(Saturday)
In today’s reading we read about many of the festivals that God told the Israelites to observe. Often we think of all these rules, regulations and commands as oppressing or difficult to have to do, but I don’t think God ever intended that following Him would be hard or unattainable.
Remember Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” I think God wanted His people to spend their time focusing in on Him. These festivals were aimed at helping the people understand that.
The Passover pointed towards Christ. Christ is called our Passover lamb, who was killed for the sins of the world. The Last Supper was part of the Passover Festival. The Feast of the First Fruits, also known as Pentecost is significant to us as the day when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon the first Christians.
A Sabbath or a festival was a special time set apart for God, so that the days and weeks and months wouldn’t always be filled with the same old, same old. There was always something to look forward to. How much time do we spend in anticipating the holidays in our lives? (And just a side note in case you never caught the significance of the word holiday, break it down to two words: holi-day, holy day. You see even our celebratory days are called holy days.)
God knew that we needed extra special times in our lives to help us through the mundane, and the everyday living.
How many of you think about the weekend and look forward to it? What about Thanksgiving, and Christmas and Easter, or Sabbaths, our Sunday; special days that bring us together? They are all designed to for us to enjoy. Nehemiah 8:10, says “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” So all the set times of festivals and Sabbaths were to be times of joy and celebration.
May you experience in your walk with God times of great joy!
Blessings
Pastor Kathy