Just a little over a year ago I barely had even as much as a surface knowledge of the 7 Feasts of Israel. I had never given a moments thought to the few times I had noticed a specific month named in the Bible – they are in a different language (!!!) so had never bothered to wonder when these mentioned things happened in our frame of reference… but all this changed and my fascination with these subjects has brought depth and dimension to my life in ways I could never have imagined.
I have a love/loathe relationship with tradition. I love the traditions we have marked out within our family – of which there are many! Mostly very informal – just the funny/odd things we do as family that develop over time. Some of them have been more formal, and with certain hopes, dreams or goals in mind that having these traditions might hopefully help us achieve.
Not having been brought up in a church with much tradition – almost none as far as many flavours of church go – I have tended towards suspicion over many of these church traditions – and at times worse… to scorn. Mainly through a particular friend, I have learned respect for many of these age old church traditions as I have come to recognise much depth, biblical foundation and desire to honour God within them.
I do seem to have a bent tho for bucking the system, questioning and searching. It’s not for the purpose of being difficult or for playing devils advocate, it’s because if I don’t grasp the meaning of a thing I see it as a pointless waste of time and I want to either UNDERSTAND or flick that which I see is pointless or useless or distracting from what really matters.
When I began finding out about the Feasts of Israel, I became so very excited at every level. (Article on Passover & Communion here and on the 7 feasts here). To see the riches of what was written thousands of years before our time but for our learning, and thousands of years before Jesus time also for the learning of all who would see – is awesome!
These 7 occasions all fall within the first 7 months of the Hebrew calendar. They are each to mark something past, but are prophetic in the pictures they portray of events future. Four are fulfilled and three are yet to be. The four fulfilled all fell within the space of less than 60 days of real time – about 2000 years ago. The three to come all will fall within a space of about 20 days at some point (in what I think will be the not too distant) future.
Tomorrow is the 29th of March – the 14th of Nissan. Passover. The first of the 7 feasts. The first of the four foretold 3500 years ago and fulfilled 2000 years ago. Both the foretelling and the fulfilment commemorative events from OUR point in history but with the purpose of all things being fulfilled in the right time.
Because these dates have become so special – I want to mark them. Not out of a sense of duty or religiosity but of wonder and a desire to press deeper to see what other treasures of wisdom and knowledge they hold. Because I am a creature of habit – which in a sense is how all traditions come about – my immediate tendency is to treat these occasions the same way we did last year but I know that as soon as we (humanly speaking) set a form for how something is to be done, it becomes so much easier to lose the heart of the reason we began it in the first place and the longer it goes, the easier it is to lose the real message. So while we will repeat some elements, I am resolved never to treat these things identically from year to year but to keep on pressing for more depth and meaning and application.
See – the parenting materials we have used and taught have imparted much to us in the understanding and use of family tradition… one of the concepts being “family identity”. (Article here soon). Traditions help us form a sense of who “we” collectively are. It is no different in a church or a nation or any grouping of people. Traditions help form an identity. I believe this is very important – it’s part of why God gave so many traditions and laws to the Hebrew people! It made them a very distinctive nation – a platform through which the prophecy and coming of Jesus as Messiah would be recognised! Yet – so many missed Him and did NOT see or understand as they were caught in the surface applications of those laws and traditions.
Our present day churches, customs and traditions can do exactly the same.
The very thing set to honour the One we believe in becomes the focus, rather than He Himself!
I was listening to an MP3 message last night where the speaker said “ritualism expels Christ, and Christ expels ritualism”. Likewise there is a joke – a little boy sitting on a step outside a church and Jesus sits down beside him and asks him what’s wrong. He replies “they wont let me in”. Jesus replies “they won’t let me in either”.
Many of us can see the irony in that but the truth of it is appalling. The very thing we have purposed to do in honour of the King, eclipses Him instead. Or it can – and frequently does.
I think many people have had a total gutful of meaningless repetition and empty tradition. People are longing for freedom in God. But the backlash to that has included the assumption that freedom means no form. This is wrong. And very dangerous.
The answer is not in man-made traditions – thought they may serve other wonderful purposes.
The answer is not “no form” – that leaves people open to deception and fruit-loopy (or demonic) experience.
The answer is in HIS form – HIS pattern – THE way HE has marked out for us.
The road and the door are narrow and few will find it. Yet we are promised that those who DILIGENTLY seek it WILL find it. He WILL be found!
Real Church is His people, and Real Church (being His people) is not necessarily one and the same as those who attend every church.
So how do we know His form? The Way to His presence, His life, His forgiveness? Well – primarily the Word of God, or through those that genuinely know Him – not those who just know stuff about Him.
While each of us is individual, and He wants an individual relationship with each of us, the pattern towards him is the same in each of our lives as it is then HIS pattern, HIS form, HIS way that is marked.
I recently taught our kids 5 words that name what God so frequently does in the Old Testament through the laws, traditions, events and instructions there. They are…
picture
pattern
prophecy
type and
foreshadow
If we have a view to recognise it all pointing to Jesus, we will see Him there over and over again.
Many have taught much and better than I could on the Tabernacle so look into it for yourselves but just for now a teeny tiny peek…
The tabernacle marks out the pattern of OUR relationship to Jesus. (See Diagram in a separate window here and a brilliant animation of the Tabernacle here).
First we must enter the gate – it is an impossibility to enter His most holy place without entering through the gate.
Next we must come to the alter and see His salvation – the price paid for us. The price paid in full at Passover 2000 years ago.
Next we wash at the laver. The laver (basin) will be returned to over and over and over again through our lives – particularly as we view water AS the word of God which we need in order to transform our lives. When we are reborn we need washing. And as we live, we need frequent washes. The laver is also represented by baptism – but we again put so much form around baptism that we can lose sight of it being about death to sin! (Planning an article on that soon).
We cannot come into His Holy place without passing through the outer areas first.
So. Monday is Passover. And Tuesday is the first day of the 7 day feast of unleavened bread.
Passover was the very feast that Jesus inserted Himself into as the reason for the previous 1500 years tradition. In so doing He instituted the first communion service. He help the cup of wine they had for 1500 years known as the cup of redemption and said “This is my blood, do this in remembrance of me”. The same night He took the bread that for 1500 years represented sinlessness and said “This is my body, broken for you, do this in remembrance of me”.
The feast of unleavened bread represents seriousness about ridding our lives of sin. The ancient tradition was to thoroughly clean out the whole home from every product or use of any rising agent. A kind of object lesson about the seriousness of how we should rid our lives of sin. In a way it corresponds with the laver in the tabernacle. While Jesus was sinless, we are not, and though at the alter we receive forgiveness, we need the constant washing of the water of the Word, His Holy Spirit, to purify us.
Interestingly in another reference, the words TO eat unleavened bread every day appear and a serious case could be made for not only NOT eating leavened bread, but TO ALSO eat unleavened bread every day. If this is an accurate take on those verses, I see this as the need to seriously take Him INTO our lives – He is the Bread of Life – as well as ridding our lives of sin. It’s not enough to not do the don’ts. Not doing the don’ts might be safer and healthier than otherwise but it does not make us righteous in His eyes. Only the price paid on the cross can ever do that.