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

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.

 

Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus

Many Christians know the story of Passover; some even choose to celebrate it each year as a part of Easter.  Yet, the Passover is only one of seven feasts Jews were commanded to celebrate each year, feasts God carefully planned to reveal a part of the story and character of Messiah to come.

In Leviticus 23, God presented His plan for these festivals, saying of each, "This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live" (Lev. 23:14).  Whether they were living as slaves in Egypt, as wanderers in the Wilderness, as exiles in Babylon, or as victors in the Promised Land--these feasts were to be celebrated always.

Coming from a devout Jewish family who presented him at the temple eight days after His birth, Jesus, Himself, would have celebrated these feasts; in fact, several New Testament Scriptures actually document Him doing just that.

As non-Jewish Christians, though, most of us have little to no understanding of these feasts, nor do we have a good working understanding of the Jewish culture in Jesus' day.  As such, we can't understand the "Jewish-ness" of Jesus. Let me tell you--we're missing out!  

The end result of not understanding the culture Jesus lived in is that we often don't understand what His original audience would have understood when they heard His specific word choices, word pictures, or analogies through the parables.

Much as the pieces of the tabernacle reveal Jesus' Christ's true nature, the God-appointed feasts do much the same.  They were God's way of revealing His son to His favored people long before Messiah's birth. 

The seven feasts are a public testimony, a witness to the world of Jesus Christ.

Two weeks ago, we discussed Passover pointing to Jesus Christ as our own Passover Lamb, the one whose blood sacrifice would take cover the sins of all mankind once and for all.  He was crucified on the day and hour that lambs were being slaughtered for the evening's Passover meal.

Two more feasts were also fulfilled at the time of Christ's death and resurrection.

First, the Feast of the Unleavened Bread points to "the Messiah's sinless life (as leaven is a picture of sin in the Bible), making Him the perfect sacrifice for our sin.  Jesus' body was in the grave during the first days of this feast..."1

A second feast, the Feast of First Fruits, points to Messiah's victory over death in His resurrection.  This feast occurred on the day Jesus rose from the grave, which is why Paul says, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:20).  Literally, Jesus is the "first fruit" from the dead.

Fifty days after the Feast of Unleavened bread comes Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, a celebration of the wheat harvest.  This feast, though, is more commonly known by its Greek name--Pentecost.

Three important festivals revolved around harvests--"at Passover the barley was just beginning to ripen. At Shavuot, the wheat was just ripening. At Sukkot, the crops were all in, including grapes, olives, figs, almonds, and more"2

Hosting these yearly harvest celebrations may seem inconsequential to those of us who can find grapes or apples year round at our local supermarket, but for the Israelites, the festivals were a reminder that they "were always one disaster away from hunger."2  God continually reminded them through the festival tradition that they were completely dependent upon Him for the harvest.

The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), though, came to represent something different to the Jews.  

Exodus 19:1 says "In the third month, on the same day that the Israelites had left the land of Egypt, they entered the Wilderness of Sinai." Since the Hebrew word for "month" is the same as the Hebrew word for "new moon," the Jewish rabbis concluded the Israelites arrived at Mt. Sinai on the first day of the third new moon.  

Add to this fact the knowledge that "Moses spent time talking with God [on the mountain].  Then the people had to ritually purify themselves for three days. The great rabbis of history figured it must have been about Shavuot [Pentecost] by the time God got around to giving the Ten Commandments to Moses."3 

Thus, to a Jew in Jesus' day, Pentecost was about celebrating life-giving bread (the wheat) and the Torah (God's law).  To the devout Jew, both were equally necessary for life.

After Jesus' death, the Feast of Pentecost came around again, only this time, God poured out not the law but His Spirit on believers: "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them" (Acts 2:1-3).

Compare this to the scene 1400 years earlier atop Mt. Sinai.  In Moses' day, the people saw "thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled....Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently."

At their Feast of Weeks/Pentecost celebration, Moses' generation heard a sound like trumpets; they saw thunder, lightening, smoke...and a mountain-top lit afire.  Now, at this Feast of Weeks/Pentecost, there was a sound like a violent wind and flames of fire lighting atop each believer's head.

Here, on the same day God gave the law, God also gave the Spirit.  Why?  Because both are needed for the great harvest of souls into the kingdom of God--the law to tutor us unto salvation and the Spirit to sanctify us.

As Rabbi Derek Leman says, "Shavuot is about wheat, Torah, and Spirit.  It fits together if you talk it out. Bread [wheat] alone cannot sustain us.  Bread and the Word of God [law] is better, but we still need something more.  We need a power inside helping us do what the Word says [Spirit].4 

The Feast of Weeks.  Pentecost.  It reminds us that God gave us the Law and His holy Spirit to dwell in us to the great harvest of souls to come, which would build God's Kingdom.

Amazing, right?

To say we want to know our Savior but choose not to learn His religious or cultural upbringing is like saying I want to know everything about you but nothing about your culture or religion.  It's impossible to separate the two and get a full picture of a person.  Yet, that's what we've done.

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.

1.  "Jesus and the Jewish Feasts."  gotquestions.org/Printer/Jewish-Feasts-PR.html.
2.  Leman, Derek. Feast: Finding Yourself at the Table of Tradition. Nashville: Lifeway P, 2008: p. 38
3. Leman, p. 41.
4.  Leman, p. 45.