SEASONS - DID THANKSGIVING COME FROM SUKKOT?

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

The Hebraic harvest celebration of Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles) is close to the time that Americans call Thanksgiving.   The two feasts have similar qualities.  We always hear the details of why we celebrate Thanksgiving in America, but why would anyone celebrate The Feast of Tabernacles, or as the Jewish people call it:  Sukkot?

There are many good reasons that compel both Christians and Jews to celebrate these Holy Days.  Part of the reasons pertain to the future and part of the reasons pertain to the past. 

                                  

 Jesus was very bold in going to The Feast of Tabernacles to teach.  There came a time when this actually meant risking His life to do so.  Most of the religious rulers of the day were not at all happy when He showed up.  He distracted from their personal glory, politics and profit margin.  The common people admired Jesus for His boldness, and His assurance of the ways of The Kingdom.  They drank in His every word.  His enemies, the rulers of the day, were not prepared for his boldness, his courage, or his lack of fear.  

On the last and greatest day of the feast the rabbi’s always held a water ceremony.  It was then that Jesus stood and loudly proclaimed that He was The Fountain of Living Water. (John 7:37-38).  The traditions that the common people had so rotely observed for years came alive when Jesus explained them at the feast.  The Feast of Tabernacles, as well as the other feasts and festivals all prophetically scream of the fact that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Savior of The World.  

As a Christian I celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles because I am following the example of Jesus Christ, The Messiah, and I know the feast speaks of God's people in the past as well as our future with Christ when He returns again.  



 
So what is most important, the past or the future?  Both are equally important when you consider the facts.   We know that the Feast of Tabernacles was a week long harvest festival.  God commanded it to be kept through out the generations of Israel.  This was to be a time to remember how God brought them out of the wilderness into a promised land.  It was much the same for the pilgrims coming to America.  They came from what they considered to be a wilderness of sin and hoped that the new land would be a place where they could worship God as they chose and that God would bless them for doing so.   


The ancient people built temporary dwellings to remind each other of how they dwelt in tents or temporary dwellings for 40 years in the wilderness.  Possibly the American pioneers did the same.  Have you ever examined the part of old log cabins called the "lean-to"?  It was often used as a temporary place to sleep for guests traveling through the area.  It might have been a pilgrim's design of a sukkah.   Most of the pilgrim settlements had these structures on the sides of their houses.  Not to mention the fact that they also had to dwell in "temporary dwellings" until they had the resources to build their permanent homes once they arrived in America; the land of the free.

The Israelites were poor slaves and had nothing, but God brought them to The Promised Land and provided them with great blessings.  The pilgrims had been slaves to their oppressive government and they had come to America to escape this.  They had come hoping to be able to achieve a better life full of blessings.



 
Much like the Jewish people, the pilgrims chose this time to remember that all blessings come from God.  The ancient Hebrews were to remember that God came down and dwelt among them in the tabernacle that He had them to design.   The pilgrims remembered how God led them safely across the ocean to another safe place where they could worship Him in freedom and peace.   

God journeyed with the Israelites through the hard times in the dessert. God journeyed with the pilgrims through the hard times of crossing the ocean and beginning to establish settlements in America.    

God fed the Israelites and clothed them and protected them from their enemies.  God did the same for the pilgrims as they settled in a new land with different customs.

God provided water for the Israelites from a rock.  He also provided water for these pilgrims.   

Both people groups experienced the physical and spiritual blessing of God because they stepped out on faith and obedience and moved in the direction that God was showing them.

On the eighth day of The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot)  the Israelites would leave their temporary dwellings and go back to their houses in the promised land.  This would remind them of how God had kept His promises to provide for them and bless them as a nation.   They were told to keep the holiday before God in thankfulness for the year’s blessings and abundance.   In the same spirit of thankfulness the pilgrims offered up their thanks to God who had kept His promises to them and was beginning to bless them as a nation, and for the time and space that our nation honored God and kept His ways, we flourished in the land!


I think of this every year as I sit in my own temporary dwelling (my physical body as well as the physical sukkah we build as a family) and look at the evidence of the abundant blessings in my own home and my beautiful family who sit as a pleasant harvest all around me.  There are no words to properly describe my joy!   One cannot come to Sukkot without being thankful, nor to the American Thanksgiving.  I chose to keep them both and just let one be an extension of the other.  It is thankfulness multiplied by two!  How could that go wrong? 

There have been many wilderness experiences in life, but God has blessed us in every journey.  These two holidays are the time to notice and give thanks for the abundant ways that He always provides for us in every circumstance.    

Christians truly believe they should conform to the image of Christ.  That means doing the same things that Jesus did, and living as much like Him as possible.  Imitating Jesus would mean keeping The Feast of Tabernacles.  Imitating Jesus would mean being thankful such as we are at Thanksgiving.   Perhaps all of this is part of the reason we call The Holy Eucharist The Great Thanksgiving.  God's blessings are so great in our land and they tend to multiply when we take notice of them and thank God for them.  

It is a well known fact that Jesus Christ celebrated Sukkot.   Scriptures clearly state that Jesus taught from the Temple on The Feast of Tabernacles.  People looked forward to hearing from Him.  They wanted to know His teachings.  They gathered around him eagerly, especially on feast days.  Some of the pilgrims to Jerusalem had come from miles away, just hoping to get to see Jesus, to touch Him, to hear His words, to be near Him.  He did not disappoint them.  He taught on Solomon’s Porch and in other areas around the Temple. 

So why do the Jewish people celebrate?  They do not yet recognize Christ as the Messiah.

While we Christians are more focused on the future, the Jewish people are more focused on remembering the past and the lessons God showed them through history.  They bring these lessons into the present by remembering and honoring God on the days He has proclaimed.    Sukkot for them is a week long harvest festival.  It is a time for giving thanks to God for his abundant blessings.   They recognize that God commanded these days to be kept through out all their generations. This was to be a time to remember how God brought them out of the wilderness into a promised land. They were told to build sukkahs, or temporary dwellings, to remind each other of how they dwelt in tents or temporary dwellings for 40 years in the wilderness. They were poor and had nothing and God brought them to The Promised Land and provided them with great blessings. 

This is a time to remember that all blessings come from God. 

They remember that God came down and dwelt among them in the tabernacle that He had them to design. 

He journeyed with them through the hard times in the dessert. 

He fed them and clothed them and protected them from their enemies. 

He provided water for them from a rock. 

On the eighth day of the feast they would leave their temporary dwellings and go back to their houses in the promised land. This would remind them of how God had kept His promises to provide for them and bless them as a nation. They were told to keep the holiday before God in thankfulness for the year’s blessings and abundance.

As Christians watching the Jewish people celebrate the past and learning from it, we can clearly see that God was showing them the future by commanding them to remember the past.  God is like that!  He shows up in unexpected ways and speaks without speaking.

All believers of God have much in common on this feast day.   When we study the scriptures with open hearts, the balance comes.  We begin to realize that all of God's people have a lot to learn from each other. 

Israel and America are both great nations with so many of their native people being servants of God.    Long ago the natives of Israel wanted to please God with all their hearts.  They wanted this enough to leave all that they found familiar.  They were willing to cross the sea and go out into a strange and dessert land in order to worship Him in the way that He chose to be worshiped. 

In such a similar way, the pilgrims in coming to America wanted to imitate Christ as much as possible and they loved Him with all their hearts.  They wanted this so much that they were willing to leave all that was familiar to them and cross a sea and go to live in an unknown wilderness-like place.  

Perhaps those early pilgrims who crossed the sea to come to America chose to celebrate the first Thanksgiving because they too had read about a great God who commanded His people to honor Him annually with their harvest. 

 More and more people are beginning to realize that our traditional American Thanksgiving very likely had its origins in this historical fall festival called Sukkot.  

In that first American Thanksgiving the very religious puritan pilgrims came before God to give thanks for helping them to survive their first very hard year in America.  Don’t you know they thanked God for the fact that they had food, had shelter and had been able to survive the very harsh conditions of the pioneer life that they had needed to live when they arrived on those golden shores?  It seems a lot like the children of God remembering their time in the wilderness and giving thanks for the Promised land.  As they were giving thanks for the first year of survival it is quite possible that one pilgrim might have pulled out a bible and read Leviticus 23: 39 and had a lot of heads nodding around the table and thinking they would follow the example of those brave Israelites and give God the glory for bringing them to the day of thanks and for furnishing a harvest from a harsh year in the wilderness that was America.

And so we come to The Season of Joy to begin our Thanksgiving.  We will worship God with all of our hearts and this will carry over to the time of thankfulness that our nation calls Thanksgiving.  It is an American holiday.  It is a good holiday.  It is a time to confirm all that God has shown us at The Feast of Tabernacles.  

SEASONS - A PRAYER FOR RAIN

(Writing and photography by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

This is the song the ancient people of God sang as they processed with the priests from the pool of Siloam through the Water Gate and to the Temple for the water pouring ceremony at The Feast of Tabernacles each year:

Psalms 118

¹Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good!

  His faithful love endures forever.

²Let all Israel repeat:

  "His faithful love endures forever."

³Let Aaron's descendants, the priests, repeat:

  "His faithful love endures forever."

⁴Let all who fear the LORD repeat:

 "His faithful love endures forever."

⁵In my distress I prayed to the LORD,

  and the LORD answered me and set me free.

⁶The LORD is for me, so I will have no fear.

  What can mere people do to me?

⁷Yes, the LORD is for me; he will help me.

  I will look in triumph at those who hate me.

⁸It is better to take refuge in the LORD

  than to trust in people.

⁹It is better to take refuge in the LORD

  than to trust in princes.

¹⁰Though hostile nations surrounded me,

  I destroyed them all with the authority of the LORD.

¹¹Yes, they surrounded and attacked me,

  but I destroyed them all with the authority of the LORD.

¹²They swarmed around me like bees;

  they blazed against me like a crackling fire.

  But I destroyed them all with the authority of the LORD.

¹³My enemies did their best to kill me,

  but the LORD rescued me.

¹⁴The LORD is my strength and my song;

  he has given me victory.

¹⁵Songs of joy and victory are sung in the camp of the godly.

  The strong right arm of the LORD has done glorious things!

¹⁶The strong right arm of the LORD is raised in triumph.

  The strong right arm of the LORD has done glorious things!

¹⁷I will not die; instead, I will live

  to tell what the LORD has done.

¹⁸The LORD has punished me severely,

  but he did not let me die.

¹⁹Open for me the gates where the righteous enter,

  and I will go in and thank the LORD.

²⁰These gates lead to the presence of the LORD,

  and the godly enter there.

²¹I thank you for answering my prayer

  and giving me victory!

²²The stone that the builders rejected

  has now become the cornerstone.

²³This is the LORD's doing,

  and it is wonderful to see.

²⁴This is the day the LORD has made.

  We will rejoice and be glad in it.

²⁵Please, LORD, please save us.

  Please, LORD, please give us success.

²⁶Bless the one who comes in the name of the LORD.

  We bless you from the house of the LORD.

²⁷The LORD is God, shining upon us.

  Take the sacrifice and bind it with cords on the altar.

²⁸You are my God, and I will praise you!

  You are my God, and I will exalt you!

²⁹Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good!

  His faithful love endures forever.

There is a water-pouring ceremony at The Feast of Tabernacles!

In ancient times it was the service to ask for rain on the crops in the days to come while thanking God for the provision He has already given.   
We not only need physical rain to survive our life in this world, we need the rain that falls called the Rauch Ha Kodesh, The Holy Spirit.  
This is the Living Water that Jesus Christ has to offer to us.
This is how our spirits are refreshed each year as our bodies are physically refreshed with water.  
It is the Spirit of God who causes us to imitate Jesus in his death and resurrection.  
The Spirit of God is as refreshing as rising from the grave to a new and restored life in The Kingdom of God.  This is the Spirit that causes us to grow in grace and it is the Spirit of God that allows us to experience Emmanuel; 
God with us.  

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 - REMEMBERING THE BEGINNINGS OF THANKSGIVING

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

I find myself in a continuous pattern of thankfulness as we go through the calendar months of October, November and December in America. 

It all starts with the Hebrew Festival called The Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot, which has already come and gone for this year.  Each year at this festival my heart is overwhelmed with Thanksgiving, then follows America’s Thanksgiving Holiday bringing more reminders of thankfulness.  I’m often reminded that Sukkot probably was the first original form of a Thanksgiving celebration. 

Among the many, many things I am grateful for this year is the fact that we have a God Who has perfectly orchestrated the history of our country, making our American roots beautiful and unique.  My eyes are opened to this fact every time I look at the similarities between Sukkot and The American Holiday of Thanksgiving. 

The Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles or Booths begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after the crops are all gathered in for the winter.  So  we see this similar pattern already in that this too  is a fall harvest activity, very much in the nature of The American Thanksgiving holiday.   

God instructed the Israelites to observe the Feast of Tabernacles by building and living in temporary booths for seven days so that they would remember the exodus from Egypt when they lived in tents, or booths, in the dessert.  It was to help them to remember how God dwelt among them and tabernacled with them as they sojourned to a new land.  In other words it was a time to remember all the good and great things that God had done for them. 

Exodus 25:8 speaks of this:   “Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.” (NIV)

There were also other reasons for dwelling in booths near the threshing floors.  Threshing floors were the place of the harvest.  The harvest was income.  The threshing floors were always in danger of being robbed.  This was less likely to happen if someone was sleeping in a temporary booth in the fields until all the 
grain was removed.  It was customary for the family to move out to the vicinity of the threshing floor in order to work together as well as to protect the harvest.  

The mother would prepare meals there in the shade and she would take her turn with the father and the children to ride on the sledge.  

This was what was going on when Ruth approached Boaz.  He was sleeping in a Sukkah near the threshing floor guarding the grain.  

The ancient people gladly added God’s instructions for the Holy Days to this tradition, and they turned this time into a joyous celebration full of Thanksgiving. 

 Isn’t that just like our Great God to turn dread and fear into a time of celebration and joy?  He is a God of great reversals. 

We look at the Hebrew people dwelling in booths during The Feast of Tabernacles/Sukkot and we can't help but think of the lean-tos on the sides of the first log cabins that the settlers built.  They were temperory dwellings with three sides and a door.  They were often the shelter offereed to strangers passing through to spend the night.  They were a form of exteneded hospitality, just like a sukkah has come to be in today's celebrations.

Historians now note that the first Jews arrived in America with Christopher Columbus in 1492.  Jews newly converted to Christianity were also among the first Spaniards to live in Mexico with Conquistador Hernando Cortez in 1519.  In North America in 1654 Jews arrived in New Amsterdam which later came to be known as New York.  There were 23 Jewish refugees from Recif, Brazil. 
 “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” (Hebrews 11:13)

The Hebrew feast is celebrated by a full week of rejoicing, dancing, singing and feasting and is called “The Season of our Joy”.  Many of us gathering for Thanksgiving in America find ourselves doing the same things with all the same intentions in our hearts.  We too find our year coming to a close and are looking at the harvests of our lives for this season.  We are thankful for the ways that God has chosen to bless us. 

There seems to be a widely held opinion that The Pilgrim/Puritans based Thanksgiving on their knowledge of The Feast of Tabernacles.  The Puritans were great followers of the Hebrew Scriptures.  The Bible was the Puritan’s most important guide to living.  They could have noticed the description of The Feast of Tabernacles found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and followed this pattern for their own celebration.  Also, there could have been some Jewish believers among these first settlers who might have been keeping these traditional feasts all along.  There was a group that moved to the Netherlands before joining the pilgrims from England as they began their journey across the sea.  These had lived among the Dutch and had associated with Jewish believers in that land who would have kept the festival of Sukkot. 

It is extremely clear that the laws of the first colonies were based on biblical principals from the scriptures.  The New Haven legislators adopted a legal code called the Code of 1655 that contained 79 statutes.  Half of these 79 statutes included biblical references, and it is very clear that they came from the Hebrew bible.  The Plymouth Colony had a similar law code, and so did the Massachusetts Colony.  In 1641 the Massachusetts Colony adopted The Capital Laws of New England.  These laws were based almost entirely on the Mosaic law. 

It is highly possible that some of our American heroes might have been from people of Jewish roots who had come to the shores of America long before the Mayflower ever sailed.   

Already living in the land at the time, they may have been among those who came to the aid of the pilgrims that first year.  Many wanted to turn these Jewish brothers away and chase them out of the area, but The Dutch West Indian Company depended heavily on their investments and helped them to stay.  By the time of The War of Independence, there was an estimated 2,000, mostly Sephardic Jews living in America.  Their contributions to the causes of the country were very significant.  Not only did they fight alongside of the Patriots, but these Jews provided great financial contributions in the years after the first colonies arrived.  One of the greatest among them was Haym Salomon, who lent a great deal of money to The Continental Congress in the last days of the war.  He was never paid back a dime and died bankrupt.

There was also a well known metallurgist named Gaunse who had come to America with a Spanish expedition from the Queen of England.  Jews were not allowed to go to the colonies at that time, but this man was so knowledgeable about copper that an exception was allowed in his case. 

So it is highly possible that some Jewish thoughts were floating around among the colonies.  This coupled with the strict interpretations and emphasis on the scriptures might have contributed to the first Thanksgiving celebration.

Their feast was held after their fall harvest, just as the one the Hebrews held.  

The chain of events leading up to the first Thanksgiving in America is amazing when you think about it.  The Pilgrims too had made a great exodus to come to a new place where they would be allowed to worship God as they chose to do, in the way that they thought God intended.  The Israelites crossed the Red Sea; the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean.  Both journeys were filled with dangers and perils.  Upon arriving at their destination both groups experienced apprehension and adjustments.  They had to gather their courage to be brave in an unfamiliar land, and they had to learn to get along with strange people who had totally different cultures.  Both brave groups of people had to learn how to live in peace and harmony with those around them even if they had great differences in lifestyles.  For these Pilgrims America had become The Promised Land.   So it was that they recognized and followed the customs of the Israelites who had for many years given thanks for abundant harvests in the eight day celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. 

The land of England where the colonist hailed from originally had a custom to observe a Harvest Festival, but the Pilgrims had not associated themselves with their homeland’s festivals because of their many pagan customs.  Once they arrived in America, they made every effort to observe things in their days that were accurately associated with God.  They were more concerned with religious matters than politics or social issues.  It is also thought that they adopted a Sabbatarian view of observing the Sabbath from sunset on Friday till sunset on Saturday.  They were heavily influenced by preaching and teachings on Millennialism.  They believed there would be a “Golden Age” or “Paradise on Earth” in which Christ will reign for 1000 years prior to the final judgment of mankind.  This all plays into the theology of the Christian symbolism in the celebration of Sukkot, which many Christians today live out once a year in sort of a “dress rehearsal” of The Millennial Kingdom of Christ.  These fundamentals of Christian doctrine are now commonly taught practices and observances in most evangelical based churches of faith today. 

The Puritans chose to separate themselves from The Church of England based on the following scripture passage:  “And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” (Matthew 10:22-23). 

These Puritans/Pilgrims did everything according to the truth they found in the scriptures.  They followed The Word of God in a strict and detailed manner.  In other words they believed in living out the scriptures in their daily lives.  The passage said to “flee” when you are persecuted for worshiping God; and so they did.  On a ship called The Mayflower.  102 passengers began the long voyage.  Though the mast of their ship broke in a severe storm, they were able to repair it and eventually found themselves on the shores of Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts.  When the mast was broken there was discussion of turning back.  Everyone decided to take the risk and keep going forward. The first use of the word “Pilgrims” appeared in William Bradford’s writings ‘Of Plymouth Plantation.’  In his writings he used the imagery of Hebrews 11:13-16 for those who had an opportunity to return to their homelands but instead longed for a better, heavenly country. 

There was nothing in this new land that required the education of the founder’s children.  Yet, these brave people felt education was very important and established their own unique system of studies.  John Winthrop declared that their schools should be the beginning of “A City Upon A Hill” that all the people turned to for education and learning.  The founders were not amateurs; most of them had attended either Oxford or Cambridge and before coming to the new land they had communicated with intellectuals throughout Europe.  Eventually the school they established became known as Harvard University.  My point in explaining this is to express that these were well educated men, highly capable of discerning mistakes and blunders of bad choices and totally capable of interpreting the scriptures with great intellect.  They had something special that many others did not, however; they had heart and passion for the fruit of their intellectual endeavors.  Oh that Harvard would return to its original roots.

So we see that even in the field of education, these very educated and knowledgeable men –patterned their lives after the culture of The Hebrew people and their stories that are played out in our Bibles.  Think of the similarities that we have discussed so far.  They both were people who set themselves apart in order to worship God in the way they thought He desired to be worshipped.  The Pilgrims considered the scriptures found in Deuteronomy 14:2: 

"For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." (Deuteronomy 14:2)

The Pilgrims chose to pattern themselves after the nation that God chose and put His name upon; The Nation of Israel.  This being true, it is highly possible that these well learned men studied and followed the feast and festivals of God found in our Old Testament scriptures.  Perhaps they had read and understood the significance of Deuteronomy 6:3: 

"Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you - ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’" 

That first winter proved harsh and forbidding.  There were many illnesses and they were to the point of starvation in the first settlement.  They found the Hand of God was with them as they learned to get along with an unusual culture of people who were already living on the continent.  They cooperated with these Indians and combined their resources.  This is how they were able to rise above their problems.  They were humble before God and were willing to learn new things, and most of all they were willing to reach out and receive and return love from those that were not familiar to them. 

As we keep looking at the patterns of that first Feast of Tabernacles of the Hebrews and also observing our national ancestors, we see so many parallels.  It has been discovered that some of the Jewish New “Englanders kept track of these historical parallels too; that both people groups were persecuted for their beliefs, left their homes and came to a new land, survived the first year and celebrated a time of Thanksgiving before God after their Fall Harvest. It seems that William Bradford, who was the first governor of the Pilgrims proclaimed the first Thanksgiving by using the Scriptures – both from the Old and New Testaments for guidance in governing the colony. 

So we conclude that the hard and dangerous journey that led to Plymouth Rock, in a very real sense began with that earlier migration from Egyptian slavery toward Mount Sinai and led onward toward Ellis Island, and every other landing place where the later generations of pilgrims arrived at on these shores.

Today, as we approach Thanksgiving once more, the journey continues for America, for each of us, in our own lives and for all the people of our country as a whole. The Pilgrims were the first to sense that America had a unique destiny in human history.  Governor Bradford wrote, ‘just as one small candle may light a thousand others, and loose none of it’s own light, so too will we — but few in number — become a beacon for all people!”

May Governor Bradford’s words once again be so.  We Americans stand at a critical crossroad in our nation’s life. The challenge of keeping our freedom and liberty, of being able to work to provide for our families and the fight for living and raising our children in a godly manner and worshiping in a land that provides freedom and justice for all people to pursue and fulfill their dreams is still unrealized, even after 393 years since the Mayflower found its way to a safe harbor.  We too, may well have some dangerous seas and painful trials ahead of us, before we can gather with all our neighbors in a pure celebration of Thanksgiving once more.  But the example of our Pilgrim ancestors can continue to inspire and guide us as we reaffirm the freedom of conscience and independent spirit they stood for.  Let us all strive to again be “one nation under God” and  continue our quest for peace on earth, good will to man.