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May 18, 2020 |
| Shavu'ot - Weeks | ||
This past Thursday May 28th at sunset was the beginning of the Jewish Feast of Shavu'ot. It is the last of the major feast days of spring that God gave Israel. Like the other feast days it is also prophetic. These feast days were not just days of rest and a time to socialize and have fun; they were also prophecies of things to come.
Shavu'ot was one of the three travel feasts for which Israel was required, if at all possible, to travel to the temple and present themselves before God. It is part of the Spring Feasts, with Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits, which all happen within the same week, but it follows them by more than a month and a half.
We know Shavu'ot better as Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit was given. But Shavu'ot and Pentecost rarely if ever occur on the same day. Shavu'ot was moved on the calendar by the Roman Catholic Church at the same time it moved the other Spring Feasts. Over time they gained new names and each became disconnected from the feast day. Therefore most Christians do not understand the origin or the depth of meaning in the day.
The word "Shavu'ot" means "Weeks" which refers to the time from First Fruits to Shavu'ot, but it has many other aspects. It is related to the wheat harvest, the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai, to manna, and even to marriage. Generally the Jews did not understand the purpose of this day very well. It was observed by the priests creating two pans of bread and by some animal sacrifices but the reasons for doing those things were not clear.
After Jesus came, we understood that there was even more to Shavu'ot. It is related to the giving of the Holy Spirit (a law written on our hearts) and related to the Gentiles being brought into a new covenant. The two, Jew and Gentile, had been separated but now were joined into one new people.
It would seem reasonable to name this feast after one of these aspects. Yet in the Bible, this feast isn't called the harvest feast, the law giving feast, or anything you might expect like that. Instead it is called the Festival of Weeks which refers to the 50 day period from First Fruits (Wave Sheaf Offering) to the observance of Shavu'ot. The name comes from God's commandment for calculating the date. It was to be 7 weeks from the day after First Fruits and therefore 50 days from First Fruits.
From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. 16 Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. (Leviticus 23:15-16)
These 50 days were carefully counted off by the people in what is called "Counting the Omer." An omer is a measure of volume but no one understood why they needed to do that. Even now it is not clear to Christians.
God sometimes uses numbers to provide additional meanings and that appears to be the case here. The number 50 is associated with freedom and liberation. The Jews would not have made the connection but for Christians we understand that the New Covenant brought in freedom and liberation (from sin). For 50 days after Jesus' resurrection, the clock was counting down to a Shavu'ot that would be like no other. That year it brought the promise of the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit.
Another important number appears during those 50 days, the number 40 which means purification.
After [Jesus'] suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1:3)
We don't know if the disciples understood that he was referring to Shavu'ot but we do know that Jerusalem would have been packed with people at that time, people who had come for Shavu'ot. Thousands of them would hear the Gospel message preached in power and accept it.
The Jews celebrated Shavu'ot last Thursday and the Roman Catholic based church's will be celebrating Pentecost this Sunday. This year there is a rare occurrence, however, and Shavu'ot and Pentecost will be on the same day. I know that doesn't sound like it makes sense. It is because there is a problem with the Jewish date for Shavu'ot and this is because there is a problem with the Jewish date for First Fruits. For First Fruits the Bible says:
He [the priest] is to wave the sheaf before the Lord so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath. (Leviticus 23:11)
Ancient records indicate that there was confusion about which Sabbath this verse was referring to. Was it the weekly Sabbath or was it Passover? Remember that all the feast days are also called Sabbaths. They decided it must be Passover, but Christians now know that was wrong.
We understand the full meaning of First Fruits now, that it referred to Jesus' resurrection 3 days later, at the end of a weekly Sabbath. This meant that First Fruits should have been celebrated anywhere from 2 to 8 days after Passover. That's because Passover has a fixed date on the calendar but First Fruits is tied to the weekly Sabbath.
Because the Jews got the date for First Fruits wrong, they also have the date for Shavu'ot wrong, because it comes 50 days after First Fruits.
For First Fruits each person brought their sacrifice from their crops to the priests. For Shavu'ot it was different; the priests presented the sacrifice. Wheat was ground into flour, mixed with yeast, kneaded, allowed to rise and baked into two loaves each about 22 inches by 12 inches by 3 inches high. Once they were cooked the loaves were waved in the sight of God.
Even so, Shavu'ot is, in a way, a First Fruits celebration.
Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year. (Exodus 34:22)
The general understanding of this verse is that, Jesus was the spiritual first fruits of the Old Covenant, but there is a people who would be the first fruits of the New Covenant. This is another area of this feast that is not well understood, even by Christians.
The pairing of these two feasts in this verse is very odd … until you think about their meanings. The Festival of Ingathering is about when we, the harvest, all come to be with the Messiah for what is called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
"Part of the Shavu'ot ceremony consisted of the simultaneous offering of two leavened (sinful) loaves before the Lord (Leviticus 23:17). The fulfillment of Pentecost is the formation of the church on the Day of Pentecost, at which time the Spirit was given to baptize believers of two sinful "loaves" into one body: For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles (1 Corinthians 12:13) that He might make the two into one new man (Ephesians 2:15)."1
To understand the meaning behind this we must understand why there are two loaves. The first covenant, the one between God and Israel, setup a bunch of ordinances that separated Israel from the rest of the world. Israel was to be a holy priesthood to God2. As such they were not to intermarry with other peoples and even association between Jew and Gentile was to be limited. What God had done with the laws therefore was to separate the world into two groups, two loaves if you will.
By Jesus time the loaf of Israel had become as sinful as the loaf of the world. Jesus' death on the cross tore down the wall of separation between the two by putting an end to those ordinances that specified separation between them and by the giving of the Holy Spirit on Shavu'ot who would join both people into a single people for God.
For he is our peace who made the two one, and he destroyed the wall that was standing in the middle. (Ephesian 2:14)
Shavu'ot is also about the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Most Christians don't understand the connection at first. From the first, mankind was given the law in his conscience. Mankind was to be guided by his conscience to live a righteous life. That didn't work out very well and God destroyed most of the people in a great flood. Then God provided the law in a written form and with a holy priesthood to teach and administer the law..
On Shavu'ot, to this day, the Jews read the Bible's account of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Israel3. They also read Numbers 28:26-31 where God gives Israel the Shavu'ot feast to observe or they read Deuteronomy 16:1-17 which describes the three Spring feasts mentioned at the start of this lesson, which of course includes Shavu'ot.
The law given at Mount Sinai was not a complete success either so God sent his Holy Spirit to be an even better law. We don't usually think of the Holy Spirit as a law but that is one of his functions.
Jeremiah 31 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
There are some interesting parallels between the Shavu'ot when the Ten Commandments were given and the Shavu'ot when the Holy Spirit was given.
The 50 days to Shavu'ot are called "Counting the Omer." An omer is a measure of volume, usually of grain or flour. For the Israelites in the desert, an omer was enough manna for one person for one day.
Since the Israelites left Egypt on Passover and the law was given on Mt. Sinai on Shavu'ot, it's easy to calculate how long that trip took - 2 to 8 days to First Fruits + 50 days. After those 2 to 8 days on the trip, all the Matzah they had made in Egypt had run out. They did what the Israelites did - they complained instead of trusting in God. For the next 50 days God would provide them with manna to eat. That period of time (Weeks) is a big part of what Shavu'ot is about.
Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days." (Exodus 16:4-5)
The Israelites have just come out of Egypt. They know nothing of God's ways or what God is like. In Egypt they were slaves under a God-King, Pharaoh, who treated them very badly. He forced them into slavery and when they asked for time off to worship their God, Pharoah figured that meant they had too much time on their hands. He demanded they produce the same number of bricks but now they had to collect the grain stalks themselves.
It was an impossible demand even if they worked 7 days a week. More than that, it created a situation where the Israelites had to fight among themselves to get the grain stalks. In oppressive situations like this people learn they have to break the rules to survive and they become skilled at not getting caught breaking the rules.
God, their new king, would be giving them rules 50 days from when the manna started. Before that he wanted to show them how he would be different from Pharaoh. So he set up 3 rules for the manna to test them and to teach them.
The Israelites ignored the rules at first. Some collected way more than they needed but when they got back to their tents, they found they had only what they needed. Some weren't able to collect enough but when they got back to their tents, they found they had all that they needed. Some tried to save some for the next day but they found that it spoiled overnight. Some went out to collect on the Sabbath but found there was no manna.
These rules were different from the rules they had known in Egypt. No one could gain anything from breaking them. Everyone got what they needed. God was trying to show them that he was a good God, a God who cared for them, a God who gave them rest. His laws would be good for them, for each person and for the community as a whole. He wanted them to trust him.
That is the message behind the Weeks of Shavu'ot and the counting of the omers of manna, to remember how God provided everything his people needed for food.
Jesus draws a parallel between the manna in the wilderness and himself as the bread of life. Just as the manna was provided to sustain the Israelites, Jesus was provided to be the source of eternal life.
Yeshua answered and said to them: "This is the service of God, that you trust in him whom he has sent."
30 They were saying to him, "What sign will you do, that we may see and believe in you? What sign will you perform? 31 Our forefathers ate manna in the wilderness, just as it is written 'He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.'"
32 Yeshua said to them, "Timeless truth I speak to you: It was not Moses who gave you bread from Heaven, but my Father gave you the true bread from Heaven. 33 For the Bread of God is he who has descended from Heaven and gives life to the world."
34 They were saying to him, "Our Lord, always give us this bread."
35 Yeshua said to them, "I Am (the living God), the Bread of Life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever trusts in me shall never thirst." (John 6:29-35)
Later but as part of the same teaching Jesus refers to manna again.
And Yeshua said to them, "Timeless truth I speak to you: Unless you eat the body of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. […] 58This is the bread that came down from Heaven. It is not as your forefathers who ate manna and have died; whoever eats this bread shall live for eternity." […] 60 And many of his disciples who heard were saying, "This saying is hard. Who is able to hear it?"
61 But Yeshua knew in his soul that his disciples were murmuring about this, and he said to them, "Does this stumble you? […] 63 The Spirit is the life giver; the body does not benefit anything. The words that I speak with you are spirit and life." (John 6:53-63)
Shavu'ot is also related to marriage. The giving of the law at Mt. Sinai was also the start of a marriage contract or covenant between God and Israel. We too are in a marriage covenant with God, a new covenant.
It isn't possible to observe any part of Shavu'ot in our time. Preparing the two loaves and sacrificing the animals was only to be done by the priests at the temple. There was nothing for the individual to do.
For almost 2000 years the Jews have not had a temple or priest and have not been able to celebrate it either. No group of people loves traditions like the Jews do, and they have decorated Shavu'ot with a bunch of traditional observances.
"There are a number of customs associated with personal practice. Chief among them is the eating of dairy products on Shavuot. Although the reasons for this custom are not completely clear, it has become traditional to eat milk and cheese products as part of the celebration of Shavuot.
"Much of the observance of the holiday centers on the synagogue and its rituals. The special readings for the holiday include medieval poems and the Book of Ruth. A number of reasons are given for the inclusion of the latter. Among them are that the book takes place at the time of the barley harvest, that Ruth's assumption of Naomi's religion reflects the Israelites' acceptance of the Torah at Sinai, and that King David, who is alleged to have died at this time of year according to rabbinic tradition, is mentioned at the end of Ruth."4
These are man-made traditions and Christians have no reason to keep them. The value of Shavu'ot to Christians is to understand God better and how he works.
In general Shavu'ot celebrates:
God was trying to teach his people they can trust in him. He demonstrated his care for them by providing them with manna (and later Quail). Despite that, the Israelites struggled to trust him.
God has promised to provide our needs as well. Jesus said:
Therefore do not be concerned or say, "What will we eat?", or "What will we drink?", or, "What will we wear"? 32 For the Gentiles are seeking all these things, but your Father who is in Heaven knows that all these things are necessary for you. 33 But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 You shall not be concerned about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be concerned for itself. A day's own trouble is sufficient for it.
We need to be careful not to look down on the Israelites for their lack of faith. We see the plagues in Egypt, walking through the Sea of Reeds with walls of water on either side, manna every morning, and we have to wonder how they could not have trusted God. Yet, I'm sure that each one of us has an area or two in our lives where we don't trust God or don't trust his word. We say we trust him in everything and we want that to be true, but in these areas we do what seems right to us.
In most cases I don't think we are even aware of these areas. We don't recognize them because we've gotten so used to doing things our way instead of God's way that we never think about it. Our prayer should be that God would reveal these areas to us so we can trust him more completely.
1 http://www.biblestudyproject.org/feasts-of-israel-messianic.htm
2 Exodus 19:6
3 Exodus 19:1 - 20:23
4 https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shavuot-101/