SHAVUOT.

This is the end of the Passover Season.

We have gone through Passover & the exodus from slavery. We’ve gone through the Feast of Unleavened Bread where we cleaned our house of Leven (and sin) for 7 days.  We’ve gone through the Feast of First Fruits. Yeshua’s First Fruit offering was resurrection of the dead.  He resurrected on the Feast of First Fruits.  The harvest is ripe and ready to pick.

And we are just completing the counting of the Omer, the 50 day journey through the wilderness, from Sukkot to Mt. Sinai.  Now on the 50th day it is Shavuot (Pentacost in Greek).

These were God’s instructions regarding Shavuot.  Leviticus 23:15-21

15 “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering.

16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath.7 full wk+1

Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord.

17 You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord.

20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest.

21 And you shall make a proclamation on the same day.

You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work.

 It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.

Shavot is the day that God gave the 10 commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.

God tells Moses that if the people would obey His covenant, His Torah, they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. He wanted them to separate from the pagan cultures around them that did not honor their creator, His justice or His loving kindness.  God was going to make them a special treasure.  It is said that the law was God’s wedding covenant with the people of Israel and that He married them at Sinai. 

But Israel had gone to other gods of the neighboring countries, to wickedness and corruption, and forgotten how Elohim has saved her, loved her & protected her.

Hoshea the prophet was told by God to marry an unfaithful woman to represent Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. Hosea’s unfaithful wife ended up in poverty and depravity. Hosea’s wife was about to be sold into slavery, when God told Hosea to- buy her back.

God is forever the loyal Go’el, The Kinsmen Redeemer (Messiah) who comes to buy back the wayward bride. God will never forsake Israel. He will always keep His covenant. Over and over again the bible tells stories of God saving His people even at times when they had turned away from Him.

1. He bought her back from slavery in Egypt.

2. Then He preserved them in the wilderness for 40 years then God brought them into the land.

3. They were taken into captivity in Babylon for disobedience and then God brought them back to the Land.

4.In Persian captivity God used Queen Esther to save Jews from a holocaust.

5. In the inter-testament times God used the Macabees to retake the temple and Israel from a Greek mindset, and Greek takeover.

(Ezekiel 16:9 “For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant.)

6. In the time of Yeshuah God brought the greatest Go’el, Yeshua, to honor His everlasting covenent, and purchase our freedom from the curse of sin and death. With His own blood, the highest purchase price, the price of a broken covenant, He redeemed His bride, His creation. Now His blood-price is our covering in times of trouble.

Though we all are wayward at times, if you are in the covenant, through birth or faith, you are His betrothed and He will redeem us.  It is traditional to read the book of Ruth on Shavuot. If we, like Ruth, ask God to spread His covering over us He will not rest until His bride become His.

Interestingly, in the book of Acts, the day the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in the upper room of the Temple, was exactly to the day, Shavuot.  The exact day God gave the 10 commandments 1500 years before. Yeshua had redeemed us with His blood and then sent the Holy Spirit as a bridal gift to empower us on Shavuot, so that we can better follow God’s instructions.

Today, led by His Holy Spirit, let Him transform us into obedience, and Let Him guide us onto His path so that He can make us His beautiful bride.  We need His power to follow His instructions; to follow Him.  He doesn’t want us to conform to the image of this world, but to be transformed into His image.  He wants us clothed with garments of righteousness. He calls us to come out of this present darkness and to live in His light. 

There is a future time, in the last days, when those who have honored the call of the Lord and walked His path led by the Holy Spirit, will be made His bride.  The Bridegroom, our Redeemer, does not renege on His covenant.

Hosea 2:16 “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’…19 And I will betroth you to me forever.

Our husband, redeemer, will prepare us to be his pure spotless bride.  Read the law, Torah with the Holy Spirit.

Today Shavuot is celebrated with some traditions.

Eat dairy.

Decorate with greenery and flowers.

Stay up all night reading scripture, the law and especially the book of Ruth.

Shavua Tov

Then you shall observe the Feast of Weeks for the LORD your God, offering your freewill contribution according as the LORD your God has blessed you. (Devarim 16:10)

On Shavuot the Torah was given at mount Sinai as Hashem appeared in a dark cloud with flashes of lighting and thunder causing the mountain to shake violently. From the cloud Adonai spoke to all Israel to declare His Torah to us as a nation that we might be His people. Adonai was calling us to come into the special relationship of a husband and wife, to become one with Him. All Israel said all that Hashem has said we will do, and so the Kallah or bride said yes, and Hashem responded with the two tablets of stone with the words of the Ketubah for His treasured bride.

The giving of the Torah not only served us as the written promise by our Chatan (bridegroom) to guard us in our relationship to Him, but also shows us the way to discern the way to live until he comes to take us finally to live together with Him. When in original sin Adam and Chavah learned about the good, and the evil, that knowledge was passed on to the generations. Our Ketubah (Torah) however shows us how to identify, and separate the good and the bad, and choose the good Adonai has shown us in His Torah. He has in fact thusly provided for us the fruit of the Ets Chayiem (tree of Life) when we taste and see that the ways of Hashem are pure and Tov (good) and lead to life.

Baruch Hashem for the Ketubah, our Torah, that seals us for Him as His own, and washes us to make us ready for the wedding feast. We long for His appearing and on Shavuot we remember our betrothal to the King and pray that it will be in our days and in our time!

Even so Adonai – The Ruach and the Kalah say bo’ and may it be in our day and in our times.

Shalom Mish’pachah from Beth Hallel Lodi