Hanukkah and Thanksgiving: Two Holidays in One

For most Christians, Hanukkah means little more than brass menorahs with nine branches, toy dreidels, tiny candles, and dark blue and white decorations. Yet, as with most Jewish holy days and feasts, this one, too, is significant for non-Jews as well.

Were it not for Hanukkah, the Jewish nation could have easily become just another Greek province.  There would have been no distinct Jewish nation or family for Jesus to have been born into.  in short, there would be no Christmas.

Hanukkah is the Hebrew word meaning "dedication."  What may surprise you is that this Feast of Dedication is actually found in Scripture.  John 10:22 records, "Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon."

The Messiah was in the temple at the time of Hanukkah, no doubt celebrating in remembrance with His fellow Jews. 

The eight day Hanukkah celebration serves as a reminder of the period of time immediately preceding Christ's birth when Alexander the Great and the Greeks sought to assimilate everything and everyone in their path, including the conquered nation of Israel.

As you might imagine, there was pressure from the upper classes and priests for Israel to fit into this Greek culture.  Conforming would just make life easier, right?

Sure...except for the parts where Hellenistic Greek culture was filled with rampant immorality, worship of false gods, and disregard for the non-progressive idea that Jehovah was the sole God of the universe and not Zeus. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, held this part of Alexander's empire and, two hundred years before Christ's birth, decided to turn all Jews into Greeks, to force them to assimilate.  How better to do this than to conspire with several Jewish leaders to conscript the temple of God for Greek worship.  The result was God's temple transformed into a temple for Zeus with his statue placed inside the Holy of Holies.  What's more, the corrupt priests sacrificed pig's blood to this idol within the temple walls, an abomination and flagrant disregard for God's instructions regarding the purity of His holy temple.

Then there was King Antiochus, himself.  His second name meant "the epiphany of the gods," a personal attempt to claim divinity in flesh for himself.   In short, he claimed to be a god made flesh, dwelling among them. Immanuel, with a lowercase "i."

In 165 B.C.E., a devout group of Jews called the Maccabees revolted against this attempt at assimilation.  They reclaimed the temple, cleansed it after the desecration, and then dedicated it once again so worship of God could continue as He had prescribed in the Torah.

Dedication.  Hanukkah.

Fast forward to that Festival of Dedication in the New Testament.  Into the temple walks another man of flesh claiming to be God and saying, "I and the Father are one" (Jn. 10:30).  With memories of Antiochus Epiphanes fresh in their mind at this Feast, it's no wonder the crowd picked up stones to use against Jesus "'for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God'" (Jn. 10:33).

The sad thing is that while Antiochus had been mere flesh, Jesus was the one they had all been waiting for.  He really was God dwelling among them. Immanuel, God with us, but this time with a capital "I."

This year, Hanukkah begins in the evening of Wednesday, November 27 and ends in the evening of Thursday, December 5, 2013, is one of those rare occurrences when Hanukkah and Thanksgiving overlap.

We Christians already gathering to give thanks for God's blessings could benefit from pausing to remember Hanukkah as well.  As Messianic Jewish Rabbi Derek Leman says, "Hanukkah is about more than Jewish survival--it's about Jewish people resisting the temptation to assimilate and disappear.  It's about Jewish people remaining Jewish, no matter the cost" (Leman 110).


Sound familiar?  In a modern world where Christians are fighting this same battle to not assimilate, to not take the easy road and disappear into the throngs who refuse to acknowledge Scripture as God's revelation of Himself and His holy requirements, our remembering Hanukkah  could be as simple as reminding us to dedicate ourselves to purity and holiness in our worship of God.

It's about God's children remaining God's children....no matter the cost.


*Source: Leman, Derek.  Feast: Finding Yourself at the Table of Tradition.  Lifeway P, 2008.

What's Floating Invisible in the Air Around Us?

My mother spent much of my high school years baking homemade bread.  Somewhere along the way, she got a Ziploc bag full of "starter," and after that, our house was an aromatic wonderland....as long as we remembered to feed the starter.

What looked like little more than a glob of flour and water loosely mixed together could rise into a pock-filled mound after being plied with sugar and water. Back then, I didn't understand how it worked.  I just appreciated the end result.  Who knew my world could be rocked just by learning about how that sourdough starter really worked.

Bacteria. fermentation. lactic-acid-producing yeast. When taken to the pages of Scripture, this knowledge reveals even more about our need for a Savior.

Earlier this year, this blog hosted a series on the Jewish Feasts in our quest to learn more about this Jesus we serve.  One celebration we looked at was the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread, which begins the day after Passover.

As part of their preparation for this celebration, the Jewish people obeyed the command in Deuteronomy 16:3-4, which required the entire community to clean their homes of any products containing leaven: "Let no yeast be found in your possession in all your land for seven days." 

Such an action symbolized God's people separating themselves from sin, literally "removing" sin from their homes and, by extension, from their hearts.

In the New Testament, Paul furthers this metaphor wherein leaven/yeast is a symbol of sin.  He writes, "Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:6-8).

In other words, a person's sin in one aspect of his life affects all of his life, makes his entire body unclean before the Lord, makes all his offerings and acts of service unclean before the Lord.  In fact, if sin is left unchecked, it contaminates others, leads others into sin.  Sin is contagious. 

Since the Jewish people understood this symbolic connection between sin and leaven, they wanted to be certain they had removed any and all leaven (and sin) from their lives as part of Passover.  That means any packaged foods in the house containing yeast, baking powder, baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate had to be removed.  Imagine going through all your cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer, and reading all the labels to determine if a leavening agent were in the pre-packaged food.  It's a bit like Spring Cleaning, and we all know how long that can take if done properly.

By the time you sat down for the Passover meal, you may have spent hours, even days, on this task, may have meticulously placed your hand on every food product in the house to ensure there was no leaven remaining within your walls.  In a metaphorical sense, you had "worked" hard to symbolically remove all sin from your life.

Yet, there was a problem with this process.  If it were this easy to work and remove sin from our lives, then why would there be a need for Passover?  Why the need for a sacrificial lamb to be slain for our sin?  Why the need for a Savior?

The truth is that even with all the work, the attention to detail in removing leaven from the home, there is no way we could remove all the leaven out of our houses just as there is no way we can work hard enough to remove all the sin from our lives.

No matter how hard I work to remove it, there will always be leaven in my home.

How?

Although science wasn't advanced enough in Jesus' day to explain it, we now understand that there is wild yeast that floats in the air around us.  Mix a batch of flour and water, leave it exposed to the air for a week or so, and you'll experience firsthand the joys of wild yeast (and some yummy sourdough bread, too!).

This understanding of wild yeast in the very air we breathe further explains why the need for Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.  The image of the wild yeast still in our houses shows that even after all our good works, even after every attempt to rid our lives of sin, there is still sin in our lives.  We still need a Savior to make ourselves acceptable to God.

I don't think I'll ever eat a slice of sourdough without thinking of myself as still being sinful even when I think myself at my most righteous.

The Fourth Day of Creation

Try as I might to ignore it, the calendar shows summer is fast coming to a close.  Only four more weeks until the rigor of autumn sets in with its 8 pm lights out and blaring wake-up alarms before dawn.  No more late nights reading chapter books with a flashlight beneath the covers.  No more turning off the alarm after a late evening's dip in the pool.

Even in the ninety degree south Louisiana heat, there were still a a few days last week when an almost constant breeze whispered of autumn's approach.  Before my eyes, summer will soon turn to autumn before winter's frozen death prepares the world again for spring's rebirth.

It is hard for me to comprehend that back before the beginning of the world, God had these seasons in His mind, and on the fourth day, He set them in motion when he placed the sun, moon, and stars in space.

Scripture says, "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth'; and it was so" (Gen. 1:14-15).

 This passage describes why God created the sun, moon, and stars--first for light and to separate the day and night, and second "for signs and for seasons."  

The Hebrew word in verse 14 for "seasons" is mow`ed, meaning "appointed time, appointed place, meeting."  Of the 223 times this word is used in the Old Testament, 150 of those usages are translated as congregation and 23 are translated as feasts.

Throughout Leviticus 23 (the chapter which succinctly describes the commanded seven Feasts of the Lord), this word for seasons is often translated as feasts.

For instance, the King James version says, "These [are] the feasts of the LORD , [even] holy  convocations , which ye shall proclaim  in their seasons" (Lev. 23:4).  In this verse, the words translated differently as feasts and seasons are the same--mow`ed.  

NASB translates the same verse as: "These are the appointed times of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them," translating mow`ed as merely "appointed times."

In other words, one of the primary reasons God created the sun, moon, and stars was so they would serve as time markers for the seasons as a sign to show his people when to come together to celebrate His holy feasts, festivals, and Sabbaths.  God's people could watch the movement of the heavens and know which Feast of the Lord was to be celebrated when.

Getting the timing right for these feasts of remembrance and thanksgiving was that important to God.

To this day, the Jewish calendar still follows lunar months to ensure the feasts are kept in their correct seasons, exactly as commanded in Scripture.  The Jewish calendar includes "twelve lunar months of 29 or thirty days, which is about ten days short of a solar year, so seven years in every nineteen have an extra month."1

While this calendar that adds an extra month every seven years may seem odd to those of us who use the Gregorian calendar which follows the earth's progression around the sun, the Jewish calendar more accurately keeps the Feasts of the Lord in their proper seasons, especially considering some weren't commanded to be on a specific date each year, as with our Christmas always falling on December 25, but were, instead, counted so many days from the last feast, as is the case with Pentecost, which is held fifty days after Passover.

Over the past few months, we have explored the seven commanded Jewish Feasts of Leviticus 23 and have seen how God intended them all to point to Messiah, our Lord and Savior Jesus, whose march to the cross was set in motion before creation, itself.  His appointed time to be born in a body of flesh and to die a brutal death was already written in His own blood on a holy calendar.

Revelation 13:8 refers to Jesus as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."  2 Timothy 1:9 says the grace of God "was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Likewise, on the fourth day of creation when God was just beginning to form the world, He was already thinking of His feasts and Sabbaths, which would point to that appointed time when Jesus would come to earth and offer His life as a sacrifice, an atonement to cover all mankind's sin.

Knowing that God was already thinking of the feasts of Leviticus 23 when He was calibrating the heat of the sun and hanging the moon amidst a septillion stars makes the feasts seem that much more important to continue to celebrate today, even for us who are adopted by faith into the family.



1.  "The Jewish Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar." Wildolive.


Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
God's Annual Camp-out (Part 2)
A Doorway But No Roof: God's Annual Camp-out
When The Books Are Closed: A Look at Yom Kippur
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

God's Annual Camp-out (Part 2)

Last week, we looked at the Feast of Tabernacles as being focused on God and man dwelling together, about man symbolically leaving the security of his man-made walls and living outdoors in flimsy "booths" where he must rely fully on God for protection.

At this festival, all Israel is called upon to remember a time when all their descendants lived in booths: "so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt" (Lev. 23:43).

In Jesus' day, two specific ceremonies would have been part of the Feast of Tabernacles, both of which served to remind God's children of that time in the desert where His holy presence was physically evident at all times--by day in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire.

The first ceremony involved water, a reminder of the water-filled cloud of God's presence during the daytime:1

Imagine a whole parade of worshipers and flutists led by the priest to the pool of Siloam (where Jesus told the blind man to bathe his eyes after He put clay over them). The priest has two golden pitchers. One is for wine. He fills the other with water from the pool. As the flutes continue to play, a choir of Israelites chants Psalm 118. The whole procession heads back to the Temple through the Water Gate. A trumpet sounds as the priest enters the Temple area. He approaches the altar where two silver basins are waiting. He pours wine into one of the basins as a drink offering to the Lord and water from the pool of Siloam into the other. The whole ceremony, with the parade and the flutes and the singing, was such a joyful occasion that one of the ancient rabbis wrote: "Anyone who has not seen this water ceremony has never seen rejoicing in his life." The ceremony was to thank God for His bounty and to ask Him to provide rain for the crops in the coming year."2

The second ceremony involved fire, a great light, reminiscent of the pillar of fire the Israelites would have seen as they broke for camp in their booths each evening.

On the evening of the first day of the Feast, four 75-foot tall menorahs would be lit in the Temple's Court of the Women and would burn for the duration of the feast.  With the Temple resting high upon a hill above the city of Jerusalem, this was truly a brilliant light placed where all to see.  There was no missing it.

Surely, at least some of Jesus' disciples saw the light of these menorahs illuminating the impenetrable darkness only found in a pre-electricity world and remembered His words in Matthew, exhorting His disciples: "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:14-16).

This Feast, like all the others, draws all of Israel to remember God's faithfulness while also looking toward Christ as the fulfillment as all parts of the Feast.  

In John 7, Scripture records Jesus actually attending the Feast of Tabernacles.  Yet, only at the end of the festival does he reveal Himself in both of these ceremonies.  John says, "On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them" (Jn. 7:37).

Without knowing about the water ceremony, Jesus' statement seems to come out of nowhere.  But knowing of the tradition of giving thanks to God for life-giving water, Jesus' claim to give this sustaining water suddenly makes perfect sense.  Here, He promised the Holy Spirit for believers.  He expressed His divinity to an audience, some of whom understood His true meaning that He was Messiah.

After this revelation, Scripture records Jesus going to the Mount of Olives.  The next morning after the Feast's conclusion, Jesus re-entered the Temple: "At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him" (Jn. 8:2).  

Imagine the scene: after seven days, the immense light from these 75 foot menorahs would suddenly be gone.  How dark it must have seemed to those who had lived in the shadow of its illumination.  Then, in the midst of this darkness, in the same location where those candles would have been shining mere hours before, Jesus speaks to this second ceremony of lights: "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life'" (Jn. 8:12).

Here, Jesus reveals Himself to be the light that never is extinguished.   He is the true light set upon a hill, the Messiah they had so long waited for...if only their eyes could have been opened to see that light in the midst of their spiritual darkness.

 Today, we are blessed to live this side of the cross.  Two thousand years later, Jesus is still the living water that will never run dry.  He remains the light of the world.  These gifts of His presence--water and light--the same ones God offered to the Israelites...He offers the same to you and to me through His Son Jesus, if we will only believe with our whole heart, soul, and mind.




1.  Nadler, Sam. Feasts of the Bible. "Feast of Tabernacles."  Video. Torrance: Rose P, 2011.
2.  *"Christ in the Feast of Tabernacles" by Jews for Jesus. 
Image: "Light Upon a Hill" by awesome photographer D. M. Weber

Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
A Doorway But No Roof: God's Annual Camp-out
When The Books Are Closed: A Look at Yom Kippur
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

A Doorway But No Roof--God's Annual Camp-Out

One year for his birthday, my brother received a camouflaged, one-person pop-tent.  I thought it was wonderful...for a play-house, that is.  Hot summer afternoons were spent lining the tent's floor with old carpet samples and serving mud with acorn pies in upside-down Frisbee platters.

My brother, however, wanted to actually camp out in the backyard in that tent.  No way was I interested.

To this day, the thought of sleeping outside in a paper-thin shelter terrifies me.  Coyotes, raccoons, and wild boar, o my! Their teeth, their claws, their tusks!

Unlike the children of Israel who camped forty years in the desert, I know the security of locked windows, sealed doors, and the safety of an alarm system.  Camping outdoors just doesn't hold any allure.  I'm quite content to experience my closeness with God's creation during the daylight hours and from a front porch swing in the evenings.

Yet, the seventh and final feast commanded in Leviticus 23 involves just that--camping out.

Sukkot.  The Feast of Tabernacles, also called the Feast of Booths, is a seven-day celebration at the end of the harvest season, similar to our Thanksgiving.

God commanded, "On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.  Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 23:40, 42-43).

Here, God makes it clear that for the duration of the Feast, His people were to leave the security of their homes and dwell in temporary shelters made from tree branches covered with palm leaves.  According to Rabbi Derek Leman in Feast, "The rabbis say that you have to leave holes in the roof large enough to see the stars shining through" (p. 99).

This is a Feast focused on God and man dwelling together, about man leaving the security of his man-made walls and living outdoors in flimsy "booths" where he must rely fully on God for protection.
John 1:14 says "The Word became flesh and took up residence among us.  We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

That word "residence"?  It is also interpreted as "tabernacled."  In other words, when Messiah came to earth as a tiny babe, He tabernacled among us, God residing with man in a human body that seemed like those palm-branch-covered booths--flimsy, frail, easily crucified on a cross.  Yet, while He was fully human, He was also fully God, fully our protection.  

What's even more interesting for the believer in Jesus is that in Scripture, the prophet Zechariah says that all will celebrate this feast in the New Jerusalem, in the new kingdom where Jesus reigns as king: " Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles" (Zech. 14:16). 

All the nations (even those against God) will come to give thanks to Him for His provision.  Those nations who refuse will be denied rain for the next year, reminiscent of Elijah's prophecy against a defiant King Ahab. 

For those who love Him, God promises that in that day, He will be a tabernacle over Israel: "Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain" (Is. 4:5-6).

Isn't that beautiful?  God, Himself, as our physical shelter, our protection, our refuge?

God took much care to show us that every good thing comes from Him, that He is our ever-present refuge... even in the wilderness periods of our lives.




 Image: Preparing for Sukkot in Jerusalem.

Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
When The Books Are Closed: A Look at Yom Kippur
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

When the Books are Closed: A Look at Yom Kippur

The books were closed.

The ten days of trying valiantly to "merit" God's forgiveness were over.  It was now the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement.  Literally, it was a day of "At-one-ment," a day focused on making God's people "at one" with Him.

Coming ten days after the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah, this solemn day was the one set aside for God to judge the sins of an entire nation for another year.

Now, there were no more works to be done.  It was the "Sabbath of Sabbaths," a day of complete and total rest.  On this day, all Israel had to look not to their good works but to God alone for their covering.

And on this one day each year, the Day of Atonement, God commanded that the high priest was required to enter His presence in the Holy of Holies: " On the tenth day of the seventh month...The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments and make atonement for the Most Holy Place, for the tent of meeting and the altar, and for the priests and all the members of the community.  This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites" (Lev. 16:29,32-34).

There, in the Holy of Holies, the high priest would offer two sacrifices, first for himself and then for the people of Israel--a bull and a goat, as is described in Leviticus 4. 

While God gave few instructions for Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets) that began this ten day countdown to the Day of Atonement, He devoted an entire chapter to giving detailed instructions for this single calendar day.

As part of the sacrifices to atone for the high priest's and the nation of Israel's sin, God commanded a ceremony involving a scapegoat.  Scripture records, "When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness" (Lev. 16:20-22).

While Scripture says little more about this scapegoat except that it was burdened with a year's worth of sins for the entire nation of Israel, the Talmud (codified writings by first and second century rabbis) note a tradition of putting a red ribbon around this scapegoat.  According to the rabbis, if God forgave the nation's sin, the ribbon miraculously turned white, symbolizing atonement, one's sins being as scarlet but being washed as white as snow.

What is interesting, though, is that the Talmud records how for the forty years preceding the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, the scapegoat's ribbon didn't change color. This implied the sacrifice for atonement was not accepted by God.*

Backtrack forty years from 70 AD.  Jesus, the Messiah, died on a cross in 30 AD.  In other words, for the next forty years after Jesus' death, the Day of Atonement and its associated sacrifices would have still occurred, but, according to tradition, the rabbis believed God rejected the nation's sacrifice and denied the atonement.  

It's fascinating.  Although it's not Scripture, the Talmud is giving testimony that the final atonement has been made in the person of Jesus Christ so the sacrifice of goats is no longer acceptable to God.*
 
The entirety of Yom Kippur points to Jesus as our Messiah.

This is a day when we are to recognize how far we are from God, how offensive our sins are to Him, and how desperately we need God's sacrifice in Jesus because there are no "works" good enough to bring us back into a right relationship with Him.

The high priests of old were merely providing a shadow of a sacrifice to come.  The book of Hebrews compares Israel's high priest to Jesus', our once-and-for-ever high priest, saying of Christ, "He doesn't need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do--first for their own sins, then for those of the people" (Heb. 7:27).

The atonement has already been made.  We must realize our insufficiency in ourselves.  We must choose to enter into total rest, the "Sabbath of Sabbaths," in Jesus alone, for He alone is our covering.



*Nadler, Sam. Feasts of the Bible. "Yom Kippur."  Video. Torrance: Rose P, 2011.
Image: "The Scapegoat" by William Holman Hunt

Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

What to Do With Peter Pan Christians in Your Church

 

If you were to ask me who I am, I would respond easily that I am Jennifer Roseanne Bush Dorhauer; wife of Douglas Dorhauer; daughter of John and Karen Bush; mother of Wyatt, Amelia, and Emerson; servant of Jesus Christ; online English Composition professor....and the list goes on...

In my mind, I am an I before I am a we.

The times I feel the most inconsolable are when I find myself losing the I of my identity in the daily grind of we as a wife and mother. I fear losing my individual identity within the collective identity of family.  Some weeks, months, and years, I've found myself shelving the I because the we is all consuming.

But constantly trying to see myself as not part of a collective identity is faulty as well.  I am not a lone individual.  Never have been.  To act or think in that manner is only a deluded fantasy.  Blindly focusing solely on myself as an individual is like standing in narcissistic quicksand.

When it comes to the church fellowship of other Christian believers, I have become more comfortable being a we, seeing myself as part of a whole that embraces my individual identity in the larger collective.  Still, there are times when I fail to see how my presence or absence in worship affects anyone but me.  In that instance, I forget about my collective identity and focus just on myself.

This is a key difference I note between Judaism and the modern-day church in America.  Whereas Judaism has a distinct sense of collective identity, Christianity does not. Scripture clearly identifies the New Testament church as the "body of Christ" (1 Cor. 12).  Still, American Christians as a whole lean towards individualism versus a collective identity.  Their actions demonstrate this belief regularly, even if their words say otherwise.

Two weeks ago in this space, we looked at the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah).  During this Feast and the following Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the Jewish people sing a prayer of repentance entitled the Avinu Malkeinu, or "Our Father, Our King."  The last few lines are loosely translated as:

"Our Father, our Father, our King.
No good deeds do we bring.
Hear us and answer, be gracious to us, Lord, we pray.
And make for us
Grace and righteousness.
And make please for us loving kindness
and your salvation bring, and your salvation bring."1

Note the pronouns repeatedly used in this prayer--Our, we, and us.

The Feasts of Israel, in themselves, are collective celebrations of God's chosen people.  They are "we" activities wherein every Jew is to come together as one.  This song, though, goes further, explaining that Rosh Hashanah (and by extension, the other feasts as well) is not just a shared collective activity but a shared collective, sin and repentance, too.

The pronouns denote an acknowledgment that your sin affects me as much as your righteousness affects me.  Although I am individually accountable for my own soul, here on earth, I am bound to you in good and in bad.  As such, this sung prayer expresses that God's people must pray for the collective community of God.   

Consider two other examples of prayer in Scripture that also emphasize this viewing oneself as part of a collective whole in God versus as a Lone Ranger type individual.

When Daniel prayed, he used the pronoun our, expressing his sense of collective identity: "we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land" (Dan. 9:5-6).

Daniel understood firsthand how connected he was to Israel as a community, in a collective identity, and to that nation's sin as a whole.  He prayed not from an ivory tower reserved for the most holy and dedicated to God but from the center of exile in Babylon.  He knew what it was to be bound together a community in good and in bad.  And so, when he prayed, he prayed for the community of Israel, the children of God as a whole.

Even Jesus taught His disciples to pray with a collective identity in mind.  The Lord's prayer reads, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is  in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matt. 6:9-13).

 Too many times, I look at fellow Christians and fail to perceive how their spiritual state affects my own.  I would rather see myself as a island unaffected by the rest of the Christian community.  It's easier to live within the myth that says if my soul is right with God, nothing else matters.

Yet, if God's people are going to have an impact on this world, we must consider ourselves, truly, as a living entity, one that doesn't function effectively if even a single nerve is malfunctioning.  As Paul says, "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together" (1 Cor. 12:26).

To that end, we must pray for the "we" and the "our," recognizing that the weakest link in Christ's body affects us as much as the strongest cord.  If someone is weak in the Lord, a Christian still living on milk with a Peter Pan "I'll Never Grow Up" mentality, we must not turn up our nose or roll our eyes at his immaturity, no matter how long he's spent in the spiritual nursery.  Instead, we must strive to strengthen that individual, to strengthen that part of our community in the Lord.

The church seeing itself as a community of believers bound together in a collective identity is of vital importance for unity and effectiveness in a lost and dying world. 

Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover



1.  Leman, Derek. Feast: Finding  Your Place at the Table of Tradition.  Nashville: Lifeway P, 2008: p. 64-65.

A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call

When I think of a trumpet blowing, I envision an old episode of MASH when Major Frank Burns and Major Margaret Houlihan run the Army campy.  Under their rigid command, poor Radar is required to jolt awake the camp each morning with a frightful ramble of missed notes played on his near tuneless bugle.  What a wake up call.

The trumpet blast, though, served a purpose--it is a warning, a signal that change is coming, a reminder to be on alert.

For the Biblical Feast of Trumpets (otherwise known as Rosh Hashanah), the trumpet is used in a similar way.

Scripture says, “On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the Lord” (Lev. 23:24-25).

This is the first of the "fall" feasts, and, in Jewish tradition, would begin with the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet of sorts carved out of the horn of a ram (or antelope).  On Rosh Hashanah, the shofar would be blown 100 times in a series, each series including "one long blast, three medium wails, and nine short bursts."

That's a lot of horn blowing.  The point, though, is to make sure everyone hears the sounding trumpet, for all to be warned and reminded of what is to come.  And, in the Jewish calendar, "what's to come" is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement ten days later, a day on which Israel's sins are judged for another whole year.  (Lev. 23:27-32). 

Imagine having ten days to prepare your soul for an annual meeting with the Lord.  You would likely spend those ten days doing everything in your power to make your soul clean, performing acts of kindness, and being on your best behavior.  As you might expect, those ten days between Rosh Hashanah (the blowing of the trumpets) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are filled with much reflection, prayer, repentance, making right any wrongs, and repairing broken relationships.

The Talmud (a Jewish book of history, legend, & tradition) recounts that on Rosh Hashanah, three books are opened--one for the "utterly wicked," another for the "absolutely righteous," and a third for the "tweeners" who, as their name suggests, aren't completely evil or completely righteous.  For ten days, that last group's book is left open so they can get their accounts right with God and their names transferred into the Book of Life.1

However, those of us who are believers in Christ know that this tradition of doing good works to move one's name to the Book of Life is not the truth God intended when He established this Feast.  As Paul stated, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph. 2:8-10).  In essence, Christians are definitely called upon to do works out of their love for Christ, but not because those works will earn them a ticket into heaven.  Only faith in Christ alone can transfer one from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved Son (Col. 1:13).

What God did intend for His children to see in this Feast was how hopeless they were to save themselves, how they could never do enough to save themselves.  

 Likewise, the Feast was also to serve as a reminder that we must be ready because we know not when the day of salvation and judgment is.

Before that Great Day of Atonement when all mankind stands before the great white throne of judgment, there will be a trumpet blast telling us of Jesus' return to earth.  Scripture says,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (1 Cor. 15:52).

Additionally, in the end, there will be a great judgment with books.  John says, "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books" (Rev. 20:12).  Even Daniel saw "ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened" (Dan. 7:10).

The difference between when Christ returns as Judge and King and the others Days of Atonement throughout the rest of history?  This time, we won't be given ten days to make our hearts right with Him.  This time, if our souls aren't ready, it will be too late and no amount of good deeds will make any difference.  One's present level of faith in Christ at the time of the trumpet blast is what will be judged.

As such, the Feast of Trumpets should remind us of our need to live in a constant state of readiness to meet our Lord.  That morning wake up call is coming.  Unlike when Radar played on his bugle, this time, the piercing blast will be perfectly in tune and will literally be the shot heard round the world.

For some, it will be a sound of much anticipated joy.  For others, it will be a sound of damnation.

Rabbi Derek Leman puts it so beautifully: "Rosh Hashanah is a reminder that we all have a limited time on earth.  Just like the 10 days between the blowing of the trumpets and Yom Kippur, we are all living in the meantime.  The only question is how we will spend it."2

(Click on the YouTube video above to hear just one "series" of blasts on a traditional shofar.)


Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover



1.  Nadler, Sam. Feasts of the Bible. "Feast of Trumpets."  Video. Torrance: Rose P, 2011.
2.  Leman, Derek. Feast: Finding Your Place at the Table of Tradition.  Nashville: Lifeway, 2008: p. 62

Positioning Passover Pronouns

What amazes me about language is how one simple pronoun can change the meaning in an entire text. 

Imagine if I told my daughter, "Bring a necklace downstairs."  Using that pronoun, I'm likely to get anything from broken Mardi Gras beads to her church-only bling.  However, if I said "bring the necklace," this implies a specific piece we've already discussed.  If I change the pronoun again, saying "bring your necklace," my daughter would know not to raid my jewelry cabinet.

While this is a rather meaningless comparison, sometimes in Scripture, understanding God's true intent seriously comes down to a pronoun, or, rather the pronoun God chose.

Consider His instructions in Exodus to the Israelites concerning how they were to prepare the lamb for that first Passover sacrifice so the death angel passed over their household, leaving their firstborn sons untouched.  God said:

Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.  Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats" (Ex. 12:3-5).

Note the progression of pronouns--"a" to "the" to "your," working from general to specific.  It is a picture of what would have happened in this lamb selection process and, more importantly, a picture of Christ as our sacrificial lamb. 

For the Israelite, the lamb would initially be a lamb, merely one chosen for being without blemish from a thousand or more others in the fleecy flock .  Tradition shows this lamb would have then been brought into the household, living with the family from the tenth until the fourteenth day of the month.

Once selected, a lamb became the lamb the family would sacrifice at Passover.  For those Israelites back in Egypt on that first Passover, it was not a way of salvation from the curse of the firstborn's death but was the only way.  

Then, in five days' time, the lamb became your lamb, one that knew and responded to your voice, one that had come to trust you so that when you led it to slaughter at twilight on the fourteenth day, it went willingly with you.  

Imagine what this must have been like.  Place one hand on that lamb as its lifeblood pours out.  Take this active part in its death.  It is impossible to think of the animal as anything but your lamb since you are the cause of, the reason for, its death.  Its sacrifice saved you and your family.

Compare this symbolic series of actions with Jesus, whom John the Baptist referred to as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (Jn. 1:29).

When He began His ministry, many believed Him to be merely a prophet.  Yet, He soon declared Himself not to be a lamb of God but the lamb, the door, the gate--the only way into heaven.

Gentle, meek, and mild, Jesus would have made His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem with thousands of other lambs headed towards their Passover slaughter.  Yet, even in the midst of all those other lambs who would be sacrificed for the various families, He was the once-in-all-time perfect, spotless Lamb to be sacrificed for all mankind.

And in that instant, He became your lamb, dying for your sins, saving your soul with His sacrifice.

His Sacrifice became personal.  It wasn't just for mankind in general.  He died for you and you and you.

Just a few simple pronouns...yet, such a powerful message of what Jesus becomes to each of us who seek His face, repent, and accept His gracious, merciful gift of salvation.  He becomes our lamb.



Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' Or Worship?

Each Saturday evening while my three children slough off a pound of farm dirt from the day's hard play and labor, I begin my routine of preparation for the following Lord's day.  This night-before gathering to meet the next morning's mad dash started when the twins were infants.  With diapers, burp cloths, blankets, loveys, chew toys, an extra set of clothes, bottles, cheerio puffs, and pacifiers (all times two), I quickly learned this preparation made all the difference in whether our family arrived to worship or merely arrived at church.

Experience taught me it wasn't enough just to wake up early.  No matter how early I set the clock, Sunday morning would always exude a tinge of madness and, usually, more than a little chaos.  If milk is spilled, clothes are soiled before breakfast, or something essential is misplaced--this is the day it will happen.
 
That is why each Saturday before I slip my aching arches beneath the sheets, three sets of small shoes line up across the foot of the treadmill, each with matching shoes and stockings tucked in the toes.  Two crisply ironed shirts, two pairs of pressed dress slacks, and one equally wrinkle-free little lady dress swing back and forth immediately above those foot-covers.

By the back door sit a bag of after-church play clothes for dinner at Grand mama's house as well as a second bag filled with the lesson and necessary craft supplies for my four-year-old Sunday School class.

Without such preparation, I would either arrive at church in a foul mood or would throw up my hands in defeat.

As I've been working through the seven Biblical feasts, I've noticed a similar pattern in what God's chosen people did for many of these annual times of worship.

They prepared.  

In essence, preparation was the key to proper worship.

Consider the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread, which begins the day after Passover.  Before its celebration, the Jewish people obeyed the command in Deuteronomy 16:3-4, which required the community to clean their homes of any products containing leaven: "Let no yeast be found in your possession in all your land for seven days." 

Such an action symbolized God's people separating themselves from sin, literally "removing" sin from their homes and, by extension, from their hearts.  That means any packaged foods in the house containing yeast, baking powder, baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate had to be removed.  Imagine going through all your cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer, and reading all the labels to determine if a leavening agent were in the pre-packaged food.  It's a bit like Spring Cleaning, and we all know how long that can take if done properly.

That's preparation for worship.

Even Jesus, Himself, spoke of the importance of preparation when discussing the Feast of Passover. He instructed Peter to "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover,"  and Peter replied, "Where do you want us to prepare for it?" (Lk. 22:8-9).

Scripture records Jesus giving a series of instructions that concluded with the words, "Make preparations there.”  The disciples then "left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover" (Lk. 22:12-13).

Four times in this short passage, Luke emphasized the preparation necessary for a proper celebration of this Feast of remembrance, this Feast of worship.
 
Another Feast that emphasizes preparation is the Feast of Trumpets, more commonly known in modern terminology as Rosh Hashanah.  This one-day Feast importantly announces the coming of Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) in ten days.  With the blast of the trumpet, the Jewish community begins to prepare their hearts for God's judgment.

As Rabbi Derek Leman says of this Holy Day, "The sins of the nation would be judged for another year on Yom Kippur.  On that day the high priest would bring blood into the holiest place that no one else entered.  And every year the question was the same: Would God receive Israel's offering?  Would He grant mercy and grace another year?...Traditionally the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur [The Day of Atonement] is called 'The Ten Days of Awe.'  That week and a half is a time for self-reflection, to repair relationships, and to pray in light of one's own standing before God.  These are days of repentance" (p. 57).

Again, the Feast and Holy Day emphasized preparation for worship.

Do you see a pattern here in God's call for His people to worship?

It wasn't just a "Hey, mark your calendar and show up on X day" kind of event.  Instead, each Feast, each Holy Day was about preparing one's heart (and home, by extension) for worship.

Compare this to our generation.  As a general rule, we don't prepare for worship.  Instead, we waltz in on Sunday morning, expecting to receive God's blessing, to receive an enlightened message from His Word, to feel His Spirit move within......and all without really preparing our hearts for worship.

Worship isn't just about showing up at a certain place and time.  True worship should involve us continually preparing our hearts for meeting with God.

He is holy.  He is worthy of such preparation.


Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

Source: Leman, Derek. Feast: Finding Yourself at the Table of Tradition. Nashville: Lifeway P, 2008: p.57.

Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross

Last week, I concluded with the thought that "We need to know the Jesus of Scriptures.  However, to understand Him fully, we must not reject His Jewish-ness but must, instead, seek to understand what it has to teach us more about this Savior whom we serve."

In an effort to learn more about Jesus Christ, this blog is working through a series on the seven Feasts the Jews of Moses' day were commanded in Leviticus 23 to observe.  The whole purpose is not to burden anyone with more rules and regulations concerning their walk with the Lord but, instead, to reveal to us the care God took when creating those Feasts and how He was foreshadowing Messiah through the Feasts' symbolism.  

Over the past few weeks, we have looked back to Passover and two Pentecost celebrations in Exodus and Acts.  This week, I want to look at two interesting (and symbolic) commands concerning the celebration of Pentecost. 

First, according to Scripture, The Feast of Weeks (or Pentecost) holds no specific date on the calendar.   In fact, it's the only Feast with no set date.  Instead, God said to Moses, "From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks.  Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath" (Lev. 23:15-16).

If one wished to celebrate Pentecost, he had to count forwards fifty days from Passover.  For fifty days, God's people were to be looking back to the sacrifice of the lamb and the ensuing redemption of life through that sacrifice.  

Think of the symbolism!  For those of us who understand Christ to be Messiah, our once and for all sacrificial lamb, God is showing us that our lives literally "begin" with Christ's sacrifice at Passover.  

There can be no Pentecost without Passover--both literally and figuratively.  There can be no Pentecost harvest of souls or gift of the Holy Spirit (as happened at in Acts 2) without Messiah's sacrifice at Passover.

Eternal life begins with death on the cross.  Pentecost begins 50 days earlier with Passover.

In essence, the Passover sacrifice is the very foundation of life, itself as opposed to death found in sin. God's plan in making His people count forward fifty days was for them to "reorient" themselves to Messiah's sacrifice at Passover by looking backwards.

How beautiful a picture of how our lives should be, reoriented to where we are constantly looking back to the cross as the start of our new life in Him.

A second interesting command concerning Pentecost was the sacrifice the people were to bring to God. The people were to "bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the Lord" (Lev. 23:17).

This seems odd, especially since in Scripture, Leaven (yeast) is typically symbolic of sin.    Jesus  warned His disciples of the Pharisees' sinfulness: "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Matt. 16:6).  Paul even later uses the image of leaven as sin, warning his readers, "Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:6-8).

Yet, for the wave offering of Pentecost, God called upon His people to give two loaves made with leaven.

Here, too, the symbolism is important.  Through the bread, God is giving a picture of us, as people full of sin despite our best attempts at righteousness.  Just as He asked the people of Israel to bring their leaven-filled loaves to Him, He beckons us to come as we are to Him.  Full of sinful leaven and in a completely hopeless state, He accepts us with our sin...but only because we are looking back to Messiah, only because we are covered by that sacrifice fifty days earlier at Passover.

Additionally, Professor Sam Nadler argues that the required sacrifice of two loaves (versus one) also provide a symbolic picture of us in Christ, as well.  Nadler says the two loaves represent Jew and Gentile together in the body of Christ, both united but still diverse.  Thus, there is unity but not uniformity in Christ.*

I don't know about you, but I find God's attention to detail in these Feasts comforting, humbling, and awe-inspiring, all at the same time.  Seeing His promises fulfilled over and over shows just how much He loves me.  Honestly, it's baffling.  But it makes me love Him all the more.

  

*Feasts of the Bible. Video. Torrance: Rose P, 2011.
Image: Breathtaking "Pentecost" frontal at Wells Cathedral in the U.K.