Given that we are coming to the Season of Passover, it is appropriate to meditate on how the story of Jesus was formed to reflect Jewish scripture and tradition, and so is often unhistorical, e.g., Mathew invents stories about Jesus to portray him as the New and greater Moses. Moreover, Jesus is linked to the image of the Passover lamb, which does not serve an atoning function.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a seven-day Jewish festival that begins on the 15th of Nisan, immediately following the Passover, which starts on the 14th of Nisan. In the Jewish lunar calendar, Nisan typically falls in March or April on the Gregorian calendar. The feast commemorates the Israelites’ hasty exodus from Egypt, when they didn’t have time to let their bread rise (Exodus 12:15-20).
For 2025, based on the Jewish calendar:

Passover begins at sundown on April 12 (14 Nisan).

The Feast of Unleavened Bread then runs from sundown on April 13 (15 Nisan) through sundown on April 20 (21 Nisan).

During this week, Jewish tradition mandates removing all leaven (yeast) from homes and eating only unleavened bread, like matzah. The exact dates shift slightly each year due to the lunar calendar’s alignment with the solar one, but this is the schedule for 2025, given today’s date of March 30, 2025.

In Christian theology, Jesus’s death is often interpreted through the lens of Old Testament symbolism, including the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is part of the Passover celebration. The connections are rooted in the timing of Jesus’s crucifixion and the rich typological significance that early Christians and theologians drew between the Passover and Christ’s sacrifice.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread, described in Exodus 12, begins immediately after the Passover and lasts seven days. During this time, the Israelites were commanded to eat unleavened bread—bread without yeast (leaven)—as they fled Egypt. Leaven often symbolizes sin or corruption in Scripture (e.g., 1 Corinthians 5:6-8), and its absence represents purity and haste in the exodus narrative. The bread was also pierced or marked during preparation, which some Christians see as a foreshadowing of Jesus’s suffering.

Jesus’s death occurred during the Passover week, according to the Gospels (e.g., John 19:14, Matthew 26:17-19), aligning it with these feasts. In Christian interpretation, Jesus is viewed as the ultimate Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7), whose sacrifice delivers humanity from the bondage of sin (though Passover doesn’t suggest substitutionary atonement), much like the lamb’s blood spared the Israelites from death in Egypt. The unleavened bread finds a parallel in Jesus as the “Bread of Life” (John 6:35), sinless (without leaven) and pierced in his crucifixion (e.g., his hands, feet, and side, as in John 19:34, 20:25). The Last Supper, where Jesus broke bread and linked it to his body (Luke 22:19), further ties his sacrifice to this imagery.

Theologically, early Church Fathers like Justin Martyr and modern scholars often highlight these connections. The unleavened matzah of Passover—pierced, striped, and broken—became a symbol of Christ’s sinless nature and his wounds on the cross. For example, in 1 Corinthians 5:8, Paul exhorts believers to keep the feast “not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” tying it to Christ’s purity and the new covenant.. So, Jesus’s death is frequently viewed in terms of the Feast of Unleavened Bread—pierced, without leaven, and broken—as a fulfillment of Passover’s deeper meaning in Christian thought.

The connection between Jesus’s death, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Old Testament passages like Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 lies in the concept of typology—where events, symbols, or figures in the Hebrew Scriptures are seen as prefiguring or pointing to Christ in the New Testament. Early Christians and theologians interpreted these texts as prophetic blueprints that Jesus fulfilled, with the unleavened bread serving as one piece of a larger mosaic of Messianic expectation.

Isaiah 53, part of the “Suffering Servant” passage (Isaiah 52:13–53:12), describes a figure who is “pierced for our transgressions” (53:5), “oppressed and afflicted” (53:7), and whose suffering brings healing and atonement. This servant bears the sins of many (53:12) and is likened to a lamb led to slaughter (53:7)—imagery that dovetails with the Passover lamb and, by extension, the unleavened bread context.

In Christian typology, the servant’s piercing aligns with the unleavened bread’s markings and Jesus’s wounds on the cross (nails through hands and feet, spear in his side). John 19:37 explicitly ties this to prophecy, citing Zechariah 12:10 (“they will look on me, the one they have pierced”), but Isaiah 53’s language resonates here too.

The servant is portrayed as guiltless (53:9, “he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth”), mirroring the unleavened bread’s lack of corruption (leaven). Jesus, as sinless (Hebrews 4:15), fulfills this. The servant’s death for others’ sins parallels the Passover lamb’s role in averting judgment and the unleavened bread’s association with a purified, redeemed people.

Psalm 22, a lament attributed to David, begins with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—words Jesus quotes on the cross (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). The psalm vividly describes suffering that Christians link to crucifixion. In some translations of the Septuagint, verse 16 says, “they pierce my hands and my feet,” prefiguring Jesus’s nailed hands and feet, which also connects to the pierced unleavened bread. The psalm’s imagery—”all my bones are out of joint” (v. 14), “my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth” (v. 15)—evokes the brutality of Jesus’s death, aligning with the brokenness of the bread in the Last Supper (Luke 22:19). Verses 7-8 (“all who see me mock me”) and 18 (“they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing”) match the Gospel accounts (e.g., Matthew 27:35, 39-43), tying the psalm to the crucifixion scene during Passover.

In typology, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Isaiah 53, and Psalm 22 converge on Jesus as the suffering, sinless savior. Unleavened Bread: Represents purity and sacrifice, pierced and broken like Jesus’s body. Its Passover context ties it to deliverance, which Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 expand into a universal redemption.. Isaiah 53 provides the theological framework—Jesus as the servant who suffers and dies for sin, fulfilling the Passover lamb’s role and the bread’s symbolism of purity. Psalm 22: offers a visceral, first-person preview of the crucifixion’s agony, with details like piercing and mockery that echo both the bread’s preparation and Isaiah’s suffering servant. The purity of Jesus reflects the magnitude of the guilt of the world who turned on God’s especially beloved (agapetos).

For early Christians (e.g., Acts 8:32-35, where Philip links Isaiah 53 to Jesus), these texts weren’t coincidental but divinely orchestrated. The unleavened bread’s ritual significance during Passover week—when Jesus died—becomes a tangible symbol of his sinless, pierced, and broken body, fulfilling the prophetic suffering of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. Together, they paint a picture of a Messiah whose death transforms an ancient feast into a new covenant reality.

The Christian interpretation of Christ as unleavened bread reflects the quickness of which Christ was said to die, thereby reflecting Jesus overcoming the Roman crucifixion as a long, drawn out death, Pilate being amazed Christ died so quickly. This is also obviously a satire of substitutionary atonement, for maximal suffering is what would be expected to account for all human sin.

In traditional Jewish practice, unleavened bread—specifically matzah—used during the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover is often marked or pierced for practical, rather than just symbolic, reasons. Though the quickness of the baking represented the hurry with which the Jews left Egypt, the piercing and marking (typically with small holes or lines) serve a functional purpose tied to the bread’s preparation and the strict requirements of the holiday.

Matzah must be made quickly—within 18 minutes from the moment water touches flour—to prevent any natural fermentation, as leaven is forbidden during the feast (Exodus 12:15). Piercing the dough with small holes, often using a tool like a docker or fork, ensures it bakes rapidly and evenly without puffing up. If the dough traps air or moisture, it could rise slightly, risking the introduction of chametz (leaven), which would render it unfit for Passover. The markings or stripes sometimes seen on matzah come from the baking process, such as contact with a griddle or oven rack, further aiding quick, flat baking.

While these markings—piercings, stripes, or scorches—later took on deep symbolic meaning in Christian typology (e.g., representing Jesus’s wounds), in Jewish tradition, they’re not inherently theological. The focus is on fulfilling the commandment to eat unleavened bread as a reminder of the haste of the exodus, when the Israelites left Egypt before their bread could rise (Exodus 12:34, 39). Rabbinic sources, like the Mishnah (Pesachim 2:5-6), emphasize the practical care taken to avoid leaven.

It’s an interesting question how historical the cross is, given its figurative use like “crucified with Christ” and “crucify the flesh” and “pick up your cross and follow me,” and given the alternative image of “hung on a tree.” However, Paul seems to incorporate pre-Pauline cross images/references, so this line of thinking requires more sophisticated historical reasoning and so maybe I’ll look at it sometime later in relation to dating the letters of Paul.