In contrast to the majority of the festivals on the Jewish calendar, the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread were not necessarily glamorous events.
In fact, they were intentionally designed to be as poor as possible. Happening on back-to-back days (the 14th of Abib for Passover, while Unleavened Bread started on the 15th, according to Leviticus 23:5-6), these two days were designed to mimic the abject poverty and slave-status of the generation that left Egypt.
The absence of leaven is perhaps the biggest clue to this. Since leaven was added to make the dough rise (which usually makes it taste better), seven days without leaven was almost seen as a sacrifice in itself.
Could you eat crackers for an entire week instead of homemade sourdough? I’m not sure I could.
As mentioned in Exodus and now here in Deuteronomy, this was done to mimic the hastiness with which the people left Egypt (v.3). They simply didn’t have time to wait for the bread to rise; instead, when Pharaoh sent them out in the middle of the night, they left.
The reference to Egypt is also why this is called “the bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3). It’s not a reference to the bondage per se, as much as it is to their fugitive status as they left Egypt and were subsequently pursued by its army.
Nobody would eat this bread on a regular basis. There’s not really any indication that the Jews ate it while they were actually in slavery. Instead, it seems to be only at this time in Israel’s life when they were even below the status of slaves.
It’s noteworthy to me then that this exact same type of bread and this exact same type of festival was the one that Jesus used to institute the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:17-29). What better time could there be for us to remember our own “flight” from slavery into sonship?
At Hillside, we use unleavened bread for our communion after the pattern of the first century. But I’ll admit, I don’t particularly like the flavor that much. It’s dry(ish), small, hard, and just generally tasteless.
That’s kind of the point, though. Instead of loving the flavor of the bread itself, I love what the bread represents—Jesus’ body that was broken on the cross for me.
In the same way, the Jews ate unleavened bread—the bread of a fugitive—because they remember what the flight represented: freedom.