And in fact, when you look in the whole concept of the Jewish festivals, you find that, in some way, they all speak about Jesus and about God’s plan of salvation.
You have the three main pilgrim festivals. They’re the festivals which required the Jewish people to go up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord in the Temple. And they happened on three different occasions in the year. On each of these occasions, there was something that happened relating to Jesus.
So, they’re all remembering some events from the past.
Passover remembers the Passover night and the Exodus from Egypt.
Also, we have the Yom Ha Bikkurim, the festival of First Fruits Shavuot which celebrates the barley harvest, the first fruits of the harvest and is held remembering the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai.
The giving of the Law at Mount Sinai was really the birth of Israel as a nation under God. They existed as the tribes of Israel, they were in slavery, they came out, and when they came to Mount Sinai where God gave them the Torah, gave them the Ten Commandments and, in a sense, made them His special people through whom He’s going to reveal Himself and reveal His purposes in the years that would follow.
Then, you come to Sukkot which is the feast of tabernacles, which happens in September/October on our calendar and is the final harvest. At that time, the Jewish people remember God’s provision in the wilderness as they’re coming out of Egypt and also give thanks for their entrance into the Promised Land following the time of wandering in the wilderness. It speaks of God’s faithfulness to His people in preserving them as a people and bringing them out of bondage, out of slavery and into the Promised Land as the people of God.
So, you see parallels with this in the New Testament. The New Testament Passover equals the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. When did Jesus die on the cross? On the first day of Passover, the 14th day of Nisan, the day when the Passover lambs are being slain. The Passover lambs remind us of the Passover lamb in the Book of Exodus when the Israelites were told to take a lamb put his blood upon the door and, as they put the blood upon the door, they would be saved from the Angel of Death when he passed through the land of Egypt. And the Angel of Death would pass over them, to pass them over from death to life.
What happens if you believe in Yeshua the Messiah? You put the blood of the lamb upon the doorpost of your house, of your life if you like, and then, through that blood of the lamb, you pass over from death to life. It’s another picture of our redemption.
When you come to Shavuot, you have the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost gave birth to the true church of Jesus the Messiah, the chosen ones. I said this morning the church is not the building, not the organization but the people who are called out by the Lord to be the ones who would live in a new life in the Holy Spirit. So, you have new life in Yeshua through the Holy Spirit and the first fruits harvest of souls saved.
Interestingly, on the day of Pentecost, we read that 3,000 people were saved through the preaching of the gospel.
And finally, you come to Sukkot which is the final harvest looking for the return of the Messiah and His reign in the Millennial Kingdom. And there are parallels between the time in the wilderness and the building of booths which are temporary structures and the time when Jesus is going to come back and rule over the earth for a thousand years in the event which we call the Millennial Kingdom.
Not every Christian believes in that but I do. We teach that here, in this church, that there will be a Millennial Kingdom in which Yeshua Jesus is going to reign for a thousand years after His Second Coming.
So, these three pilgrim festivals all have a relevance obviously to Jewish people who they’re reminding them of their history, but also they do have a connection to those that believe in Jesus the Messiah.