Feasts (Part I)

Lesson Content

In the Old Testament, the people of Israel observed various feasts:

1. The Feast of Sabbath (Lev.23:1-3).

2. The Feast of the Passover (Lev.23:5).

3. The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev.23:6-8).

4. The Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Pentecost (Lev.23:9-22).

5. The Feast of Trumpets (Lev.23:23-25).

6. The Feast of Atonement for Sin (Lev.23:26-32).

7. The Feast of Tabernacles (Lev.23:33-43).

1. The Feast of Sabbath (Lev.23:1-3): Six days the people of Israel were to work, but the seventh day was a day of rest, a ho ly convocation, on which they should not do any work. It was the Lord’s sabbath (Lev.23:2,3). The Israelites were in bondage in the land of Egypt for four hundred years and were made to serve with rigour by the taskmasters of Pharoah. Being vexed in their spirit and restless at heart, they were groaning. So long as they were in Egypt, they had no rest at all. So after their redemption, God wanted His people who had thus toiled ceaselessly, night and day, to rest like this at least a day, remembering and rejoicing over the deliverance that God had granted them. Moreover, all the days that they were in Egypt they belonged to Pharoah, but now they belonged to the Lord Who redeemed them. So they rested on the Sabbath day

according to the covenant that God had m ade with them. Moses called all Israel and said unto them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day” (Deut.5:1-3). The observance of the sabbath day is one among these commandments (Deut.5:15). Thus six days in a week they journeyed towards Canaan but rested on the seventh day. We who are the spiritual Israel do not have to rest physically on any particular day. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus has promised to give us rest. When a sinner casts the burden of his sin upon Him and repents with a penitent heart, he receive s the assurance of the forgiveness of sins, which is a rest to his soul. This is the Feast of Sabbath which we observe in our lives. If we lose this rest it means that we have profaned the Sabbath.

2. The Feast of the Passover (Lev.23:5): It was celebrated every year, on the fourteenth day of the first month, in the evening, in order that the children of Israel might remember how the Lord brought them out of Egypt, their land of bondage. Spiritually, the paschal lamb signifies the Lord Jesus Christ. St. Paul says, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (I Cor.5:7). When we come out of the bondage of sin at Conversion, we celebrate the Feast of the Passover for the first time in our lives. The children of Israel observing it every year thereafter sho ws that we should always remember how we were saved and praise God. We should look to the rock from where we were hewn and to the hole of the pit from where we were digged and thank the Lord and rejoice in Him (Isa.51:1). This is a type of our observing th e Passover every year.

Moral

The Lord made it an ordinance for the children of Israel to celebrate these feasts that throughout their generations they might remember how He delivered them from bondage in Egypt. In the same way, we should never forget the wretched state we were in and how the Lord delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into His marvellous light and keep praising God for this great deliverance. This will help us to remain humble and grateful to God and keep growing in our spiritual life.