The Jewish feasts have always intrigued me. However, I have never spent a great deal of time trying to gain a better understanding of them.
I read something recently that said the feasts were God’s roadmap for His plan of salvation. Since Christ fulfills each one of the feasts, it would be a good use of our time to look at them.
The Lord called them “my feasts”, “the Lord’s appointed feasts”, the Lord’s appointed times”, or “appointed festivals”. It was a time for the Lord to be in communion with His people. We are not required to celebrate these times, but it is a good idea to determine God’s heart for each of these times. We should look at the three words in Hebrew that help us to understand each of these special times:
- Mo’ed–season of appointed time.
- Mikrah–a holy assembly celebrating portions of our Messiah’s ministry on earth.
- Chag–festive celebration
In her book, A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel, Jill Shannon writes, “All of these biblical celebrations contain deep treasures of understanding. They unveil the Lord’s intense desire for fellowship with His people, as living parables. They paint a prophetic picture of the Lord Yeshua’s eternal redemptive purposes on the earth.” p 24
She goes on to write, “The only holidays celebrated and cited in any of the New Testament writings were the biblical feasts observed by the Lord and the apostolic community (see John 10:22; Luke 22:7-8; Acts 20:6; 1 Cor. 16:8). The apostle Paul made plans during his missionary journeys to observe the biblical calendar when he could arrange it, and to return to Jerusalem in time for the Feast of Weeks, also called Pentecost (see Acts 20:16). Pentecost was one of the three pilgrimage festivals in which the Lord God had commanded all Israelite men to come up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord and present offerings (see Deut. 16:16-17).” P. 25
There are seven feasts that are part of the Jewish calendar. The first three go together and occur in the spring. The last three also go together as a group and occur in the fall. Pentecost bridges the first three and the last three together as a full plan of redemption. The descriptions of each feast is found in Leviticus 23. Scripture does not require believers to continue the practice of celebrating the feasts, but there seems to be a growing trend to celebrate them. Christ already has or will fulfill each and every one of them.
The feasts span seven months of the Jewish calendar. God was very specific about when each one would occur. We know that God is a God of intricate details so this should not be surprising to us. Through each feast, a special piece of redemptive history is revealed. The first four feasts which are the Feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Weeks have already been fulfilled through the earthly life of Christ. The final three feasts which are the Feasts of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles will be fulfilled when Christ returns.
Leviticus 23:1-3 begins with a description of the Sabbath, “The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the LORD that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts. “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwelling places.”
We will be studying each feast in more detail in the weeks to come.
Let me know what you think.