First of unleavened

My co-pastor Toby Sumpter wondered whether Matthew was up to something in describing the first day of the feast as the “first of unleavened” ( te prote ton azumon , 26:17).  It seems so.  The other gospels don’t use the same phrase; Mark says “first day” and Luke uses the word “feast.”

What might Matthew be up to?  Several possibilities.  First, protos is used here not as an adjective modifying “day” but absolutely, and as such it may carry the connotation of “beginning” or “initiation.”  ”In the beginning of the purgation of leaven” is not a translation, but it may capture Matthew’s thought.  Second, earlier in Matthew Jesus has used “leaven” as an image of both the kingdom (13:33) and of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (16:6-12).  That’s the leaven that needs to be purged.  (Perhaps, though, even the leaven of the kingdom has to be “cut off” and then reinserted.)

Why would Matthew want to remind us of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees?

The answer comes in the previous section of chapter 26, where Judas approaches the chief priests and elders and offers to betray Jesus.  Judas has been infected and permeated by the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees.  What could that mean?  Perhaps it means that he has been filled with the revolutionary zeal of the Pharisees.  Further, Pharisees, Luke tells us (16:14), love money, and Judas is willing to give Jesus up for a few pieces of silver.

Over the course of the days of the feast, Judas will be purged from the loaf of the kingdom.  That is one aspect of the beginning of the “un-leavening.”  But the other disciples will also be purged of any remaining attachment to the doctrine of the scribes and Pharisees, as they see innocent Jesus condemned to death.  At another level, it is through the death and resurrection of Jesus that Israel is purged of leaven, the false teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and is re-started with a new leaven, the leaven of the kingdom.