Scripture Reading:
“You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.”
—Deuteronomy 16:3 (ESV)
Of all the symbols God could have chosen to memorialize Israel’s redemption from Egypt, He chose something common, something simple—unleavened bread, called in Scripture “the bread of affliction.”
This wasn’t just a convenient food choice. It was a sign—a symbol laced with memory, meaning, and future hope.
In the Exodus story, this bread told a story of urgency: there was no time to wait for the dough to rise. God’s people had to leave their slavery in haste, because deliverance had come. The bread was flat, dry, humble—an edible symbol of suffering and of God’s powerful intervention. It was both a reminder of pain and a marker of freedom.
But why did God command His people to remember that suffering through bread?
Bread as a Daily Marker of Dependence
Bread is basic. It’s the food of the poor, the humble, and the hungry. In nearly every culture, bread is the most essential form of sustenance. So to make bread a memorial is to take something ordinary and turn it into something sacred.
God wove the memory of suffering into the fabric of daily life. Eating the bread of affliction was not a one-time ceremony—it became a rhythm, a practice, a call to remember that freedom came through affliction, and provision came through God’s faithfulness.
Christ, the Broken Bread
The significance of the bread of affliction reaches its deepest meaning in Jesus.
On the night of His betrayal—at a Passover meal—Jesus took the unleavened bread and broke it, saying:
“This is my body, given for you.” (Luke 22:19)
Jesus, the sinless One (like the unleavened bread), became the true Bread of Affliction. He was broken in our place. In His suffering, we find freedom—not from Egypt, but from sin and death. In His body, broken like matzah, we taste the fullness of redemption.
So when we ask, “Why bread?”, the answer is rich:
- Because bread is the food of survival. Christ is our sustenance.
- Because bread is shared. Christ is given for the many.
- Because bread is broken. Christ was afflicted, that we might be healed.
Remember and Rehearse
Every time we take communion, we remember that God’s greatest act of salvation was not just about delivering from slavery in Egypt, but from the slavery of sin. And the symbol He gave us to remember that?
Bread.
Simple. Humble. Broken. Shared.
Bread of affliction. Bread of life.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for giving us symbols that feed our souls. As we remember the bread of affliction, remind us of our deliverance—not just from hardship, but from death itself. Help us never to forget the cost of our freedom, and may we feed on Christ, the Bread of Life, every day. Amen.
