Pentecost and the Feasts

Pentecost and the Feasts

A few weeks ago we learnt some of the tactics of the evil one, so that does not comes and snatch away what is sown and in the process we have learnt a bit about the Holy Spirit. But today I would like to jump straight to Pentecost

Pentecost as you may know was not just something that happened in the New Testament and is celebrated by Christians. It’s a major Jewish festival and only one of three that required all adult Jewish males to attend in Jerusalem. So people, tens of thousands, came from all over and from different nations and they spoke many different languages. It is known by Jews as Shavout or the Feast of Weeks or (sometimes called the Feast of Harvest, because it starts at the beginning of barley/wheat harvest (Ex23:16)).

Numbers 28:26-30  (NIV)The Festival of Weeks26 “‘On the day of first fruits, when you present to the Lord an offering of new grain during the Festival of Weeks, hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. 27 Present a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram and seven male lambs a year old as an aroma pleasing to the Lord. 28 With each bull there is to be a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour mixed with oil; with the ram, two-tenths; 29 and with each of the seven lambs, one-tenth. 30 Include one male goat to make atonement for you.

However the celebration actually starts on the 16th day of the month of Nissan in the Jewish calendar by a day known as the “day of first fruits” and the “waving of the omer ( a sheaf of barley)”  it ends exactly 50 days later on a second day of bringing the first fruits which falls on the 6th day of the month of Sivan.  So Shavout or the Feast of Weeks is then finally celebrated exactly 50 days after the waving of the omer and that day is termed Pentecost. Just like the 16th Nissan, it is also a day of first fruits and there were 7 kinds of fruits accepted by Jews (Deut 8:8) at the festival.

These events are intrinsically linked to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Its worth just re-examining the timings of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection

SLIDE

[the Creation calendar defines the commencement of a month with the conjunction of a new moon. (Numbers 28:14; 1 Samuel 20; Isaiah 66:23) The ancient Babylonian calendar, later adopted by the Jews, defines the commencement of a month with sighting the first crescent of a new moon. After the Babylonian exile, the Jews were divided on the date of the observance of Passover. Some Jews insisted on following Creation's calendar, that is, Nisan 1 began on the day of a new moon. Jewish leaders, however, insisted on using the Babylonian method for determining the first day of each month. The High Priest waited until the first crescent of the new moon was sighted before declaring the commencement of Nisan 1.

Because the conjunction of a new moon and the sighting of the first crescent of a new moon in Jerusalem is typically 16 to 40 hours later, the celebration of two Passovers on two different days in Israel was not uncommon. In fact, the national Passover usually occurred two days later than the Passover observed by conservative Jews]

So the purpose of this celebration of the feast of weeks, spanning 50 days was to bring a portion of the harvest into the Temple as an act of dedication to God and in recognition and appreciation of His provision.  As they celebrated Pentecost/ Shavout they repeated after the priests

Deuteronomy 26:1-3 (NIV)26 When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, 2 take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name 3 and say to the priest in office at the time, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”

Shavout and the day of Pentecost is also the day the Jews celebrate God giving the Torah on the Mt Sinai.  According to Jewish tradition God did this speaking in all the languages of the world at that time -70 in total (so its significant that the speaking of tongues happened on this day and was a message in its own right to the Jews!)

There is so much of significance there. Lets start looking at some of these points between when Jesus died and rose again and the giving of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost to all the disciples.

1. The feast of the First Fruits, The Feast of the Weeks, Jesus’s resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit  are all intimately linked and culminate on the day of Pentecost. This close association between the resurrection of Jesus and the Feast of the first fruits is no coincidence

1 Corinthians 15:20 (AMP) 20 But now [as things really are] Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, [and He became] the first fruits [that is, the first to be resurrected with an incorruptible, immortal body, foreshadowing the resurrection] of those who have fallen asleep [in death].

Keep in mind that by accepting Jesus as our sacrifice to God, by accepting the blood of the Lamb before God, Jesus has become our first fruit offering and the only one that needs to be done. And when we do that and as it says in Leviticus  “if you follow my decrees and are careful to follow my commands”… then God bestows on us a blessing

Leviticus 26:9-12 (NIV)

 “‘I will look on you with favour and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.

2. It is interesting that for me Jesus celebrated Passover on the 15 Nissan according to the original Jewish calendar (Creation Calendar) as ordained by God  while the Jews celebrated it on the 15Th of Nissan according to a modified Jewish calendar (the Babylonian calendar) which runs  two days later than the original calendar?

3. Exactly 7 weeks of 7 days after Jesus rose from the grave, and 50 days( reminds me of a Jubilee day- a day of setting free) after the Waving of the omer, or the Day of First fruits, and on the day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-4 (NIV)...” they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the [Holy] Spirit enabled them. 

So joined together in prayer and accepting Jesus as the Son of God who died for our sins and who became the first fruit before God, they received the Holy Spirit.  In doing so they became a new creation in the Spirit, a new life. Jesus became the first fruit offering.

And in the sowing of the seed of Jesus they reap the reward and gifting and the fruit of the Holy Spirit that includes the hope we have been called to, the faith in our glorious inheritance and love that passes understanding. These are the first fruits because they come first (C.H.Spurgeon) and as the first fruit was not the harvest neither is this, but these gifts  which are so pure lovely admirable and true point to a future harvest and the coming glory of our Lord, and the redemption of our bodies. And this is why Paul writes..

Romans 8:22-23 (NIV) 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

These are not the only fruits that follow…..

Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)….., joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

So while the feast of weeks starts with the day of first fruits and ends with a Shavout or Pentecost, for us it starts with the resurrection of Jesus, who became the first fruit) and ends with the giving of the Holy Spirit and a new life, being born again and the gifts of faith and hope and love and the many others that flow from that. A new life. But look what else happened on the 17th Nissan

1. 1. Noah’s ark comes through the waters and rests on the earth for the first time bringing new life to Noah and his family on the 17th of Nisan. (Gen 8:4)5. Noah and his family were the firstfruits of what would be a whole new life!

   2. Israel came through the Red Sea on the 17th of Nisan .For them this was death to their old life (with the drowning of the Egyptians) and resurrection to a new life in God on the 17th!

   3. The manna which had fed the nation of Israel for the 40 years in the wilderness stopped on the 16th of Nisan and from the 17th onwards Israel feasted on the new grain of the promised land (Josh 5:10-12). This again is a picture of the new life in the Promised Land that came on the 17th!

We are only scratching the surface of what God through His Holy Spirit has to offer us. The freedom of a new life as we enter the promised land.  A harvest so plentiful as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.