Many years ago, an old friend of mine used to hate unleavened bread. He actually ate very little bread anyhow, and could cheerfully have gone seven days without any bread at all. But he forced himself to eat some every day for seven days. Why?

Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters.

Most of us, myself included, tended to look at this command in terms of abstinence rather than the positive act of eating. I always did have some unleavened bread every day during the festival, but then, I had bread every day anyhow. Then there came the day when the new leader of our old church issued a proclamation from on high that it was not necessary to eat unleavened bread every day. One merely need abstain. When he handed down that dictum, we knew there had to be something wrong with it, so we both took a new look.

The command in the Bible was quite explicit. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord. That’s where we are today. And since God was quite capable of saying “Thou shalt not eat’ then it was worth asking why. As I recall, that’s when I started looking more closely at John 6 in connection with the days…