Happy and Holy

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This is a message that was given based on 1 Corinthians 5:8, and it was used for a worship service that included communion service.

Written Excerpts:

Today we are going to be sharing the sacrament of communion at the end of the service.

Several months ago I had made a note to myself to check out this passage of scripture in 1 Corinthians 5 as a possible text to explore for a communion service.

I have chosen the title, “Happy and Holy” because I think this passage expresses the ideas of both happiness and holiness in the life of a Christian, and more specifically in the lives of those who are partaking of the sacrament of communion.

There is one main verb in verse 8. It is the verb that is translated with the words, “let us keep the feast.”

One source that provides a strictly literal translation offers this reading, “So that we may be festivalizing.”

Or, more appropriately in proper English, “we may continually keep the festival.”

My message today is primarily based on this verb and the qualifying clauses that follow it. When we read the verse, it seems to be giving us the exhortation to keep observing the festival (i.e. celebrate and enjoy the full meaning), but to observe it with a lifestyle that is consistent with God’s call to holiness.

Therefore, with the help of the Holy Spirit today, I would like to speak to you for a little while on the topic of “Happy and Holy.”

I. Happiness is implied in the exhortation.

v. 8 – “Let us keep the feast” (KJV, NKJV) or “Let us celebrate the festival” (NLT)

What festival is the Apostle speaking of?

The opening word in verse 8 refers us back to the previous verse, where we see that Paul has made a reference to Christ as our “Passover” or in some translations, “Passover Lamb.”

(The AMG Concise Bible Dictionary)  In the middle of the [first] month [of the Jewish year] the people kept the Passover, followed by the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:5-8; Mark 14:1). The Feast of Passover was God's appointed way for the people of Israel to celebrate their miraculous escape from Egypt (Exod 12:14,24). The name of the feast recalled God's act of 'passing over' the houses of the Israelites while killing the firstborn of the Egyptians (Exod 12:27). However, God withheld judgment from the Israelite households only when he saw the blood of the sacrificial animal around the front door. The blood was a sign that an innocent life had been taken in place of the one under judgment. The accompanying Feast of Unleavened Bread recalled the people's hasty departure from Egypt when they had to make their bread without leaven (yeast), cooking as they travelled in order to save time (Exod 12:8,34,39).

What does happiness have to do with all of this?

Well, it is implied in the term “festival.” It was a time of celebration. There was the initial Passover meal with the roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. But it was followed by seven more days of celebration (i.e. feasting, remembering and rejoicing). (Feast of Unleavened Bread)

There certainly were some somber and sober elements to this festival because of what it commemorated – their miraculous deliverance from slavery as well as the judgment of the death angel that passed over Egypt and over them.

From my studies, I learned that Bible scholars are not in agreement about whether Paul is making this exhortation literally or figuratively.

Figuratively – He could be simply exhorting them to live out their lives in a celebratory manner that glorifies the sacrifice Jesus has made.

Literally – He probably is not urging the continued observance of the OT Passover ritual, because he specifically mentions that Jesus is our “Passover Lamb.” So, he could be specifically referring to the NT celebration of the Last Supper or Communion.

In any case, he does seem to be emphasizing the element of joy, celebration and happiness that is to be evident in the life of a Christian.

Certainly Christians have much to celebrate and to be joyful about – we know that Christ, our “Passover Lamb” was put to death to save us from sin and from God’s judgment for sin.

(Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture)  … Did you ever think of how great was the self-assertion of Jesus Christ when He laid His hand on that [most sacred] of Jewish rites, which had been established… to be 'a perpetual memorial through all generations,' brushed it on one side, and in effect, said: 'You do not need to remember the Passover any more. I am the true Paschal Lamb, whose blood sprinkled on the doorposts averts the sword of the destroying Angel, whose flesh, partaken of, gives immortal life. Remember Me, and this do in remembrance of Me.' The Lord's Supper witnesses that Jesus thought Himself to be what Paul tells the Corinthians that He is, even our Passover, sacrificed for us. But the point to be observed is this, that just as in that ancient ritual, the lamb slain became the food of the Israelites, so with us the Christ who has died is to be the sustenance of our souls, and of our Christian life. 'Therefore let us keep the feast.

II. Holiness must accompany the celebration.

When the Apostle Paul gives the exhortation to “keep the feast” he adds some qualifying guidelines that the Corinthians were supposed to keep in mind.

The qualifying guidelines were simply that they celebrate with “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth;” not with the “old leaven” or the “leaven of malice and wickedness.”

Leaven (or yeast) was a fermenting agent in the dough that causes it to raise. In the original context of the Exodus, they couldn’t use it because they didn’t have time to wait for the bread to raise, and they couldn’t have bread for the journey that would have a “fermenting” action going on to cause it to spoil while they were traveling.

In that sense, “leaven” became a symbol for sin that spoils our relationship with God and “ferments” in our lives to destroy what is good.

In the biblical requirements for observance of Passover, writers have described the concern over leaven like this:

(Paul E. Kretzmann – New Testament Volume 2), The removal of the leaven, Exodus 12:18-19, was done on the 13^th or at the very latest on the morning of the 14^th Nisan, and carried out with the most minute care. All the places in the house where bread was kept or where crumbs might have fallen were searched with lighted tapers, and all the dark corners scraped out carefully, lest any leaven remain to spoil the festival for the family. In just the same way the Corinthians must put from their midst the incestuous person and remove all open offenses. And even so the Christians of all times clean out the old leaven of sin by daily contrition and repentance in themselves….

(Matthew Poole, Matthew Poole's Commentary on the Holy Bible), As the passover prefigured Christ, who is our paschal Lamb, whose flesh we eat and whose blood we drink by believing, and sacramentally in the Lord's supper; so the Jewish subsequent feast of unleavened bread prefigured all the days of a Christian's life, which are to be spent, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth…

In the whole context of this chapter from the beginning, Paul is equating “leaven” or “yeast” to the presence of sin in their church and in their individual lives. They needed to remove the person that was committing such blatant immorality in order to witness to the holiness of God.

v. 7 “Purge out the old leaven” – symbolically comparing the sin in the congregation with the “old leaven” that might be in the house and needed to be purged or cleansed out before Passover.

v. 8 “Let us keep the feast…nor with leaven of malice and wickedness” – Paul expands his application of “leaven” to not only include the gross immorality being practiced by one of their members, but to also include any unrighteous attitudes and deeds.

This “leaven” of unrighteousness will contaminate our lives individually and our church corporately.

So we must all make it a point to let God’s Holy Spirit sweep out every corner and closet of our hearts and lives just like the Jews would with the leaven in their homes prior to Passover.

 Conclusion:

Let me conclude and move into our hymn and communion ceremony by making these few statements.

So often, our society and culture has come to view “happiness” and “holiness” as mutually exclusive qualities.

It seems like many people think “You can’t be holy if you’re going to live happy.” Or, “You can’t live happy if your going to be holy.”

I’d like to remind us today that this is not the teaching of our text.

Let us “celebrate” the sacrifice of our Lord, remembering that He took the sentence of the “death angel” and His blood covered the “doors” of our lives as He truly became our Passover Lamb.

Let us also celebrate with holy lives. Let us purposely allow, even plead with, the Holy Spirit to purge out all the “leaven” of sin that will ferment and destroy what is good and pure if we allow it to remain.

We’re going to sing a couple verses of a hymn:

Nothing but the Blood                        # 337