Festivals of Celebration and Commemoration

Today's readings are from Leviticus 22 & 23

I love the 23rd chapter as it outlines the 7 annual feasts of Israel. While we in the church generally celebrate two, maybe three: Christmas, Easter (sometimes Lent is included) and sometimes Pentecost (this is what most Evangelical protestant churches); but God gave many more weeks of celebration for his people...a sign that God loves holidays!

The basics of those days and weeks of celebration were these:

1. Passover (celebrating their deliverance from Egypt - 1 day usually)
2. Feast of Unleavened bread (remembering when they left Egypt in haste and also that leaven in bread is a bit like sin in us). This was a week long festival bracketed by Sabbath celebrations.
3. First Fruits (giving prayers and thanks to God for the ability to see the first of the potential harvest coming up).
4. Pentecost or "Feast of Weeks" (50 days after first fruits it serves as a thank you for the early harvest, but foretells the coming of the Spirit of God who is signifies in the church first fruits and eventual harvest of souls).
5. Feast of Trumpets or "Rosh Hashanah" (comes in early Fall and in the blowing of the trumpets the nation is called to seek God's face and receive his atonement for the forgiveness of sins. It is a ten day period of reflection, repentance and restoration).
6. Day of Atonement or "Yom Kippur) (at the end of the ten days a solemn assembly of worship sees the High Priest enter the holy place to sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat thereby signifying the forgiveness of sins for the nation).
7. Feast of Tabernacles or Booths also called Sukkoth (at the end of the Day of Atonement the final celebration gives thanksgiving for the Fall harvest and God's provision for the gifts of God). During Sukkoth the children of Israel live in booths, temporary shelters that caused them to remember that they once lived in booths in the desert.

These 7 annual festivals are outlined in chapter 23 and frame the year for worship, celebrating God's provisions: materially and spiritually for his people. While we don't have these (sadly so) they can serve as reminders for us of the kind of "intentional" worship that God so loves from his people.


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