Should You Keep the Festivals Jesus Observed?
Jesus observed the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles
and the other festivals that God gave to Israel. Should you follow His
example? Are those sacred festivals still applicable for Christians?
by Roger Foster
Some of our readers may be
surprised to learn that the United Church of God, an International
Association, observes the same religious festivals that Jesus observed.
Why would we follow His example in the matter of which days we keep?
One obvious reason is that Jesus Christ was the perfect
model of how a Christian should live. Equally important is our conviction
that religious practices should be founded directly on what the Bible
approves. The only religious festivals commanded or approved in the Bible
are the ones Jesus kept. But are these the only reasons, or is there more
to this story?
Jesus Christ observed the festivals God gave to ancient
Israel. Christians, of course, are expected to follow His example, to
"walk just as He walked" (1 John 2:6). One reason Christ observed the
festivals is that they are relevant to His message, the gospel of the
Kingdom of God. By observing them we can learn much about God's plan to
grant eternal life to those who become His sons and daughters through
Jesus Christ. This is what gives these festivals their Christian
importance and significance.
At one of these festivals a city newspaper reporter once
asked me, "Why does your church observe the Feast
of Tabernacles, a Jewish
festival?"
I had the opportunity to explain that the occasion is not a
festival for Jews alone, but for all humanity. This is one of God's own
festivals for the benefit of the human race. She later wrote an article
complimenting the church for bringing a truly family-oriented convention
to her city.
The Feast of Tabernacles, observed annually in September
and/or October, is indeed a family festival. It has a distinct atmosphere,
presenting abundant opportunities for close cooperation and communication
among family members. It reflects what God is doing to create a family for
Himself, His own children. He says to those called to be Christians: "I
will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and
daughters, says the LORD Almighty" (2 Corinthians
6:18, emphasis added throughout). God seeks a family relationship and
calls on us to become a part of that family!
The harvest of the children of God
The festivals of the Bible are closely linked to the harvest
seasons of the Holy Land, where Jesus Christ spent His human life. Jesus
often compared what God was doing through Him to a harvest. For example,
Christ said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish
His work. Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the
harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields,
for they are already white [ripe] for harvest! And he who reaps receives
wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he
who reaps may rejoice together'" (John 4:34-36).
Here Jesus links the idea of a harvest to His work of
bringing humanity into a relationship with God that leads to eternal life.
The festivals are not just memorials of what happened to ancient Israel,
nor are they meaningless ritual. They were given to reveal major aspects
of Jesus' role in securing the redemption and salvation of all humanity.
They are all about the work of Jesus Christ. That is why we keep them.
God's marvelous master plan
Few realize that God has a master plan He carefully follows.
His actions are not random or capricious. He formulated that plan before
He created the heavens and earth. He began revealing important aspects of
it with our first human parents, Adam and Eve. Let's examine what the
Bible says about that fascinating plan and how the festivals that Jesus
observed reveal the order in which God's magnificent blueprint for mankind
will be accomplished.
When did God conceive His plan for creating mankind and
offering us eternal life? Paul tells us that he became "a servant of God
and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the
knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness-a faith and knowledge
resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised
before the beginning of time" (Titus 1:1-2, New International
Version).
Time, of course, is measured by the movement of the earth
and the other heavenly bodies in space. Paul is telling us that before God
created the universe He envisioned human beings and a way for them to
receive eternal life. The salvation of mankind is not a new idea with
God.
Later, when God evicted Adam and Eve from the garden
paradise of Eden, after they had succumbed to the serpent's influence and
sinned, He told the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you
shall bruise His heel" (Genesis 3:15).
In Adam's and Eve's presence, God revealed to Satan, "that
serpent of old" (Revelation 12:9), that the time would come when a
descendant of the very woman he had just deceived would crush his
deceptive leadership over mankind. But first he would be allowed to strike
(by crucifixion) a temporarily disabling blow to the promised Messiah.
God had a clear picture of the future. His plan included the
death and resurrection of the Son of God, who was also to be the Son of
Man-with God as His Father and the woman, Mary, His mother.
Is it any wonder that God began revealing more details of
His plan to Moses at the time He selected ancient Israel as His special
people? That was why God commanded the observance of His festivals with
their dual meanings. Some of them represent truly historic events that
occurred at the founding of ancient Israel as a nation. But they all
represent the much more important relationship of all human beings to the
mission of the Messiah (Colossians 2:16-17). That has always been their
primary focus.
Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread
For example, the killing of the Passover lambs was the first
event in the spring festival season. It represented an important
occurrence in Israel's exodus from Egypt. But it also represents the death
of a much later "Lamb of God" (John 1:29, 36). The apostle Paul makes this
plain by telling us that "Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for
us" (1 Corinthians 5:7). The purpose of the Passover from the
beginning was to represent the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
That supreme sacrifice is the foundation of the Christian
faith. It reflects the all-encompassing love God has for His creation and
His great concern for the ultimate well-being of every human being (John
3:16). On the last evening before He was crucified, Christ told His
disciples, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with
you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it
is fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:15-16). When Jesus returns to
establish His Kingdom in its fullness on the earth, He will again
participate in the Passover ceremony with His disciples, those who
faithfully follow His teachings and example.
The children of Israel were delivered from their Egyptian
oppressors during the festival that follows the Passover ceremony. The
Feast of Unleavened Bread celebrates that deliverance. In the New
Testament, Israel's rescue from Pharaoh's armies at the Red Sea is
compared to a Christian's deliverance from eternal death, because of sin,
through the sacrifice of Christ at baptism. "Moreover, brethren, I do not
want you to be unaware that all our fathers [ancient Israel] were under
the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the
same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed
them, and that Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).
The Feast of Pentecost
According to Jewish tradition, the Israelites received the
Ten Commandments written on tablets of stone at the time of Pentecost. It
was then that God made a covenant with them. A special relationship
between God and the community of the Israelites was sealed, and they
became the "congregation of God" of that time. But that relationship
served as a type, or a forerunner, of a far more important relationship
that would be established on a later Day of Pentecost.
Luke, author of the book of Acts, writes: "And being
assembled together with them, [Jesus] commanded them not to depart from
Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, 'which,' He said,
'you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall
be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now'" (Acts
1:4-5).
Here is what happened: "When the Day of Pentecost had fully
come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came
a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole
house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided
tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit . . ." (Acts 2:1-4).
This was the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophecies
of Jeremiah 31:31-33 and Ezekiel 36:26-27. God promised to make a new
covenant with the community of faithful believers. He promised to write
His laws on their hearts and minds with His Holy Spirit, instead of on
tablets of stone, as in the time of Moses. It was on this Feast of
Pentecost that the Church of God-the Christian community of faithful
believers imbued with God's Spirit-was born.
Next we come to the festivals Jesus kept later in the year,
the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.
These festivals represent earth-shaking events that will forever change
the course of human history and show what the Messiah is yet to accomplish
in harvesting the sons and daughters of God.
The Feast of Trumpets
The Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah, begins the new
Jewish civil year. But it is also the first day of the seventh month of
the sacred calendar. It pictures the beginning of a new era, the end of
the age of Satan's influence and the beginning of the age of the Messiah.
God instructed Moses that "in the seventh month, on the first day of the
month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a
holy convocation" (Leviticus 23:24).
Why remember the blowing of trumpets? What relationship do
trumpets have to God's master plan and the mission of the Messiah?
The Bible reveals the significance of trumpets: The blowing
of trumpets will announce the return of Jesus Christ!
"Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and
then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of
Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will
send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will
gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other" (Matthew 24:30-31).
Paul clarifies even more what will happen at the conclusion
of the blowing of trumpets that will announce Christ's return: "Behold, I
tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-in
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the
trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on
incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be
brought to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in
victory'" (1 Corinthians 15:51-54).
Few events-pictured here by the Feast of Trumpets-could be
more significant to Christians than those that occur at the blowing of the
trumpets at Christ's return. That is when Christians, living or dead,
receive immortality and eternal life.
The Day of Atonement
On the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) a special sacrifice was
made in ancient Israel to reconcile the Israelites to God, to figuratively
cleanse them of their sins. "This shall be a statute forever for you: In
the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your
souls [by fasting], and do no work at all, whether a native of your own
country or a stranger who dwells among you. For on that day the priest
shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from
all your sins before the Lord" (Leviticus 16:29-30).
This was done to make sure that even sins committed in
ignorance were figuratively cleansed through an atoning sacrifice. Some
1,500 years later the book of Hebrews further explained the significance
of God's instructions regarding events that took place on that day: "But
into the second part [of the tabernacle] the high priest went alone once a
year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's
sins committed in ignorance; the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way
into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first
tabernacle was still standing" (Hebrews 9:7-8).
Why was the "Holiest of All," that inner room of the
tabernacle that symbolized direct access to God, not opened to the entire
congregation "while the first tabernacle was still standing"? It was
because the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ had not yet been made. Only
His sacrifice, not the sacrifice of animals, could atone for the sins of
the whole nation-and of all mankind.
The apostle John wrote: "My little children, I am writing
these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is
the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the
sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2, New Revised Standard Version).
God knows that people sin for two basic reasons. First, "the
god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them
from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Corinthians
4:4, NRSV). That is, most are unaware of their sin. Second, they are
"darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because
of their ignorance and hardness of heart" (Ephesians 4:17-18, NRSV).
Immediately after Christ's return, Satan's influence over
mankind will be suspended for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-2). This will
fulfill what God earlier predicted to Satan in the presence of Adam and
Eve (Genesis 3:15). With Satan banished and his deceptive, destructive
influence removed, Christ will begin dispelling the ignorance of mankind
and removing its spiritual blindness (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). At that time
"the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as
the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14).
Christ's atoning sacrifice will then be made available to
all people on earth. God's intent, as expressed in John 3:17, will be
accomplished: "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through Him might be saved."
The Day of Atonement was instituted to remind us that the
atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not only for individual Christians in
this present age but, after He returns, for cleansing all of mankind of
all sins. That atonement paves the way for Him to gather all peoples into
His Kingdom during the 1,000 years when Satan is restrained from confusing
and misleading them (Revelation 20:2-3). The Day of Atonement thus has a
clear Christian theme.
The Feast of Tabernacles
Then we come to the Feast of Tabernacles. The first time
this festival is mentioned in the Bible it is called the Feast of
Ingathering (Exodus 23:16). It was the great autumn harvest festival that
people from all corners of the nation came together to observe. All during
the harvest season they set aside animals and produce especially for this
week of rejoicing. Everyone enjoyed an abundance of food, drink and
fellowship. It was also a commemoration of the peace and safety God had
promised if they would diligently obey Him. Notice the instructions they
were given:
"But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land
which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest
from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, then there
will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.
There you shall bring all that I command you . . . And you shall rejoice
before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male
and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates . . ."
(Deuteronomy 12:10-12).
This festival is a celebration of God's guidance, protection
and blessings for His people. Jesus Christ will give those same blessings
even more abundantly to the whole world when He returns and establishes
His reign on earth. What ancient Israel was able to enjoy for one week at
the end of the fall harvest merely represented what Jesus Christ will
bring to all mankind when He assumes the role of King of kings and Lord of
lords.
The joyful Feast of Ingathering represents the time during
which God will gather the great harvest of humanity into His family. It
will be the time "all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The
Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from
Jacob'" (Romans 11:26). But this prophecy applies not only to Israel. All
people will turn to God.
The prophet Daniel makes this clear: "I was watching in the
night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds
of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days . . . Then to Him was given
dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and
languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be
destroyed" (Daniel 7:13-14).
One final feast
Just as Jesus Christ's 1,000-year reign on earth (Revelation
20:4) is followed by another time characterized by amazing events, so is
the Feast of Tabernacles followed by another festival depicting those
events (Leviticus 23:34-36). Revelation 20:11-13 describes a time during
which all people who have ever died without hearing of Jesus Christ or
learning God's way of life will be resurrected and given their opportunity
to receive eternal life.
The dead of all the ages-people like the queen of Sheba,
inhabitants of ancient Nineveh and the people of Christ's time-will be
resurrected together (Matthew 12:41-42). That resurrection of multiple
millions of people back to physical, perishable life is detailed in
Ezekiel 37:1-14. These are "the rest of the dead" spoken of in Revelation
20:5.
God's plan as depicted in these festivals is
all-encompassing. Through this wondrous design, all people will enjoy the
opportunity to learn God's truth and come to repentance, because God
"desires all men to be saved" and is "not willing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance" (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). This
is the time for the vast majority of human beings to be brought back to
life to receive their opportunity for salvation. Thousands of millions of
humans will receive the gift of everlasting life.
Festivals kept today
Jesus Christ set us an example by observing the biblical
festivals, not because they were traditions of the Jewish people, but
because, from the beginning, they represented His personal role in
bringing the children of God into His spiritual family.
His apostles, walking in His footsteps, continued observing
the same festivals. A considerable portion of Christianity observed them
for centuries after His death. Looking into the future, we find a
continuation of the same pattern. The prophet Zechariah tells us that
attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles will be required of all peoples
after Christ returns (Zechariah 14:16).
Today there are still Christians faithfully observing the
same festivals Christ kept. These annual occasions were instituted to keep
God's people, in all ages, aware of the key aspects of the mission and
work of the true Messiah. They are, indeed, Christian
festivals. GN
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