Shavuot (Pentecost)

In the spring just like the fall we have different feasts.  The spring brings about two main feasts Passover and Shavuot (Pentecost), in the fall it gives us the third which is the Feast of Tabernacles.  These are the 3 main feasts in which the Lord wanted celebrated in Jerusalem every year.  The same was true in the days of Yeshua (Jesus) when He and His family went there as well as He and His disciples.

A lot of people think of Pentecost as a New Testament festival but there was a reason the disciples and everyone else were all in Jerusalem that day, it was for Shavuot. In other words, this is a celebration that has been going on since the days of Moses. Traditionally the rabbis claim it is was the day when Moses received the Ten Commandments, but if you calculate it out according to Exodus19 you see that it was more than 50 days after Passover. Shhh! Do not tell them that, it will be our little secret.

Yet… the Lord tells us to celebrate this holiday and how. According to Leviticus 23:15-21it originally was to be a new grain offering to the Lord (vs. 16) and it is to be a holy convocation, or calling together, with no work (vs 21). It is the only holiday that is not celebrated on a specific date but 50 days after Passover. Hence that is how it gets its name Shavuot meaning weeks in Hebrew and Pentecost meaning fifty in the Greek.

Prior to this holiday is the counting of the omer and originally the only way to count the 50 days between Passover and Shavuot was using an omer or a measure of grain. For seven weeks, or seven Sabbaths (vs15) they counted the omer until the 50th day, then they would bring in the offering of the first fruit into the temple.

During the counting of the omer there were other events that took place at another time within history. After the death of Yeshua we the see the following:

  • Day 1 of the omer: Yeshua was seen by Mary Magdalene and some of the other disciples 
  • Day 8 of the omer: Yeshua appeared to Thomas and the disciples again 
  • Day 40 of the omer: Yeshua had appeared to disciples during these forty days and then ascended into heaven
  • Day 50 of the omer: the Holy Spirit fell on 120 people as tongues of fire in the upper room

Looking at what each number represents we see: 

  • 1 - God as a unity and as a source 
  • 8 - New beginning
  • 40 - Symbol of testing, trial, closing in victory or defeat (Israel in Wilderness and Jesus on the desert); cleansing (Noah and his family in the ark while the earth flooded and cleansed  itself of man's sinful nature)
  • 50 - Symbol of liberty, freedom, jubilee

How to Celebrate:
When celebrating Shavuot Jewish people all over the world generally will stay up all night and have Bible-thons to see who can read the most. The book of Ruth is generally read in synagogues on this holiday because it tells of something special that happened during harvest to a non-Jewish person. In Nehemiah 8:8 the same word used for convocation in Leviticus is translated as reading or recitation, and they read from the book.

Sounds like a wedding feast to me.  I remember we used to take our prayer-shawl, tallit in Hebrew, and hang it on the ceiling like a canvas or chupah as we call it in Hebrew. This is prayer shawl that hangs over the bride and groom as they get ready to come into covenant.  Then we would celebrate and dance under it practicing for the great wedding feast with King Yeshua.

Customs:
Some customs during this holiday hang branches, flowers or fresh fruits in their home or synagogue. It is a reminder of the flowers that blossomed on Mt. Sinai the day the Ten Commandments were given. According to Exodus 34:22 this holiday is known for a time of reaping the first fruits of wheat harvest which were brought into the temple as an expression of thanksgiving. This is why it is also known as the holiday of reaping or first fruits.

Another custom is to have dairy products, like cheese blintzes for example, but no one knows for certain how dairy products were introduced. A couple of thoughts, the Lord brought the Israelites into a land flowing with milk and honey.  The sages liken this to the verse in Song of Solomon 4:11, Your lips, O my spouse, drip as the honeycomb; Honey and milk are under your tongue….  Another thought, and this one I thought was pretty good, the Hebrew word for milk has a numerical value of 40.

Some events that either happened or speculated about on Shavuot:

  1. The receiving of the Ten Commandments 
  2. King David was born and also died on this day (This is based on tradition only)
  3. The Holy Spirit fell
  4. The Western Wall was opened for visitors in 1967 after the six-day war.

The main thing on this holiday is to be led of the Lord and there is no right or wrong way to celebrate it. So no matter how you want to celebrate it, just know that Yeshua obviously wanted all of us to love on Him all the time which is why He gave us His Holy Spirit!

Until next time...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Will My Pet Go To Heaven

I want to talk on a something that is near and dear to mine and my wife’s heart, so I am devoting today’s topic to all the animal lovers out there. More importantly, I want to answer why I believe we will see our pet’s in heaven. Before I do, let me preface it with this, I read a few different websites just to see what the various opinions are, and I have to admit that some of the information to me was very sad, where others gave it their best shot. I remember one site gave the impression that animals do not have feelings, therefore they do not have a soul. To me, it was very obvious this person has never owned a pet before. We are born with a body, soul and spirit. The Bible tells we are born into sin and the spirit is not of God, this is what I believe influences our soul.   When an animal is born it has a body but what about a soul and possibly a spirit?    In Genesis 2:7 God breathed into man and he became a living being. In verse 19 the animals are called a ...
Read more

The Love of God - A Hymn

Image
One evening my wife and I were watching a movie of a true story that took place in the early 1900’s around the time of WWI.  Though I was not familiar with the content it was still very moving in how one of today’s hymns came about. Many have written books and songs about the love of God and have done very well at it. Some of you might be familiar with an old hymn called Love of God. Yet out of the 100% of you who know the hymn, I would be willing to say that probably less than 1% are familiar with the derivation of the words in the third stanza.  Frederick M. Lehman was forced to take a job at a packing plant because of a business loss. While there he had written two stanzas to a hymn about the love of God. Unfortunately he was unable to come up with a third stanza. In those days a song had to have three stanzas. In the movie it was mentioned three represented the trinity and a song was incomplete without a third line.  According to Al Smith’s Treasury of Hymn Hist...
Read more

Basking in God's Glory

Image
I do not know about you, but I hunger and thirst to walk in God’s glory and presence just like Moses did. See during the early to mid-90s my wife and I learned how to soak and move in the glory of God.   This was during a time when a movement called Times of Refreshing was moving through the body. What was it and what was it all about? Truthfully, it was a time of God’s spirit being poured out on the body and revitalizing them to be able to have the strength and ability to move on to the next wave of God. How did this work? Soaking was becoming a big thing almost like a fad but for the body of believers. But what is soaking?   It is a time of relaxing in His presence while soft worshipful music would play and the people would just relax and let God minister to them without intervention from anyone else.   Before you can ask, how do you know when God has showed up?   Let me ask you a question, how do you know when someone has walked into the room without you see...
Read more