SEASONS - CELEBRATING THE RESURRECTION IN THE SEASON OF EARLY FIRST FRUITS

It is the time for remembering the early first fruits harvest.  Not the wheat harvest that happens around the time of Pentecost, but the first crop of the year that happens around the time of Passover during the Feast of Unleavened Bread; in Israel the main harvest at this time of the year  would have been the barley harvest. 

In 2015 Passover happens at sunset on April 3rd and continues over the next seven days with the Feast of  Unleavened Bread.  The day of First Fruits is also celebrated during this week.  This is the day I am featuring in this article.

Now is the time to prepare our hearts and to plan a nice Seder meal, for inviting family and close friends to join in with your household in joyful and thankful celebration.  It is nice to prepare a very festive meal for this day while we remember the story of the early harvest and the waiving of the barley loaf and the significance this holds for us in realizing the Resurrection of Christ.  We are also to prepare for the counting of the Omer – the fifty days leading up to Pentecost.

In this season the words to one particular song ring out like a prayer for me.  It is a prayer about  offering up the fruit of our lives to God.  During the creation week God had six days in which He did His work of creating the world.  We too, should be spending six days in every week to complete the work that God has blessed us with.  We all have a purpose, our work as people in God's Kingdom living on earth is to fulfill that purpose.  What purpose has God whispered in your ear? Are you to be a witness to others, a good wife, a good husband, a good mother or father?  Are you called to be single and to help other singles who are facing struggles?  Are you called to bring hospitality when needed, to help those who are less fortunate, to help out with financial needs, to offer your labor of love in some type of physical work that shows the love of God?  God calls each of us to different individual purposes.  This is our work on earth. It could be teaching, or serving others, or taking care of the elderly.  Each person will be called to something with purpose and meaning to the Kingdom of God.   The days of our lives spent fulfilling that purpose are our way of thanking God for creating us and letting us live out and be a part of His plan.  Here are a few of the lyrics to a song  expressing this very fact.  I must give Don Meon and Hillsong credit for the lyric writing and singing: 

All that I am, all that I have,

I lay them down before you O Lord.

All my regrets, all my acclaim,

The joy and the pain, I’m making them yours.

Lord I offer my life to You, everything I’ve been through

Use it for Your glory.

Lord I offer my days to You,

Lifting my praise to You as a pleasing sacrifice,

Lord I offer You my life.

 This beautiful song and the lyrics that I love immediately send my soul searching out the meaning of true sacrifice, the best of the best, the early crop that is offered to God at the first harvest of first fruits.  It is a joyful time, full of the symbols of Resurrection. 

By the Day of First Fruits the ancient people of God would have already removed the leaven from their homes, and celebrated the Passover.  They fully knew that removing the leaven symbolized the removal of sin from their lives.  By the time of the first physical harvest the leaven would be out of their homes, but more importantly, their sins would be confessed before God.  What good is sacrifice without a confession first?  Without confession, there would hardly be a point, it would all be meaningless ritual.  They fully understood the importance of the act of repentance.  They knew along with repentance came the need for a sacrifice.  They brought the first and best of their barley harvest to the priest on the day after the Sabbath of the Passover, the day of Early First Fruits. 

 We too come before our High Priest, Jesus Christ who now stands at the right hand of God and offers up the best and the first of our spiritual harvest and waves it before God for us each year.  We dare not come before spending time in repentance.  We know we can’t do this by ourselves. We need Jesus to accomplish this for us.  So in the time leading up to Passover; when I’m cleaning all the leaven out of my house and thinking of the best I have to offer to the Lord; I’m confessing sins that God brings to mind as I do the work.  I sweep out the crumbs and crumbs of un-confessed sins that flash before me.  I’m reminded to confess and I do.  If I’m going to bring of the best of my life it must be holy, perfect, unblemished.  Jesus has made this possible.  It is His sacrifice that makes my offering acceptable.  The early people had to bring a physical sacrifice.  Jesus has now fulfilled this act by becoming the physical sacrifice, once for all.  He asks us to remember this, and we do in the appointed time for each season.  All we need to bring now is the offering of our lives.  Because of the sacrifice of His life, the offering of our lives will now be acceptable. 

The sacrificial offering of Early First Fruits has been required since the very beginning, right after the days that Adam and Eve first sinned.  Once they sinned, God began to talk to them and instruct them about the appointed times for making sacrifices.    

It isn’t exactly spelled out, but if you read and study the Old Testament scriptures you will begin to realize that Adam and Eve must have passed down God’s instructions to their children.  This becomes very clear as the story of Cain and Able unfolds. 

In those days, when it was time for the early First Fruits offering, Cain and Abel showed up at the appointed place and appointed time, as well as Adam and Eve and all the rest of their children.  Adam and Eve had been taught directly by God.  They in turn had instructed their children that God wanted the best and the first fruits of their labor.  As you read the story it becomes apparent that Adam and Eve had taught their sons that God looks on the attitude of the giver and if the intent of the heart is right, He accepts the sacrifice. When God accepted the sacrifice it was consumed by divine fire.

If the intent of the heart was wrong the sacrifice would not be accepted, and it would not be consumed but would remain on the altar until someone moved it away. 

One day the appointed time came and the family of Adam and Eve gathered to offer their first fruits before the Lord.  Abel brought the first and the best of his herd.  They were without spot or blemish.  The best.  The lord was pleased and Abel’s offering was consumed by the divine fire.

Then Cain brought the first of his labor, vegetables from where he had tilled the ground.  Only; Cain had eaten the first and the best of the vegetables and fruit himself.  He brought the Lord the leftovers, the ones that he did not want.   They were withered and blemished.  God saw that Cain was selfish with his offering.  God did not consume the sacrifice.

Cain became angry and he was jealous of his brother who had pleased God.  Eventually Cain’s hatred for his brother Abel became so great that he killed him and hid his body thinking that no one would ever know what he had done.

The appointed time came again and Cain showed up at the appointed place with his offering of vegetables and the stain of his brother's blood in his heart.  Abel did not show up. God asked Cain, in front of everyone where Abel was.  Cain lied and said that he did not know.  But God KNEW the truth, and He told Cain his own story, and everyone there heard from God that Cain had killed his brother. 

Cain never repented.  Cain only got angry.

Adam and Eve must have been devastated.  God rejected Cain’s offering and cursed him.  Cain was cast out of the land, never to come before God again.  Because of Cain’s selfishness he lost his soul, his family and his home.

Cain’s children grew up to be wicked and evil.  The curse of their father followed them wherever they went.  This was a case where the wrong attitude about firstfruits made for a very sad story.  Cain’s family began the curse on the earth of many more evil and wicked generations.  Their generations after them caused the world to be so evil that God sent a flood to destroy the earth.  Only Noah and his family were saved.

What do you think was the first thing that Noah and his family did when the ark landed safely right on the day of Early Firstfruits in the appointed place at the appointed time?

They were very thankful to God for saving them, so they built an altar and made an offering to the Lord.  With the whole world washed away, what do you think were the firstfruits of their labor?

It was the gift of themselves; their very lives.  The whole family of Noah and the animals with them would be bringing new life to the world.  It was the gift of life that they brought; the best gift of all.

God consumed their sacrifice by divine fire because the animals that they offered represented the fact that they wanted to live for God.  They had brought themselves; their food, their energy, their time, all that they had to offer, to help God start the world all over again.  It was an acceptable offering and God not only accepted it;  He gave them the promise of the rainbow.  

Noah’s children taught their children about early first fruits until the days of Abram came.

Abram went into a fierce battle of many kings in the land.  The King of Sodom where Abram's nephew Lot was residing had not been able to defend his own city.  With the help of God, Abram defeated several other powerful kings that had come against the city and taken plunder from Abram's nephew, as well as the King and the other residents.  On his way back from battle Abram was met in the valley by Melchizedek, the King of Jerusalem and the High Priest of God.  

Abram recognized that Melchizedek was the High Priest of God, and he gave Him an offering to God of the best from all of his own possessions.  This was his first fruits offering.  Abram could have given the spoils from the war that he had regained from the kings who had attacked and plundered the city of Sodom, but Abram returned those spoils to the King of Sodom.  Abram chose not to use them as an offering to God.  Besides the fact that many of these things probably represented evil in some way,  Abram wanted everyone to know that God had given him his blessings, and that he had not gained any of them from a battle with the King of Sodom.  Instead of the spoils of war, Abram  gave from all of his own finest and most treasured possessions.  God was pleased with Abram’s offering.  It was accepted.  Afterwards Melchizedek blessed Abram and they shared a meal of bread and wine.

Unlike the sacrifices of Cain, the first fruits of Noah and Abram were accepted before God.

Abram taught his descendants about the first fruits offering.  He explained that when you bring a first fruit offering to God it should be something from the best that you have to offer.

Abram, who later became Abraham, taught his children to make the offerings to God at the appointed times and the appointed place.  God blessed Abraham’s descendants and made a nation from them.  Sarah gave Abraham a son named Isaac.  Isaac married Rebecca and they had twin sons named Jacob and Esau. 

And so, we could go on and on with the stories of the children of Israel and how they all brought early first fruit offerings before God in one way or another, and how their offerings were either accepted or rejected by God. 

In the days of Moses, as the people were leaving slavery and God was speaking to them of how to be His nation, He gave them further instructions.  Let’s look at what God asked on this day so long ago when He met Moses on the mountain. 

The passage is found in Leviticus 23:10-12:

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.  And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf a he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD.

They were to bring an offering (which represented the first of the profit of their labor) and they were to make a sacrifice (an unblemished lamb.)  This was God’s requirement for the early first fruits offering from when Israel first entered the Promised Land. 

So we see a further picture of the people from many generations coming every year to their first harvest of the year.  It was usually a barley crop.  Barley was hardy and grew almost anywhere.  It survived well, struggling for life and abundance even in hard times and rough weather.  Barley bread was known as “the common people’s bread.”  It was called “the bread of the poor” because it was more affordable and easier to grow and buy than the wheat that was produced later in the year.  There was not much excuse for not having a barley crop, it was easy to grow and available in abundance.  If you could not afford your own field, you could reap the corners of other people's fields that were left for the poor and those who had nothing.  This is how Ruth took care of Noami before she married Boaz, her beloved kinsman redeemer.  Even the poor could produce a crop from the barley if they made the effort to do so.  They did not even have to plant or grow, all they were required to do was to reap.

There were five loaves of barley bread found in the young boy’s lunch that day which were given to

Jesus to use to feed the multitude.  Jesus took it, blessed it, broke it and multiplied it out until there was plenty enough for everyone.  Had the boy not brought the lunch first however, there would have been nothing.  Because the boy offered all that he had, even though it was common and ordinary, a multitude was able to eat and be satisfied that day.  They were able to stay and obtain the food from which you never grow hungry again, the spiritual food being offered by The Messiah.  How significant can the picture be of man offering up barley, the lesser of the crops, the easier of the crops, the least expensive of the crops, much like the offering of Cain.  Man’s offerings alone though could never be good enough.  Only when Jesus came into the picture as the perfect sacrifice could this change in the eyes of God.  There were years and years of barley harvests presented before God. Mankind needed a Messiah to come in order to make these offerings acceptable.

Year after year the first of every crop (usually barley) was brought to the Temple.  The very first bundle of grain they gathered would be taken to the High Priest.  The priest would wave the sheaf before the Lord.  This happened after the Sabbath of the Passover during the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread.  This was the day of the bringing of the wave sheaf that was to be offered to God before anyone offered or used anything else that God had blessed them with from the harvest.

We now know, unlike the Israelites who had to be obedient through totally blind faith, that Jesus Christ was the true One that would make these wave sheaf offerings acceptable before God.  The timing of this first fruit ritual offering established by God way before Christ came to earth, was perfectly in line and a shadow of the actions of Christ before, during and after the Resurrection.  Like the seed that grows into the plant that is harvested and processed to make fine bread, Christ was put into the ground and covered up, or buried.  Like the little seed that receives power from God on High as it grows and shoots up through the dirt, Jesus received resurrection power from God and rose from the grave.   He is the one who offers our prayers before God.  He is our High Priest waiving our offering before God.  God will always accept us, because He is perfect!  He became our acceptable first fruit offering of the harvest of spiritual souls for the Kingdom of God.  He and those who rose with Him at the Resurrection were the Early First Fruits of the harvest of souls that belong to God.

It is said that you must give the wave sheaf in order to make the rest of the crop acceptable for use.  When Jesus presented Himself, holy and pure, before God as our offering, God accepted Him and that made us (the rest of the crop) acceptable for use in God’s Kingdom also.

So, we are not agricultural anymore, and Christ has come for us now and saved us from our sins.

There is no Temple in Jerusalem anymore.

Does this mean we forget these days?

Not at all; this only means that these days have an even fuller meaning than before.  We have even more to be thankful for and to honor God for on this day.  Now we have the fuller celebration that incorporates the true essence of Resurrection.  A little like the family of Noah after the flood, we have new life!

We must do like the generations before us and teach our children to teach their children to observe the appointed times for bringing their first fruits before God as a sacrifice that is acceptable.  

So it is good to pause and think about the ancient people and their spirit of worship during the time of First Fruits.

What was the true heart of the ancient people as they brought these offerings?

The giving of the first fruits is a reminder that everything we have is God’s.  It all comes to us from Him.  Even the breath that we breathe, the water that we drink, the song on our lips, they all originate from Him.  

The giving of first fruits does NOT mean:  This is God’s and the rest is mine.

The giving of the first fruits means that I give to God to be used of God and the rest that I have is meant to be used for a lifestyle that glorifies Him. 

Making God a first priority in our life pleases Him.

It fills Him with pleasure.  It is His delight and desire.  It is God’s will that we make Him a priority in our lives, that is what is meant by verses 11 – 13 of the earlier passage we read in Leviticus 23.  This says:  “to be accepted for you.”  God goes to great lengths to describe the offering that is to be given.  The purpose for this offering is that it would be acceptable to God on behalf of the nation.  One of the reasons it is acceptable is the fact that you have made God your first priority in bringing the offering before Him.

There are two parts to being acceptable before God.  The first involves the perfect sacrifice of Christ.

He was obedient in all things, even to the death of the cross.  Through His death He made it possible for us to become acceptable to God in that through His death we receive His righteousness when we put our trust in Christ as the only way of salvation.  In that way, we become heirs of righteousness with Christ Jesus.  We become acceptable before God in Him, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

HE IS RISEN!  PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!

The second part of being acceptable before God involves living consistent with the commitment that is made through the offering. This was true in the Old Testament days, and it is still true today.

Obedience in this offering and other ritual offerings was demanded and commanded but not just in the ritual of the offering, it was designed to play out in every and all areas of one's life.

Obedience is demanded.

When it comes down to the facts, there was really only one thing necessary in the Old Testament for an offering to be acceptable to God; obedience. 

That is why in Jeremiah 6:20 and Malachi 2:13 God refused the offering of the people, because they were disobedient before God. They apparently thought since they obeyed the ritual law they would be able to get God to look the other way during their everyday lives.  Sound familiar?

Please let this never be true of any of us.

Let us instead come before God as obedient servants bringing Him the first fruits of our labor.  It doesn’t have to be money, or material things.  It can be whatever you have to offer before God of your best; prayer, devotion, study, the gift of time, something that you do for others that makes the world see God's love, any of the giving of other less tangible resources in some way; but what ever it is,  your gift to God should be in keeping with the fact that you are bringing to God your first and your best offering from the days of your life that has now been redeemed by the blood of Christ.  

God will look on the intent of your heart.  God will see the blood of Jesus that covers you, and you will be acceptable to Him.

We find this concept of Early First Fruits in the New Testament also.

Paul begged the Roman believers on the basis of the mercy of God shown to them through the death of Christ that they would present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which was their reasonable service, not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of their mind that they might prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Romans 14:17-19 describes more exactly what this type of life that is acceptable before God looks like.  It is not arguing over what we should eat and drink, but rather righteousness and peace and joy, specifically, Paul is emphasizing peace between believers in Christ.

Do you need to bring a peace offering of your first and best to God?

2 Corinthians 5:9-10 teaches that whether our service is acceptable or not before God is the basis whereby believers will be judged.  Believers are no longer condemned to die or suffer in eternity, because they are covered with the perfect blood of Christ and forgiven for their sins; but they ARE judged in order to evaluate which gifts they will receive as rewards for their earthly lives in Heaven.  They can never be sentenced to hell, because they are saved; but they will receive greater or lesser rewards in heaven based on the records of the judgement of how they lived their life on earth.  This is a very hard pill for some believers to swallow.  It does not cancel grace, grace is available from God in abundance.  It does not cancel salvation, it just means that some will be rewarded more than others.  All I can tell you is go back and study the scriptures!  Kind of scary isn't it?  Will your house be made of hay and stubble or gold and silver?  I fear I may be living with many good neighbors surrounding me in a straw house!  I would rather live in a house made of hay or stubble and be with The LORD than live in one of gold or silver without Him!  We will all still be very blessed and happy!  Also keep in mind that God only judges by what we have been given.  If you have used whatever God has given you for The Kingdom of God your reward will be as much as someone who had done a million more things than you but did not use all that God gave them!  Read the parable of the talents.

The symbolism and ritual of First Fruits keeps us focused with these things in mind.  Living in the world will only serve to keep you distracted from this truth.  The symbolism is individualized through the denying of one’s self.  When we are able to die to ourselves, we learn how to live for God.  The giving of the first fruits offerings served as a reminder against falling into an idolatry of the heart where we let ourselves take on more masters than the One True God of Heaven and Earth.  It protects us from the idolatry of self-righteousness.  Many of the things that we do or should do in bringing the best of ourselves to God serve as a guard against the ungodliness that is constantly lurking around in our hearts.   In many ways the ritual of First Fruits works like a shield over your heart.  

In the early days of the Feasts of First Fruits the people had been laboring since the end of October or beginning of November when they first planted their barley.  They had watched it sprout up out of the ground, grow tall, and fill out with grain.  But they could not eat of it until the firstfruits were given to God.

Part of giving to God involves the understanding that you must deny yourself.  To deny yourself does not mean to deny your existence. That would be foolishness.  Nor does it mean that you give up some pleasure or sin for the sake of Christ.  No act that we could ever do would even come close to improving or helping Him.  It is simply the same thing as what is symbolized by not eating leavened bread during the 7 Days of Unleavened Bread.  It means that your needs, your wants, your desires take a back seat to what God commands.  The message is both to the community and to the individual.  

Obedience does not mean giving God something so that you can enjoy the rest without fear of punishment.  Obedience means a denial of your importance in relation to the things of Christ.

Will you deny yourself and follow Christ?  He is waiting right now on your heart to turn toward Him. He stands with open arms.  

Will you make Him THE priority, not A priority?  Jesus Christ should always be THE priority in your life.  If you can make this decision you will always be bringing Him the first fruits of your own spiritual harvest.  

Yes, it is good and sometimes even best to give offerings of money, but the money does not matter if the soul is not right before God.   James 1:18 says:  He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all He created.

Now we must discuss further the greatest offering of Early First Fruits that was ever given.

1 Corinthians 15:20 - 23 is the scripture which will guide us on to see how the Festival of First Fruits is totally fulfilled in Christ.  It tells us that Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who have fallen asleep.     Christ the first fruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ.

First fruits is all about Resurrection!   It is all about the Resurrection of Christ!

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the promise that believers, too, will receive bodies in the final harvest that will never again die. Had Jesus not been raised from the dead, there would be no guarantee for believers to point to and rely upon when they think about the final day of the time of this earth that the scriptures point toward.  But, as it is, the first fruit resurrection of Christ guarantees that there will be a final harvest of bodies that will be raised from the dead in similar manner to that of Christ. 

Both Romans 8:23 and Ephesians 1:13-14 speak of this…we…who have the first fruit of the Spirit…Who is the guarantee of our inheritance…

The Holy Spirit that believers have received is the assurance that the future inheritance, that final harvest promise, will be laid hold of and reaped one day.  We will be thinking more about this in 50 days at the time of Pentecost.  For now we must believe, prepare and wait for those days to pass.  That is another thing that we will begin in this season of Resurrection.  We will begin to count the Omer, the 50 days leading up to Pentecost, which is the day of the Latter First Fruits.  In these days of the counting of the Omer God will teach us the blessings that come from Resurrection. 

Let’s read the scripture that gives us instructions on this observance:

(Numbers 15:17-21)

When you enter the land where I bring you, there it shall be that when you eat of the bread of the land, you shall lift up a heave offering to the Lord.  Of the first of your dough you shall lift up a cake as a heave offering; as the heave offering of the threshing floor, so you shall lift it up.  From the first of your dough you shall give to the Lord a heave offering through your generations.   

The dough that was “lifted up” to God made holy the entire lump of dough that it was taken from.

In the days of the Temple, when the sacrificial system took place, the first fruit offerings were given to the Levites and they became their property (Numbers 18:12.)  After its destruction when no sacrificial system existed any more, the women of the house would throw a handful of the dough into the fire as the first fruit offering to the Lord so that the rest of the dough became holy unto Him.  In every kitchen therefore, the hearth became an altar to YHWH. 

Commenting on this passage, the apostle Paul writes in Romans 11:16:  “If the dough offered as first fruit is holy, so is the whole lump.”

As the Bride of Christ the true Church will one day be joined to Him.  Since Jesus gave His Holy Life for us, so too are we made holy before God.

And how do we KNOW He was holy?  The proof is in the Resurrection!  He is Risen!

So on the celebration of Early First Fruits that falls during the 7 days of Unleavened Bread following Passover, we mark our calendars as we say the prayer for the Omer.   This prayer of the Omer should be said every day until the count reaches 50 and we find ourselves at the day of Pentecost. 

Here is the prayer we will pray at our table:

BLESSED ARE YOU, LORD OUR GOD, KING OF THE UNIVERSE, WHO HAS SANCTIFIED US WITH YOUR COMMANDMENTS AND COMMANDED US CONCERNING THE COUNTING OF THE OMER.  TODAY IS THE (insert the number of the day here)  DAY OF THE OMER. 

Counting the Omer each of the days leading up to Pentecost in this manner gets us excited about what God is going to do with our first fruits offering by the time we reach the Day of Pentecost. 

So basically when we celebrate the day of Early First Fruits we are recognizing that we need to lift our lives up to God, giving ourselves to God for His use.  This is symbolized by the physical act of the heave offering.  This offering only works for us now because of the sacrificial love of Jesus.  Because He offered Himself up on the cross we are able to live free from the bondage of sin.  Joining in with His spirit of sacrificial giving and offering our own first fruits causes a follower of Jesus to sanctify (make holy or set apart) each situation that we are a part of in our daily life, bringing the Kingdom to bear on every level of our society.  In this act of love we find Resurrection to new life!  Jesus was the first, and in our time; the Bride of Christ, the Church.

It isn’t just that figurative language is being used to speak of Jesus’ resurrection, but that the Resurrection actually took place on the exact same day that the festival of first fruits was commanded to be waved before God in the Temple.  New life has happened.  Just like the seed of barley that fell into the earth and brought forth a sheaf, so the seed of Christ’s body was sown in the earth and brought forth new life as it was raised in power. 

May God bless each and every one of you and may He honor and accept the offerings of the first fruits of your lives before Him. 

Remember….

CHRIST IF RISEN!!!!!!!

HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!!!!!!!

CELEBRATE THE RESURRECTION!!!!!!!