A Pizza Run to Gino’s

Series on Old Testament Festivals and Sacred Days – Festival of Unleavened Bread
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Exodus 12:14–20; John 6:25-51 

[Many of the festivals and sacred days from the Old Testament don’t seem to be relevant for us today. They may have been significant for the Jews at the time, but not now. In this series, we’re going to take a closer look at the festivals and sacred days to learn what the significance was for the people of Israel at the time. And to learn what the significance is for us today.]

  

Flatbread pizzas have become very popular. Many eclectic restaurants will offer a flatbread pizza as an appetizer, or sometimes as an entrée. When I was in high school, we didn’t have flatbread pizzas. Instead, my friends and I went to Pizza Sams where they had the best thin crust pizza around.

 

During my college years, I discovered deep dish pizza. Unfortunately, the best deep dish pizza was Gino’s in downtown Chicago. Despite this, my friends and I made at least one pizza run from Lansing to Gino’s – a four-hour drive one way, but worth every minute of it.

 

Israel also had a flatbread. It was an important part of celebrating their freedom from slavery in Egypt. For 400 years they had been slaves when finally, the Lord was going to set them free. However, it was under the most terrible circumstances.

 

The Lord sent a plague upon Egypt where every firstborn male, both human and animal, would die. Israel was given grace by the Lord if they put the blood of a sacrificial lamb over their doorpost. By doing so, the Lord would Passover their house.

 

In addition, they were to eat a special meal that included unleavened bread – a flatbread if you will. These ceremonies of Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were to be celebrated from that day forward. It was to remind them of how the Lord had miraculously delivered them from slavery.

 

¹⁷ “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.                      NIV

 

But why unleavened bread? One reason is that it was known as the “bread of haste”. Since there was no yeast, it didn’t require time to rise. And because the Israelites fled Egypt so quickly, unleavened bread was perfect for making a fast escape.

 

Secondly, unleavened bread was known as the “bread of affliction”. Therefore, it was a physical reminder of the hardship, suffering, and bitterness of Israel’s bondage under Pharaoh.

 

In the New Testament, a different reason is given for using unleavened bread. Jesus warned his disciples about “the yeast of the Pharisees”. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church to “get rid of the old yeast”. In fact, yeast was normally used as a metaphor for a small, hidden sin that spreads and affects others.

 

However, Jesus turned everything upside down. After he fed the five thousand, the crowds tracked him down. They asked him for a sign and reminded him how God provided manna for their ancestors in the wilderness during the Exodus.

 

When Jesus told them the true bread from heaven would give them life, the crowds asked Jesus to give it to them.

 

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.  ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”                   NIV    John 6

 

Jesus didn’t differentiate between leavened or unleavened bread. But he declared that he was “the bread of life”. Therefore, my conclusion is that his bread is worth far more than a pizza run to Gino’s.

 

Copyright 2026 Joseph B Williams

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