Geoff Westlake
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Travel Notes

The Biblical Feasts

6/9/2020

 
Biblical Feasts summary
Feasts are more than just great times. They bind communities together around shared concepts and experiences in common. Like a wedding feast celebrates around our common support of the union of these people. Likewise the feasts that God instructs his people to observe, bind them together too, around concepts core to their identity. And because these core concepts are fulfilled in Jesus, they are also about our identity too.
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Due to our communion services, many of us already know how Passover relates to our life in Christ (the prophesied Messiah). Likewise, so do the other feasts. 
1) Christ is the spotless Passover lamb, whose blood saved us from death, and slavery to sin.
2) Christ is also the Unleavened Bread, broken, wrapped, and buried to return later. 
3) Christ is the First Fruits of the resurrection. 
4) Christ’s Spirit is given at Pentecost /Weeks /Second Harvest, to gather Gentile believers as a second harvest. 
5) Trumpets will announce the coming of Christ, the start of the age to come.
6) Christ will cover us on Atonement Day, the Day of Judgement - he's also The Judge - sorting out this mixed up world. 
7) Finally Christ Shelters with us, as in the wilderness of this life, as he did as God in the flesh, and does now by his Spirit, he'll be with us in the Heavenly feast to come. 
​
So although not all Christians observe these feasts, we can celebrate that Israel's core Scriptural feasts are fulfilled by the Messiah who grafts us in to His Story. Thus these feasts can bind us together very deeply.
​
Gallery
New Life Church in Fremantle made these cards (I made minor embellishments) to consider how Jesus fulfils these Feasts, instituted in Lev23:1-44. Num29:12-34. Deut14-16. 

Israel's Fall Feasts

5/9/2020

 
Christians benefit from a closer look at the Biblical Fall Feasts, because, among other things, they foreshadow Christ's work in days to come. We have hindsight to help us see how Christ fulfilled Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost. We need foresight to see how he will fulfil Trumpets, Atonement, and Shelters. 
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Feast 5) The shofar Trumpets signal an arrival, like a communal alarm clock. The time has come: a new Sabbath, or that a bridegroom is now coming for his bride. 
In this feast the trumpets sound to signal: a new yearly cycle of faith; the anniversary of Creation; God providing a ram in place of Isaac; and God descending to give the Law to his people. 
It is also a reminder to prepare for the Day when this age will end, to ponder, repent, pray. Hence ten 'Days of Awe’ follow the feast of Trumpets leading up to the Day of Atonement when the Trumpet will sound again. 
Christians are further reminded that on that Day the Trumpet will sound and Jesus will physically return. So how will we be ready? We can also remember that Jesus is our ultimate Sabbath, our Bridegroom, The Creator, and the bringer of the New Covenant, the fulfilment of this feast. 

Feast 6) The Day of Atonement is actually a fast. It calls to mind Judgement Day, at the end of which the shofar signals the closing of the Book of Life, in which we want our names written. So Atonement Day focusses on how our sins are to be atoned for, or ‘covered,’ on that Day.
Since the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, the Temple priests can’t make the Levitical sacrifices of atonement, so there is a lot of repenting and prayer for God’s mercy on this day. 
Christians know how our sins will be covered on Judgement day by Christ's sacrificial work at Passover. Plus The Judge on that Day will be none other than Christ himself. So we best trust what he has done, in order to have our names written in His Book of Life. 

Feast 7) The Feast of Shelters (or Tabernacles /Tents) celebrates God-with-us, just as God travelled with the Hebrews when they slept under makeshift tents in the wilderness in Exodus. For a week meals are taken outside under simple shade. This reduces dependancy on consumerism by celebrating his presence. And that’s why we feast on our finest and favourite foods over these 8 days.
Because the feast starts on the first Sabbath after the Day of Atonement, it foreshadows God-with-us forever after the Day of Judgement - Heaven, where God will be with his people, in the ultimate way.
Christians also know that Jesus is ‘God is with us,’ as Emmanuel in the flesh, by his Spirit now, through death, and in Heaven forever. 


This helps us understand why there are two New Years in the Jewish calendar: the religious-year cycle of teaching starts with Trumpets, but the calendar-year starts just before Passover. Some people start their spiritual lives at the beginning with Creation and the Old Testament, but some start with Jesus the Passover lamb. 
The religious cycle begins with Trumpets for the beginnings of eras: Creation; a ram for Isaac; the Law of Moses. Atonement is made, and at Shelters we thank God for his presence. Then at Passover, Unleavened Bread & First Fruits we recall the Exodus. Pentecost calls for the second harvest.
And thus people lived... until the new cycle.

A new era of the Messiah is Trumpeted (think of the Prophets), the Saviour who will make Atonement, will Shelter with us - and scriptural clues suggest Jesus' birth around the time of Shelters - God-with-us in the flesh. At Passover/Unleavened Bread he makes the necessary sacrifice, then becomes the First Fruits of the resurrection, and at Pentecost gives his Spirit for the second harvest of Gentiles.
And thus people live… until the new era!

The final era will be Trumpeted at Christ's return, his prior sacrifice will be what Atones for us (covers us) on the Day of Judgement, and we will Shelter with him in Heaven.
And thus people will live… forever.

​
Whether you start with the Old Testament beginnings, or start with Christ's Passover, the feasts commemorate the whole history from beginning to end.​ 

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