Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets

Rosh Hashanah, the civil Jewish calendar's new year, begins tonight. Rosh Hashanah is known in scripture as Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets. It is observed on the first two days of Tishri, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. Why two days instead of one? The only Biblical feast to come with the new moon, its date could not be calculated exactly during the days of Scripture. One had to watch for the new moon, and its appearance in the sky had to be verified by two or more witnesses. For this reason, the Feast of Trumpets is known as "the feast of which no man knows the day or the hour." Christian friends, does that phrase sound familiar to you? If yes, there's a reason.

In addition to the Shabbat (Sabbath), there are seven yearly Biblical feasts commanded by the Lord, known in Hebrew as HaMoadim, or God's appointed times. And, true to their collective Biblical name, these feasts belong to the Lord. Foundational to all of Scripture, understanding them is essential if you want to truly grasp Biblical prophecy and eschatology.

Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, fulfilled (and I do not mean ended, there is a distinct difference) the first four of His feasts with His first coming: Passover (Pesach), Unleavened Bread (Hag Hamatzot), First Fruits (Yom Habikkurim), and Pentecost (Shavuot). The last three will be fulfilled with His second coming: Rosh Hashanah/Yom Teruah (the Feast of Trumpets), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). His statement that "No man knows the day nor the hour," refers to His fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets...at the last trump. The statement is true on its surface as well, because He said Himself that only our Heavenly Father knows when He will send His Son to return for His bride here on earth.

Scripture comes alive in amazing ways with mere glimpses of the Hebrew roots, the largely unseen anchor of our faith. Press in; dig deeper. A rabbi once told me that you could spend 70 lifetimes as a Torah student and barely scratch the surface. How much more depth is there to Scripture when you add in the Torah Incarnate, Jesus Christ?

So take a step outside tonight and look up at the starry sky. Spot that new moon if you can, and remember both Jesus' promise in Revelation 22, "Yes, I am coming quickly," and John's response: "Come, Lord Jesus!"

Until His return, L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu! May you be inscribed [in the (Lamb's) Book of Life] for a new year!

Passover Moon

Take a look out your window tonight, and if our sky isn't overcast, you'll see a gorgeous full moon. That's the Passover moon, the moon that shone on Jesus while He prayed in Gethsemane. And that same moon becons us to revisit His sacrifice, to partake in the feast in remembrance of Him.

Chag sameach Pesach!

Our Passover Lamb

Passover begins Monday night this year. Passover is the night when Christ sat down with his disciples, His last supper with them. It's the night He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. The night He was arrested so that the next morning He could become our Passover Lamb, our Deliverer, our Redeemer. While the hundreds of thousands of passover lambs were being sacrificed at the temple altar, He hung on that cross so that He could free us from sin. It is appropriate that the Jewish people also call Passover the Festival of Freedom. God used the Exodus from Egypt to paint a type and picture, a representation of what Christ would become for us, a shadow of our Messiah. Just as He brought His people out of Egypt (Mitzrayim is the Hebrew word for Egypt, and means bondage, sin, the world system), He clothed Himself in humanity and set us free from sin.

He was the unleavened bread (leaven represents sin). The Feast of Unleavened Bread begins on Passover and lasts for seven days. During that seven days we do not eat anything with leaven in it. (Ex. 12 & 13; Deut. 16) At the same time, we ask God to search our hearts, to help us purge ourselves and deliver us from the leaven in our lives.

That year Passover started a little later in the week (although the sequence of events and timing, particularly whether He was crucified on Aviv 14 or Aviv 15, is hotly debated in messianic circles). Jesus was crucified at the same time as the morning lambs were sacrificed. He died at 3:00, the same time as the afternoon lambs were sacrificed. And He was buried just before sunset. He was in the ground three nights and three days, and He rose at the end of the Sabbath, just as the sun was going down to begin the first day of the week and the Festival of First Fruits (which is always on the Sunday after Passover begins, or as the Bible puts it, the day after the Sabbath following the first day of Passover). He was the First Fruits of the Father, risen from the grave and presented as a wave offering. Coincidentally, this year Easter falls on First Fruits.

Isn't God awesome? He delivers His people from physical bondage. Then He delivers His people from spiritual bondage on the same day, a couple thousand years later. He created a "moed," an appointed time, that we are to celebrate every year for the rest of eternity (Ex. 12:14; 1 Cor. 5:7-8). This is a commandment from God to His People. If we were supposed to celebrate it, to commemorate it every year, how much more so should we be celebrating these appointed meetings with God now that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection have brought double meaning to them?