The last three feasts of the Lord (6)

Thursday 12 August 2021

The last three feasts of the Lord (6)

The first day of the seventh month, you will have a day of rest proclaimed with the sound of trumpets and a holy assembly... The tenth day of this seventh month, it will be the day of atonement. You will have a holy assembly, you will humble yourselves... The fifteenth day of this seventh month will be the feast of tents in honor of the Lord which will last 7 days. Leviticus 23:24-34

In the seventh month of the year (September or October), three festivals followed one another :

The festival of trumpets

At the sound of the trumpets (Numbers 29:1), the people are called together to offer sacrifices to the Lord. More than three months have passed since the feast of Pentecost ; the harvest and the harvest are over. Now is the time for the people of Israel to turn with gratitude to their God. This feast speaks to us of our need to be awakened in our affections for Christ (Ephesians 5:14).

The day of atonement

It is an important feast : the high priest offers sacrifices for himself, his family and all the people. It is characterized by this prescription : You will humble yourself. The high priest entered the most holy place that day to deposit the blood of a bull there on the mercy seat (cover) of the ark. It is also on this day that a goat, symbolically the bearer of the sins of the people, is sent into the wilderness (Leviticus 16).

For us, "we have been made holy by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10). His sacrifice does not need to be repeated, but we must be careful to confess our faults : God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all evil (1 John 1: 9).

The tent festival

In striking contrast to the previous feast, the command of the Lord becomes : You will therefore celebrate a feast in honor of the Lord for 7 days, for it is the feast of rest after having collected the report of their land (Leviticus 23: 39.40). The sons of Israel make huts out of branches of palm trees and other trees, which remind them of their stay in the tents of the desert. Each day, sacrifices are offered as well as voluntary offerings and the feast continues on the eighth day.

For us Christians, who are “blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ !” (Ephesians 1:3), let us always rejoice in the Lord (Philippians 4:4).

Source (Pleasing the Lord)