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 - ELUL 2015 - TIME FOR PREPARING FOR THE 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.  It 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)

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 sin.  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 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.  We are now in the month of  Elul and these Fall Days are fast approaching for 2015. 

Here are some of the scriptures that proclaim how we should keep these Fall Feast Days of God:  The times are calculated by the phases of the moon unlike the calendar commonly used today which calculates time by the phases of the sun. They 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, 2015, the days come in September and October.

ROSH HASHANAH/FEAST OF TRUMPETS: In 2015 this festival lasts from sunset Sunday, September 13th through sunset Tuesday, September 15.

Leviticus 23:24:  "Say to the Israelites: 'On the first day of the seventh month (the first month if your 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 2015 from sunset Tuesday, September 22nd to sunset Wednesday, September 23rd,   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 calendar and the first month of the sacred 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 2015 this festival is celebrated from sunset Monday, September 28th through sunset Sunday, October 4th, with the Great Last Day ( the eighth day) being on Monday, October 5th.  

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 reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lord's forever.   Many Jewish people so not celebrate these days unless they are in Israel because they now have no temple to go to .  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 Jewish 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 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 carefully to his words and paying close 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.  

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 gather around His 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 awake 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 ever 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 there right now, 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.