SEASONS - ELUL 2016

PREPARING FOR THE UPCOMING FALL HOLY DAYS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

God''s Fall Holy Days are coming up! 

We are in the last month of the Hebraic calendar, the month of Elul.  

It is a time to prepare.

Do you know about these Holy Days of God that happen every Fall?

The word translated "festival" in Hebrew is "hag" or "moed" and it means "set times", or "appointed times."  These are times of sacred assemblies.  In the Hebrew language the words "sacred assembly" means "rehearsal" or "recital."  During these fall days that is exactly what we are doing; we are rehearsing the things to come and celebrating God's overall plans for mankind.  It is sort of like the time leading up to a wedding when you begin to remember the important things that have happened through your life in the past, but you are also looking forward to something even more special in the future. 

Thirty days before Rosh Hashanah comes Elul, a time which helps us to remember to be prepared and get ready. 

Elul  is a time of Teshuvah, or a time to repent, examine your life, restore your relationships both toward God and your fellow man.  You need to use this time to have those long talks with your Bridegroom from Heaven because the future of eternity lies before you.  Why?  Because the Messiah is going to return!  We must be ready for the wedding feast!  He has told us to be watching and waiting and preparing. 

Teshuvah, during the days of Elul, is a reminder, almost like one of the "save the date" invitations you get long before a wedding date comes.   The shofar is blown to remind us to awaken to the season and repent and look up with anticipation.  Ezekiel 33:3 warns those who are not ready and are not paying attention. 

And he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows on the trumpet and warns the people, then he who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head.  He heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning; his blood will be on himself.  But had he taken warning, he would have delivered his life.…(Ezekiel 33:3-5)

In other words; it is up to you to get ready!  Your life in eternity depends upon what you do NOW.

We get ready in Elul by listening until we hear the sound of the shofar.  The shofar is a warning signal that reminds us to come before God and repent of our sins.  We are reminded by the shofar sounding again during Rosh Hashanah and the 10 days of Awe.  Everything leads up to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, The Day of Atonement. 

Without atonement, there is no hope for God's people.  

It is the most important day of all the sacred days.  

By the atoning blood of Christ our God shows mercy by blotting all of our sins out of His book of remembrance.  If you repent and turn from your sins, the blood of Christ is applied and the sins are blotted out forever.  If you do not, you go into another year of life with sin on your record.  The blood was given and the holy sacrifice was made once for all, past present and future; but every year when God searches His books and lays out His plans for the upcoming year, the atonement must be applied for new sins.  

Salvation is forever.  If you are saved you will have God's Holy Spirit living within you and you will always seek forgiveness for sins.  You do this because if you are saved, God's Holy Spirit lives and works within you.  Salvation is a wonderful, perfect gift!  But, it is only the beginning of the Christian life;  not the end.  Salvation leads us down the path to holiness.  Holiness opens our hearts to seek the ways of God that are good and true and right.  

Salvation brings peace.  

Holiness brings joy.

As long as we are living in earthly bodies, even after we receive salvation, we are all still human.  We all keep sinning despite our best efforts, we all fall short.  God knew this would happen.  He provided a way for sinners who sin after the sacrifice of the blood of Jesus has been applied and made them whole and completely clean.  This way is called atonement.  The sacrifice provides salvation, the atonement brings sanctification.  Both are a gift of God through His Son Jesus Christ.

It is comparable to a traveler who has bathed and is walking along a dusty road to attend a special event.  When he arrives he does not need to bath again, for he is clean, but he has picked up the dust of the road along the way, so he must wash his feet again before entering the special event.  

So many struggle with this concept saying "once saved always saved."  I just carry that concept a little further saying, "Once saved, always in need of confession."  In the end we all DO stay saved because we are clean because of the sacrificial blood of Christ; but we must do our part to grow in God.  We must continue to allow God to transform us and we must realize that we are all still sinners in need of God's forgiveness, even after we have become believers and step into the path that leads to The Kingdom.  There is always more transformation going on until we meet God face to face.  

This is the holy process that prepares the Bride for the Groom.  

This is the path of the wise virgin who keeps oil in her lamp until she sees the groom coming.  

This is how God helps us each year in the Day of Atonement.  He saves us from our humanity and applies His grace that refines us and makes us more like Him.  

If someone reaches the state of thinking that they do not need atonement anymore, they are simply living in a sin called "self-righteousness."  

So here we go into the beautiful Fall Holy Days of God:

Leviticus 23:2 says: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.’

God goes on in this passage to name seven feasts and/or festival days that He desires to be kept.  Four of these special times are in the spring and summer; those four are Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Pentecost.  The other three days come in the Fall.  For 2016 the Hebraic month of Elul begins on our civil calendar on the date of September 4, 2016.  Whenever we begin the Hebraic month of Elul we can be sure to note that the Fall Holy Days of God are fast approaching. 

Here are some of the scriptures that proclaim how we should keep these Fall Feast Days of God:  Keep in mind that these times are calculated by the phases of the moon, unlike the calendar commonly used today, which calculates time by the phases of the sun. The days of the Hebraic way all start at sunset and end at sunset.  Because they are calculated by the phases of the moon, they do not always fall on the same calendar day each year.  This year, 2016, the days come in September and October.

ROSH HASHANAH/FEAST OF TRUMPETS: In 2016 this festival lasts from sunset Sunday, October 2nd through sunset Tuesday, October 4th.

Leviticus 23:24:  "Say to the Israelites: 'On the first day of the seventh month (the first month if your are reading the sacred calendar) you are to have a day of Sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.

(God, in these scriptures, was laying out the pattern for celebrating Rosh Hashanah, The Feast of Trumpets.)

YOM KIPPUR/DAY OF ATONEMENT:  observed in 2016 from sunset Tuesday, October 11th to sunset Wednesday, October 12th,   This is a fast day, not a feast day:

Leviticus 23:26-28:  The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month (it is the seventh month of the civil Hebraic calendar and the first month of the sacred Hebraic calendar) is the Day of Atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the LORD.  Do not do any work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God.

(In these scriptures God has laid out the pattern for observing Yom Kippur - The Day of Atonement.  This day isn't a feast day or a festival;  it is actually a fast day that God has commanded to be observed.  It is a day to be spent in fasting before The Lord.  It is a day for Christians to remember the most important sacrifice ever made for mankind, the life of Jesus Christ.  It is the day for repentance and remembering that his blood is offered up as atonement for our sins, a very serious and sacred day; a most holy day to be observed forever by all believers.)

SUKKOT/FEAST OF TABERNACLES: In 2016 this festival is celebrated from sunset Sunday, October 16th through sunset Sunday, October 23rd, with the Great Last Day (the eighth day) being on Monday, October 24th.  

Leviticus 23:33-37:  Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'On the fifteenth of this seventh month (the seventh civil month and the first sacred month) is the Feast of Booths for seven days to the LORD.  On the first day is a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work of any kind.  For seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation and present an offering by fire to the LORD; it is an assembly. You shall do no laborious work.  For seven days present food offerings to the LORD, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the LORD.  It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work. 

Here God is telling us to celebrate Sukkot - The Feast of Tabernacles, a joyful time of celebrating what the world will be like when Christ reins as King of Kings and Lord of Lord's forever.   Many Jewish people do not celebrate these days unless they are in Israel because they now have no temple.  Christians know that our bodies are now the dwelling for God's temple.  We can celebrate the feast anywhere, because God is always with us, unlike in ancient times before Christ brought salvation to all.

These awesome days known to many as The Fall Holy Days are a gift from God to His people.  Do you know Him? 

Is He your God?  Then you are one of His people. 

 Are you keeping your Father's traditional days?    

You do not have to be born of Jewish DNA to keep these days, they are God's days - it is a good thing for you to honor your Father; God, and keep the days He has planned for His family.

Think of your time growing up in the home of your earthly father.  Did he have special times that he would command that the family gather around the table and celebrate together?  

Do you not have fond memories of these family times that are priceless to you as you become older and look back on them?   

Perhaps your earthly father chose these days to say important things to the family while they were all together, relaxing and celebrating.  Maybe he knew that during these special gatherings you would be listening more carefully to his words and paying closer attention.  He knew you would be undistracted, because you had set aside this time just to be with him and your other family members. 

It is the same with our Heavenly Father.  

He has mapped out appointed days from the very beginning of time that He wished for His family to keep and observe together.  

He wrote them down for us in His book so we have no excuse for not noticing them or overlooking them.  He spelled it all out, yet many people chose to blindly ignore these sections of their bibles.  Or, they blame their nonobservance on the fact that these are "Old Testament" things.  Guess what?  The New Testament did not wipe out the Old Testament, it only fulfilled it.  

The days with their fulfilled meaning are even more precious than the days before they were fulfilled and completed by Jesus Christ.  These days mark our time with our Father and our time to be a family in the House of God.

Trumpets still represents a coming time that has not yet been fulfilled.  We should be observing and anticipating!  

Yom Kippur, or Atonement represents a time that has been fulfilled by the blood of Jesus, yet also a future time that will come when we will know even more about how wonderful the love (hesed) and kindness and grace of our heavenly Father can be.  It will be a day when we will see Him face to face and stand before him covered with His blood, atoned and holy before Him.  It is something to anticipate and take seriously in the present.   

This will all culminate in a future Feast of Tabernacles and we can read of it in the scriptures where it speaks of a date in the future:

Zechariah 14:16:  Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.

Our present day celebrations are only a shadow of the things to come.  

These scriptures are our invitation from our heavenly Father to come and gather around His family table and celebrate that we are His family.  God chooses these times to speak specifically to His family about things that He considers very important.  God has called these times His "appointed" days.  Have you been keeping your appointments with your heavenly Father, or has the world led you aside and kept you busy with other things?  

The scriptures say these are God's days, not the designated days for the Jews or the Christians, or any other group.  They belong to God.  If you love God and serve Him and consider Him your Father, they also belong to you.  

The Israelites were honored and chosen to be the first to live out these patterns that God set for our special family celebrations.  They were also given the honor of being the people whose heritage would produce an offspring from God who would fulfill the meaning of all of the appointed times.  Jesus Christ was born of the tribe of Judah, a perfect man who was also The Son of God.  He fulfilled these days.   God used them as shadows to tell of His coming, His life and His leaving and returning to earth in the future. 

If you are a Christian you know these stories well, but your life can be enriched beyond belief when you know these stories as well as the stories of the Hebrews who so long ago began to celebrate these days with God.  The Jewish people have preserved these days for themselves and us, and the Christian people have proclaimed the end of the story through the preaching of the truth of the gospel and proclaiming the life of Jesus Christ for both themselves and the Jews.  It is true that they are a blessing for everyone and as Jesus so wisely put it "whosoever will; may come."

I get excited every Fall as we begin to approach these very holy times!

God always shows me something new, or teaches me something vital to living out life in His Kingdom. 

It all begins with the Hebraic month of Elul, that 30 day period of time leading up to these holy days.  The month of Elul is known as a time to be preparing, meditating, praying, pondering the last year of your life and asking forgiveness of God and anyone you have sinned against over the last year.  The whole idea is to use the month of Elul to sort out your sins, confess, repent, try to make amends and prepare to appear before God on Yom Kippur a holy and clean servant before a merciful God.  Elul is all about getting ready.

Are you ready? 

Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets) is about realizing that time is short and soon we must all stand before God.  The trumpet blows out the warning signal to awaken the people from their sins and shouts out a warning to return to God. 

Yom Kippur is about judgment and atonement.  We are all guilty, but if we seek out the love of our merciful God, He will grant us the perfect atonement of the blood of Jesus.

Sukkot, or The Feast of Tabernacles is a time for proclaiming the reign of Christ, for knowing that He will return again and marry His Bride; (those who have The Holy Spirit dwelling inside of them.)  It is a wedding rehearsal every year for The Marriage Supper of The Lamb.  It is a time of joyous celebration for what God has done for his people.  It is a time of cheerful anticipation of the world that is coming because we have been given salvation and atonement that will last throughout eternity when we will forever be with God.

So join with me if you will in this time of  Elul, the beginning of the Fall Holy Day Season, in a time of careful consideration, faithful preparation and also anticipation of the day that we are fully clean and we will see The Face of God and live.    We are right in this very minute, living in the days of Elul on our calendars.  What will you do about it? 

How will you speak to God of your own life?  What things do you need to consider and restore?

Right now - today - is your opportunity to do so.

Consider the roots of your heritage

and return to your first love.

SEASONS - THE KING IS IN THE FIELD

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Oh, how I love the writings of King Solomon in The Song of Songs! In Chapter 6, verse 3, I can read my favorite words from his writings; "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine."  

When written in the original Hebrew language the first letters of each word form an acronym that spell the month of Elul.  This is the Hebrew month that will be coming up in 2016 beginning with the civil calendar date of September 2nd.  

Elul's acronym, "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine", illustrates this concept; its first letter, aleph, stands for "I" (in Hebrew, "ani") – and the second letter, lamed, represents, "my Beloved's" (in Hebrew, "ledodi") - God. The meaning of this verse is that of being “face-to-face” in expressing one's love for another. This is the idea that the heart of the giver is entwined with the heart of the receiver and vice versa. There is a reciprocal relationship of this love. Each one has the other's heart.  One cannot help but think of the soon coming return of Christ and wonder how much longer it will be before He returns for His Bride, the Church.

On this last month of the Hebrew calendar, many of us try to focus on the past year of our lives.  

It is a time to bring before our Beloved our misdeeds, mistakes, and wrong actions so that He can show us how we can make changes for the new year to come.  

I have come to look at this act the same way you would look at preparing for a wedding.   How do these shoes work?  What veil should I wear?  Is my dress ready?  What should I keep?  What should I change?  What about all of this is in keeping with my heart for my beloved?  Have I spoken to the groom about everything?  

 If you are engaged to be married, you need to discuss all the skeletons in your closet before the wedding.  You wouldn’t want your loved one to discover these from someone else, or to be surprised and hurt by them after your marriage.  You need to confess everything that your future spouse might not yet have heard about you, so that you will know for certain that all past mistakes are forgiven and forgotten, and you are safe with the one that you have chosen to live your life with.  You MIGHT just be surprised at what they know that you don't know they know!  You would, of course, promise them never to revisit these things.  With the love between the two of you, it is possible to begin a fresh new page of life.

This is how I have learned to speak to my Beloved, Jesus, during the time of Elul.  He knows I am not perfect.  He loves anyway.   

In The Song of Songs Solomon speaks of the conversation that is held between two lovers.  

They are not afraid of one another.  

They are comfortable enough in their love that they can speak of their faults and mistakes.  

They are humble enough and so much a part of each other that one can come to the other and ask forgiveness for things done wrong because this one knows that anything they have done will have an instant effect on the other.  No sin is a sin all alone.  Every sin we commit hurts our Beloved.  

This is a time for the healing of this pain.  Healing begins with honesty and confession.  

Healing always comes before joy.

Elul is definitely a time to say “I want to change for you and never put you through such pain again.”   The honesty, love, truthfulness of this confession only makes the bond of love stronger.  The stronger the bond between lovers, the less likely it will ever be broken.  

It is a time of the weaker seeking strength from the stronger.  There will be encouragement that comes from the stronger lover that will change the spirit of the weaker lover from sadness to joy, from being ashamed to being confident and sure of their love.  

Together they will be capable of things they could never achieve apart from one another.  

All of the conversations in The Song of Songs seem to be very relational.  This is the state we should be in during Elul, a relational state, totally in tune to the desires of the One we love the most, looking to see what He will show us, listening to hear what He will tell us.  

If we are out of step, He will help us pick back up on the beat of the dance through the rhythms of life.   

It is a time of bearing our soul to the only One who truly understands our souls.  He truly loves us as we are, and accepts us with all our flaws; even enough that he would die for us and all our imperfections;  but He has a loving desire to help us change into the person that He created us to be.  

When we seek His face and ask His forgiveness, He loves us, flaws and all.  He reaches out to us to pull us up and help us to change.  

One secret to knowing how to change is that of dwelling on the words of the scriptures that tell us; "I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.”  If you divide this sentence down into two parts you begin to see they each represent a different aspect of our relationship with God. 

The first part:  “I am my Beloved’s” alludes to our main thoughts during Elul, to cry out to God, to communicate our love and loyalty to Him.    This is our speaking.  

The second part; “and my Beloved is mine,’ hints to God’s activity toward us in this time, in which it is possible for a divine revelation to descend upon us from above.  This is our listening.  Good communications involve both speaking and listening.

We speak joyfully to our Beloved during this month, not simply because we are about to begin a new sacred year, but because God is shining forth his attributes of mercy toward us.  

We know that we need to use this time to atone and work on our selves, and God empowers us to do so when we approach Him seeking forgiveness.  

This is the time of us expressing our desire for complete atonement.  At the end of the time, when we reach Yom Kippur, that is the time He expresses His complete desire to atone us, so much that He died to redeem us.  He inspires us and arouses our spirits to awaken to His desires.

There is a beautiful Jewish parable that speaks of this very act.   It is printed below for your reading and meditation:

THE PARABLE OF THE KING IN THE FIELD

A King returns to his city following a long absence. The city's inhabitants stream out to the countryside to greet him. When the king enters the field a new phenomenon occurs. The field equalizes everyone who is found there. Now, for the first time, virtually everyone is empowered and permitted to greet the king. All partitions which usually separate him from the populace are nullified. The king, in turn, graciously receives each and every one. This phenomenon does not take place outside the field. For, within the capital, and surely within the palace, only select dignitaries can access the king.

Is this parable not a beautiful portrait of how Jesus loves us? 

He went up to Heaven to send His Holy Spirit so that we could communicate better with Him and The Father.  So many times when we pray, we are looking up to heaven, seeing him on a royal throne, knowing His kingly power is at work constantly redeeming us, but often it seems we are at a distance, further away than we want to be from Him. We tend to see Him like a King of a city who went away.  We know He is still in control. 

We know He still exists and is coming back, but then one day He does come back!  He walks through the fields of the city.  These are the fields where the common workers toil and labor every day.  This is where they have broken the ground, planted the seeds provided by Him, watered them, weeded them, watched the crop grow to be ripe and ready for harvesting.  The citizens are so proud of the harvest that is just ripe for the picking!  They can’t wait to tell the Master about how beautiful and bountiful it is; then they look up and see Him actually walking through the fields!  They are overcome with joy!  It is Him, The One they have been laboring for all along!  He had returned!  They run to greet him.


As the everyday ordinary people run to great their King who has come down to walk in the field, they all seem somehow the same.  

Their differences are not showing.  

No one is more important.  

No one voice is heard above the other.  

All are equal in the field.  

It is not formal here, like it might be in the royal palace.  No one is announced, or proclaimed.  They all just come toward Him, one at a time, each one special and unique, yet everyone sharing the same honor of greeting the King and having the King recognize them and speak to them of their own particular tasks.

 Here all feel free and comfortable to discuss the physical aspects of the harvest with the King.  Who would know more about harvesting than a King who is also A Creator?  Who could possibly know more about preparing for a good harvest?  

They drink in His advice.  

They sit at His feet to listen to His instructions.  

They freely admit their mistakes and short-comings to Him because they can look into His eyes and see how much He loves them.  It is not hard.  They are not afraid.  They all feel safe. 

The King looks happier here, in the field among the people of His city, maybe even happier than He ever looks on His Royal Throne.  He is glad to be here.  Is it not what He has purposed to do all along?  He is smiling and gracious and generous.  He uses the ordinary existence in the field to explain to all the important principles of His Kingdom and here in the field the lowest realms of existence are transformed into a dwelling place for a King.  

Everyone is excited to know that The King is in the field! 

It is the strangest thing to think about, but even when the King is walking through the field, the primary mundane matters of life must still be carried out!   

It is a time for pausing, but not stopping.  

It is a time of reflecting while still working.  

In our daily lives we concern ourselves with many activities that are not in and of themselves holy, but these things are performed “for the sake of the King.”  Now when we see the King walking through the field, He may stop and talk to us of our activities.   We find out that “little things” are very important to Him.  

He has noted everything, every action, every task that we have done during the times of the seasons before the harvest.  They HAVE mattered to Him.  

He has not overlooked us, or forgotten us when we could not see Him or reach out and touch Him.  He has noticed every little thing!   Suddenly we recognize that in seeking His will in all things, we have made a part of our world His dwelling place, a place where He may come down and walk with us, even in our imperfections, even into the day-to-day activities of “the field.”

Hence, to continue looking after the field of The King in the best possible manner, during Elul we chose to put special emphasis on study of the Holy Scriptures and prayer, because even while The King is walking through His field, we recognize that it IS His field and we honor Him by continuing on with our work for Him. 

SEASONS: LOVING THE COMING MONTH OF ELUL

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

I follow the Jewish calendar every year, not because I was born Jewish, but because I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  

I want to imitate Him and do the same things that He did when He walked the earth.  

I also believe all Christians are called to keep the calendar that God chose to set in motion from the beginning of time, and I know His chosen people have been diligent to keep these days He has faithfully set aside for generations and generations!  A new season is approaching; one of my favorite times.  It is the Hebraic month of Elul.  What a special time it is!

If God created it, I’m all for it.  No more decisions for me to make here.  This decision was not based on MY intelligence, but the Mind of God, which puts my little feeble brain to shame.  I can rest in the fact that His ways are higher than my ways and His decisions for my life and the seasons of my life are so much better than mine.  I accept what I know is from the mind of God and try to be “mindful” of these things in my daily life, not out of a sense of duty or dread, but out of a sense of love and obedience and honor.  I do not observe for the sake of keep rules; but for the sake of loving God.

I do not judge those who do not believe this.  I hope that they do not judge me. The bible tells us that we must all work out our salvation.  Everyone must answer to God for the truth that He has revealed to them.  

As for me and my house, I love all the things that My Father teaches me throughout the year with His special occasions called feasts and festivals.  Since I've loved keeping these days for many years now, I can’t imagine life otherwise!  There is a richness in following the scriptures through these days; a deep richness that cannot be described in words; something that cannot be found anywhere else in life's journey through the years.

Happily, at the end of August, I will be paying attention to the turning of the pages of the calendar.   I actually went for many years without observing Elul, and I never want to miss another time period.

The month of Elul on the Jewish calendar is at the end of the Jewish year.  It usually falls sometime around America’s August and September months.  This year (2016) Elul starts on  September 4th.    Elul lasts for 40 days.  It has jokingly been called "Jewish Lent" in that many of the customs are similar in nature. 

If you pay attention you quickly note that these are very specials days.  I always try to enjoy a special meditation for each day durin Elul.   This season highlights God's grace so beautifully.   I take comfort and peace in hearing the truth of the ancient teachings in relation to His grace.  The truth comes out and paints such a beautiful canvas of amazing theology during this season.  It is a theology of a loving, merciful and forgiving God. 

  

You can trace Elul all the way back to the time of Moses, to the first year that the Jewish people left Egypt.  It was only seven weeks after they had crossed the Red Sea and made a covenant with God to be His people forever that they violated this covenant, and sinned by worshiping a golden calf in the desert.  Moses saw this terrible sin taking place when he returned with the 10 Commandments that God had personally inscribed on stone with His Own finger.  In frustration Moses smashed these first stone tablets when he saw what was going on in the camp.  After he had corrected the ways of the people, Moses went back up on the Mountain to plead with God and to ask for mercy.  It took another 40 days until He received another set of the commandments.  This time God made Moses write them down.   I always wondered if this was God’s way of making Moses memorize them.  Have you ever had your child write down things on paper that they could not seem to remember?  Well, this time God dictated the law to Moses, and Moses inscribed them himself on the stone.  It must have taken a lot of time and a lot of hard work.  What comes easy to us is sometimes easy to forget.  When we have to work hard for something, we are usually more diligent to maintain what we've worked for.    

While Moses was on the mountain with God during these

40 days, he was allowed to glimpse at God’s back.  God also taught Moses the 13 attributes of mercy while he was there.  It occurs to me that mercy and forgiveness take more effort than simply doing things right in the first place.  God only gave 10 summarized commandments, yet he gave 13 summarized ways to forgive and have mercy.  Interesting set of numbers.  

Moses remained on the Mountain learning from God from the 1^st of Elul until the 10^th of Tishri on the Jewish calendar.  Today we are still benefiting from the blessings that God bestowed on Moses on that mountain!  One of those blessings was that we are now taught to love and forgive one another.  We have the 10 ways to show love written down in writing, and when we mess up and forget them, we have 13 ways to show mercy, compassion and forgiveness.  This not only reconciles us to one another, it also reconciles us to God. 

So it is that the time of Elul has become known for beginning the time of the year for remembering to   meditate on obtaining God’s whole-hearted mercy and forgiveness.  Sometimes this also involves obtaining the whole-hearted mercy and forgiveness of those around us.  Of course, it goes without saying that we should be doing these acts all through the year, not just during the season of Elul.  It is just that if we get too busy and forget, Elul was designed to give us a deliberate focus on the subject, least we forget.  It was and still is a time of people being reconciled with God as well as one another.  

I find it interesting to note that this was put on the Jewish calendar right before their year ended.  It was sort of like saying, “I know you’ve made mistakes this year, so let’s work them out before we close the year.”    How wonderful it is to know that God has set aside a special time for showing divine mercy and forgiveness.  I can see some similarities that tie in with the Catholic Feast of Divine Mercy on this day.  The Roman Catholics however, celebrate this day sometime in April, a totally different season, but a very similar subject.  I prefer ending the year with divine mercy and starting the new year with a clean fresh slate, but in a perfect world we would have need of neither because we would all be mindful of what we do EVERY day, and be constantly seeking God’s mercy immediately after we made mistakes or sinned.  At least this is a reminder for those things that we have forgotten to stop and meditate and pray about all year long. 

It is said that this is a time to pause.  When I put my DVD player on pause, I find myself stopping to think about the part of the movie that just played out.  That is how Elul is, we are pausing to think of the part of the year that has just played out in our lives.  When I hit that button again, the movie moves forward.  When we pause for Elul, we are better able to move forward into the new year before us.  We all need to be forced to pause and reflect often.  Life is too important to be just another random accident in time.  We must value the time we have and treasure the gift of life and not treat it lightly.  

To get the full meaning of the period of time called Elul, you must look at both the beginning and the end of this interesting season and see the whole picture.  As mentioned above, the beginning is symbolic of Moses on the mountain for 40 days receiving God’s forgiveness and mercy for the people’s sins and reconciling the nation back to God.  At the end of the period of time called Elul there are 10 very important days.  The first day of those 10 is called Rosh Hashanah, which lasts for 2 days actually (although counted as one long day.)  Among many other things, Rosh Hashanah is known as a time for renewing, for waking up, for paying attention, for getting prepared and ready for new things.  The next 7 days  after take us past Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, the day that is so symbolic of Jesus’ precious blood bringing atonement for our sins.   The Jewish people know and understand the need for and the significance of atonement.  They spend time at the end of each year praying for mercy and forgiveness during these 10 days leading up to Yom Kippur, also called The Day of Atonement.  The purpose is to be reconciled with God, or At-one-ment, or being at-one with God, joining ourselves to Him through His loving kindness of mercy and forgiveness of our sins.  

What could be more beautiful?  I never want to miss these days.  There are so many lessons to grasp here in this wonderful season.

So please join me in being mindful of the fact that the last days of summer and the first days of fall are taking us into the season of Elul, a time of careful examination, and a time to prepare for the High Holy Day of Yom Kippur, which I do as a Christian keeping the commandments from the Christian Bible and The One Holy God.  There are some wonderful meditations ahead.    I hope you enjoy them this year in the season as we leave summer and journey toward fall together.