I am always amazed at how many people feel obliged to celebrate the Jewish feasts.
What amazes me even more is just how wonderfully Jesus had completely fulfilled each and every one of these feasts.
In and around September the Jewish feast of Rosh Hashanah is celebrated (The dates on our western calendar differs every year because our calendar is not synchronized with the Hebrew calendar. In 2015 it was on 14 to 15 September, in 2016 it was on 3 to 4 October and in 2017 on 21 to 22 September).
What is it about?
Are Christians to celebrate this feast?
... if not, why not?
Well, firstly, we have already dealt with some of the Jewish feasts previously here, here, here and here? You are welcome to click away and check it all out.
Right onto Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish feast that commemorates the (new) beginning. It literally means "head of the year" and is a two-day celebration of the Jewish New Year on the first and second day of their month of Tishri, the first month of the Jewish civil year. Some Jewish scholars are of the opinion that it also celebrates the beginning of creation and Israel's new beginning after being led to freedom out of Egypt.
What do they do?
Rosh Hashanah customs include the sounding the shofar (ram's horn) and the eating of symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to evoke a sweet new year.
For the traditionalist (legalist) Jewish people it is also a time of repentance and prayers for forgiveness starting in the preceding week already. Importantly, this prepares them for the feast of Yom Kippur (feast of Atonement that follows nine days later on 10 Tishri) and the feast of Sukkot five days after Yom Kippur.
So, what is the relevance for the follower of Christ?
Let me, first of all, just advise you as I did before, that as the bride of Christ, we are not obliged to celebrate the Jewish feasts.
Why?
The feasts are but a shadow of what was to come.
Why hug the picture if you can hug the Person? We have the real Person, Jesus, risen and shed abroad in our hearts to celebrate. All the law, the prophets and the other books, including the feasts are completely fulfilled in Messiah Yah'shua. We ought to celebrate Him!
Also, as the bride of Christ, why would we celebrate any feast (Jewish or pagan) other than Him - Jesus?
So, we need to renew our minds when it comes to feasts
The term Rosh Hashanah does not even appear in the original Hebrew Torah (Books of the Law).
Leviticus 23:24 refers to the festival of the first day of the seventh month as Zikhron Teru'ah (a memorial with the blowing of trumpets).
Numbers 29:1 calls this (law) festival Yom Teru'ah (Day of blowing the horn) and it is from there that we have the western reference to Feast of Trumpets.
The Jewish feasts have many, many traditions and rituals and rules and laws and customs and artificial beliefs attached to them and they all make the Word of God of none effect. Mar 7:13
Enters the legalistic church
In many Christian circles Rosh Hashanah is seen as the day of the second coming of Jesus, and it may very well be the second fulfillment of the feast. It is seen as being prophetic of the rapture that will take place referring to 1 Cor 15:52 that says In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
However, these legalistic institutional churches have made sure to take maximum benefit out of this each year, preaching messages of condemnation, turn or burn and alike. For the weeks preceding Rosh Hashanah they make sure that congregants return again and again and make good on their tithing and offering.
Instead
Our focus, instead, should be on Jesus and the finished work of the cross, the resounding shofar echoing in our hearts ... constantly! Not the number of blood moons, the sins we have to repent of one by one, the pleading and travailing before God and many traditional earthly peculiarities ... or even to prepare ourselves to get right with God. We are already right with God because of Jesus!
I am quite sure that the second coming of our King and Friend will be spectacular beyond words and I'm sure it may even involve many many trumpets.
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Mat 24:31
But it is a done deal. Not by anything we may or ought to have done, but by all that Jesus has done! He did it all to perfection ... the dotting of an i and the crossing of a t! You are His elect! (Check out the post that deals with this here)
It's all done!
It's all done!
Jesus is the One who was announced and heralded throughout the Bible as the coming Messiah on many occasions with dancing shouting and trumpets. He has prepared you for the atonement and made you perfect as a result of the Atonement. He was the Atonement, the Yom Kippur offering
Don't spent yourself worrying and waiting for the trumpet! You are His elect, his bride, the affection and the desire of His heart ... it goes without saying ... within the twinkling of an eye without you having to do in order to earn!
And the church-thing?
What is translated as church in your favourite Bible translation is actually the Greek word ekklēsia. It is not the congregation, the fellowship, the building with its budget and bills and doctrine, the hierarchy of offices and man-made beliefs.
It is you.
You are the ekklēsia, which in the Greek simply means from the calling or called out from amongst.
You are the called from amongst the earthly masses.
You are His!
Remember to check out the next blog post on Yom Kipur!