? The prophet says he is “righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey.” The Hebrew says something more like “lowly” or “humble” and riding on a donkey. Maybe “humility” is such an unbelievable trait after everything we have read about this King that even the translators have trouble translating it that way.

But it all fits the picture. Jesus was infinitely better than the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the lepers, and the other outcasts of his day. But he was not too high and mighty to attend their dinners, spend time teaching them, or heal their sick. Jesus was more than the rightful King of Israel. He was Lord and Master of the Universe, the most powerful man in the world. He had the ability to control the weather and modify the laws of physics. But he doesn’t enter Jerusalem on a white horse or in a golden chariot, the First Century equivalent of a limousine in a motorcade. He rides a donkey, the average man’s vehicle, the First Century Ford or Chevy compact sedan. This is not a King who is full of himself.

This makes him a King we can approach with confidence. Have you ever met someone famous and felt a little awkward, or intimidated, to be in the presence of such an important person? You’ve seen people become speechless when they met a favorite sports star, entertainer, or politician. You won’t find anyone any higher than Jesus, but you won’t find anyone easier to approach. Bring your requests, your sin and guilt, your desperate situations and deepest needs, and give it to him. He’s happy to hear you for as long as you want to talk, happy to help you with whatever issues you have, because he is humble and gentle even though he is truly a King.

Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your King comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Jesus did not come to be a political king. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he told Pilate. Yet it almost sounds like the prophet Zechariah is trying to whip up the crowd at the political rally. When he wrote these words, Israel had been without a king for about 80 years. They weren’t going to get one for another 500 years. This was largely because the kings of the past had failed God and his people. They acted out of self-interest. They neglected their own faith and the faith of their people. They turned a blind eye to injustice. They promoted immorality. After about 400 years of this, the Lord was done. He took away Judah’s independence and let them be ruled by other world powers. He was not going to give them a king again until he could give them a king who would get it right.

Jesus is that king. The prophet wrote words to assure his people a king was coming, someone they could trust. Here is how they could be sure:

The king is righteous. He is just. This doesn’t apply merely to the way he governs publicly. It applies to his private, personal conduct as well. In this, he is an exception of history. Even by watered-down human standards this is exceedingly rare.

Look at Israel’s kings, for example. The king who set the standard by which every other king would be judged, and even the Lord himself called him a man after his own heart, was David. But was David “righteous”? His personal life became a mess. Sexual scandals surrounding people in power isn’t a modern problem. David had his famous affair with Bathsheba. His children were out of control, like so many royal families who make the news today. Later in his reign his conceit got him tangled up in a self-promotion campaign that cost 70,000 people their lives. It cost them their lives! Yet David was considered the model, the sentimental favorite of the nation. After him they really see no one better.

We complain about the people who govern us. Most people I know complain about it a lot. Do you know why we can’t find better leaders, and historically that has been a problem? It is because those who rule are a reflection of the people they govern. The sex, the scandals, the schemes, the deceit, the greed, the self-interest–that’s not just a Washington problem, or a government problem. It describes what the human race has become. We are all about ourselves.

In a democratic system you can’t tell people that and still hope to get elected. But the Lord can say it. There’s a passage in Isaiah in which the Lord says, “Israel’s watchmen (that is, their leaders) are blind…they are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough… ‘Come,’ each one cries, ‘let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better.” That was their leaders.

Then Micah, who wrote at the same time, says, “If a liar and deceiver comes and says, ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’ he would be just the prophet for this people!” That’s the people (and their clergy). In other words, like ruler like people. It hurts to admit, but looking at the seedier side of those who govern is a lot like looking in a mirror.

So Zechariah gives us good news! We are getting a king, and he is righteous. He isn’t just relatively good, or better than most. “He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin,” the writer of Hebrew says. He is “the lamb without blemish or defect,” is the way the Apostle Peter put it. In John chapter 8 Jesus challenged his opponents, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” not because he was arrogant, but because he was actually pure. Right up to the day they condemned him to death, no one could answer his challenge, even when they paid false witnesses to lie about him, because the King we are getting is righteous.

Isn’t that the kind of king we need, the kind of leadership for which we have been looking?

Matthew 26:1-5 “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘As you know, the Passover is two days away–and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. ‘But not during the Feast,’ they said, ‘or there might be a riot among the people.’”

Jesus and his enemies seemed to agree on one thing as they got ready for the end of this week: “…the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” The chief priests and elders were plotting to kill him. Jesus intended to give up his life to save us. But neither understood the meaning of this in the same way.

Those against Jesus were convinced that a real Messiah would save his people by raising an army, restoring Israel to power, and leading the nation to victory. Even Jesus’ disciples couldn’t shake themselves free of the idea that salvation should include a free and secure Israel, and a great improvement in the national standard of living. The leaders were going to kill Jesus, but not to complete God’s saving work. This was their attempt to put a stop to the man they considered an imposter, and not a very convincing one at that.

The cross is so ingrained in the culture and life of the church that we may think we are on the same page as Jesus regarding his saving methods.  We nod our heads in agreement when Paul says in 1^st Corinthians, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

But don’t we still become guilty of looking at Jesus as though he were some political hero, a secular Savior? Does our chief plea become, “Make us safe and prosperous?” It’s not just the prosperity preachers on television. In order to be relevant, more and more preachers preach him as the Savior of your marriage, your career, your retirement funds, our nation’s prominence on the world stage. The cross figures less and less in such concerns. I would like a better marriage, career, retirement, and country to live in. The Jesus who secures my earthly happiness sounds good to me, too.

“But what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). You and I wouldn’t try to get rid of the Jesus who dies on a cross to pay for our sins and save our souls. But would we be content if he and his cross just faded away so long as we still had a Jesus with relevant ideas about improving our present lives?

“The Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” The cross is an indispensable part of Jesus’ work, the key component in his saving plan. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” “He forgave us all our sins,” Paul writes the Colossians, “having canceled the written code that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” Again: “God was pleased…to reconcile to himself all things…by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

On the cross Jesus is forsaken by his heavenly Father so that we can be accepted by him. From the cross Jesus shouts, “It is finished,” his work complete, our salvation accomplished, our souls secure. The cross is why the Apostle Paul could lay aside his own life, and stop obsessing about his own accomplishments, and frankly tell the Galatians, “May I never boast except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ.” It still deserves first place in our faith.

Matthew 26:1-5 “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘As you know, the Passover is two days away–and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. ‘But not during the Feast,’ they said, ‘or there might be a riot among the people.’”

“If only I could get control…” On the one hand, Jesus had already announced, “the Son of Man will be handed over…” At the same time, we hear of his enemies, “they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way…” Who was really in control of what was going on here?

It is hard to do something on the sly, to accomplish your goals by deceit and trickery, when your victim knows what you are going to do even before you do. First, Jesus announces he will be handed over. Then the chief priests and elders plot to arrest him in some sly way. It speaks volumes about who was really in control of everything. Jesus could have left Jerusalem at this very moment. If he stayed, the One who knew his enemies’ plans before they did had the ability to know all their movements. He could make sure he was never available, never where they expected to find him. He had slipped through their fingers before.

Beyond that, there was an even greater power into which he could tap. With just a word or two he brought dangerous storms to a complete standstill. Certainly he had the power to overcome whatever force the Jewish leaders used to arrest him and hold him captive. The appearance of control by Jewish and Roman authorities throughout Jesus’ suffering and death was only an illusion.

Would it surprise you if I admitted that I want control–control over my own life? I not only want to keep control from people around me, people who have different plans than I do, people who might use their control to take advantage of me. I would also like to control Jesus’ involvement in my life. I plot and I plan. Sometimes I even think that I have control, or I am gaining control. But it is all just an illusion. You and I have to act responsibly, but with our cooperation or without it, Jesus still has ultimate control over all that happens to me.

Isn’t that a comfort when we look at his plans for this Passover? As we review all that he suffered, as we sit at the foot of the cross on Good Friday and look up at his bruised and blood-drenched body, it is easy for us to forget that he is there because he wants to be. He chooses this, not because he enjoys suffering. It filled his soul with such dread that he pleaded with his Father in Gethsemane to take it away if possible. But it wasn’t possible, and so he chooses to let these men arrest him and commit all their crimes against him because it saves and serves us.

“The punishment that brought us peace was upon him,” the prophet Isaiah says. This is not because of some accident, not because God lost it for a little while, but because this was Jesus’ plan. He was in control of the process from the start to the very end. He still is. Don’t be afraid to let him take the wheel.

Hebrews 10:19-22 “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

Have you ever toured the White House? I once went as a chaperone for my daughter’s class. It was a bit of a disappointment. You get to walk through some hallways, a dining room, and a room for receiving guests. Then you are back out the door–no trip to the Oval Office; no peak at the living quarters or the Lincoln bedroom. These are exclusive locations limited to the President’s family, staff, special guests and visiting dignitaries.

Have you ever watched the Master’s Golf Tournament on television? In order to play on the course, you either have to be a professional golfer invited to the tournament, or one of only 300 members of the club who can join only by special invitation and pay tens of thousands of dollars in dues to belong. Otherwise, you are out of luck. It’s an exclusive place.

Perhaps no place on earth was ever as exclusive as the innermost room in the temple in Jerusalem, the “Holy of holies” or “Most Holy Place.” Three hundred and sixty-four days a year no one was in that room but God. It was his throne room on earth, the place where he promised to be present with the nation of Israel to hear their prayers and bless them. No one had the idea that the Lord was somehow contained by that room, or confined to that room. Everyone understood that God filled the universe. Still, he had chosen this perfect thirty-foot cube as the place where his grace and power would be present for Israel.

The remaining one day in the year the High Priest entered that room to sprinkle the blood of sacrifices on the ark of the covenant–first for himself, then for the people. He was the only one who could do this. The rest of the world’s population was required to stay on the other side of the curtain that separated this room from the rest of the temple.

This was intended as an elaborate and extended object lesson. It teaches us that our sins disqualify us to be in God’s presence. The man who lives in the White House is no better than I am. Neither are the members of Augusta National Golf Club. But the difference between me and the God who lived in the Most Holy Place is so great that it defies illustration.

“Who may stand in God’s holy place?” David once asked in a psalm. “He who has clean hands and a pure heart” he answers. But our hands are filthy, and not just because of all the germy surfaces we touch. These hands hit and hurt when they should help and heal. They take and keep when they should give and share. They reach and grasp for what they should reject and avoid. And that’s just the hands. The heart? That is polluted with desires that would mingle our spiritual sewage and toxic waste with God’s pristine and perfect stream of gifts and blessings. The heart prefers the sewage.

Until we have some grasp of the extent of the sin that disqualifies us from God’s presence at all, we won’t appreciate the privilege Jesus our Great High Priest has given: “confidence to enter the Most Holy Place.”  

The Most Holy Place in the Jerusalem temple, where God lived with his people and blessed them, ceased to exist when that temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. It has never been rebuilt. But that is not a problem.

Why find God in a building, a little room, sort of an outpost for God’s presence, when Jesus has given us direct access to the throne room in heaven? That is the real “Most Holy Place.” We enter this throne room in spirit. By faith we find everything the Jewish high priests found in the temple and more. We stand in the presence of the one and only God. He loves us as his very own people. He promises to answer every request we make. He empowers us to live meaningful lives full of value and purpose. He transforms even our deaths into a doorway to life that never ends.

Like the high priests of old, we come into the Most Holy Place carrying the blood of a sacrifice. But it is not a goat that died to get us in. It is the blood of Jesus himself. His death pays for the sins that should otherwise exclude us.

Like the priests of old we step through a curtain separating our world from God’s. But it is not made of cloth. It is Jesus’ own body, God made flesh, where our two worlds meet. And in Jesus this “curtain” no longer emphasizes separation, but entrance. He is the way through, the way in. He gives us access to the most exclusive place and privileges in the universe.

John 3:18 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

Judgment Day is still in the future. On that day God will begin the public trial of mankind. He will present the evidence, good and bad, for each human being. He will pass sentence. The verdict will be final. There is no court of appeal from that court.

That trial isn’t so much for God as it is for us. He already knows every individual outcome. We, and everyone else who ever lived, will be the ones learning for certain where each stands at the last judgment. Jesus tells us that as far as God is concerned, we are all living under our verdict right now. As people who believe in God’s Son, you are living under his love in your salvation every day. But anyone who does not believe “stands condemned already.” Such people are simply killing time until the final sentencing.

Yet, so long as there is life, there is time to come to faith and change God’s verdict. So what stands in the way? So many people who know what is at stake, who know who Jesus claimed to be and what he came to do, resist believing in him. Jesus gives us a little peek into their hearts: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (John 3:19-21).

People fear what the truth of Jesus will expose about them. That’s not just those who are guilty of some scandal. Most of Nicodemus’s colleagues among the Pharisees lived externally moral lives. Yet Jesus exposed the corruption inside of them–selfishness, lovelessness, arrogance. Two years later he was warning them, “If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.” They didn’t want to be common sinners in need of God’s grace and Jesus’ saving work.

American founding father Ben Franklin wrote a rather famous letter just weeks before his death. In it he confessed his doubts about Jesus’ divinity and general disinterest in the topic. When he died, he confessed, the question would be answered for him. No doubt he wasn’t more concerned about Jesus in life because that would have meant confronting his many affairs and promiscuous lifestyle, among other things. How many multitudes today don’t simply avoid the light because that would expose and overturn a belief system or lifestyle that is comfortable and cozy with our culture’s broken moral code?

“But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light…” because they can take credit for being so good and superior themselves? No, “so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” We have to give credit where credit is due. Faith in Jesus brings real change in those who believe. But any good that comes to light is God’s own work in us, evidence of faith, not a reason to think we don’t need to be saved by God’s one and only Son.

I need what Jesus is giving: not just advice, not a vague sense of inspiration, not a solution for some trouble spot in my life. I need rescue from sin. I need the love of God. I need a life that never ends. That’s why God gave his one and only Son, and why we believe in him.