Celebrate the festival.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8, Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Paul comes down forcefully on sin in the midst of these believers that was no only tolerated, but accepted, apparently with pride by some. There are plenty of churches these days that won’t even discuss the idea of sin for fear of turning away too many people. It’s not clear what he meant exactly by turning the offender over to satan “for the destruction of the flesh,” but clearly that’s what often happens. It is clear that the purpose was to save this person’s spirit in the day of the Lord. And that is the good news about sin, we are not without a solution: Christ, our passover sacrifice!

We who so easily fall short in sin celebrate Your perfect sacrifice with sincerity and truth, as we confess our sins and receive Your forgiveness and celebrate the festival!

ESV Lectionary