26 July 2013 by Donna Uning CM –
In the last session, Ps Peter Tsukahira talked about how important it was to know the biblical feasts or Pilgrim feasts that God designated and commanded to the people of Israel. Ps Tsukahira touched on three major feasts of Israel, the Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot) and Tabernacles (Sukkot); and each time of these feasts is also a time of biblical significance.
Ps Tsukahira earlier explained the importance of the Passover, which comes at the end of the barley harvest. “It’s not just about the Jewish people being set free from slavery; it’s about us being free from sin, darkness and bondage – set free by the lamb of God,” he said. The article continues with two of the major feasts, the Pentecost, the festival of the wheat harvest; and Tabernacles, the grape harvest.
Pentecost is a Greek word for ‘50’ or known for its Hebrew name, Shavuot or weeks, or feast of weeks.
Leviticus 23:15-16, “From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord.”
Pentecost or feast of weeks is celebrated fifty days after the Passover. It is a time when men are called to Jerusalem and worship; the Jewish people also understand that feast is a time when the Torah or laws of God was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. We understand that they arrived at Mt Sinai and God gave Moses the law.
Exodus 19:16-20, “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up.”
“This happens 50 days after the deliverance from Egypt at Mt Sinai,” said Ps Tsukahira. In the New Testament, it happened on the same holiday in Acts 2. Acts 2:1-6,
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.”
“This happened 50 days after the Passover, the day the Pentecost had come; again just like in Mt Sinai, the fire of God had come, this time it’s not the law but they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” he continued.
In the New Testament, the fire comes down on Pentecost just like in Mt Sinai where the fire of God comes down. “Here’s where we see the connection between the law and spirit; and its clear God chose this particular holiday to pour out His spirit in Jerusalem,” he said.
If Peter stood up and baptized 3000, how many people do you think in that crowd was? He described how Peter spoke to an entirely Jewish crowd and saved 3000 people. If the number is 30 percent of the crowd, there must be about 10,000 people consisting of Jews from all different nations gathered. Where can you find an entire crowd of Jewish people? We believe it’s on a temple mountain or steps of the temple mountain. “And why were they all there? Because it was the feast of Shavuot,” he told, because they are commanded by the law to come to the temple.
“Now you see the great connection between the law and the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that sets you free,” he said. Now the spirit of the law is going to be written on your heart, and you’re going to be obedient to the spirit of the law. “This is important that every generation after Pentecost that we are called to walk in the spirit of the Lord.”
The Apostle Paul makes it very clear in one powerful verse in Romans 8:4, “in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
The requirement of the Torah or God’s law is fulfilled in us who walk after the spirit and not after the flesh. For a religious Jew who knows every detail of the laws of God, they say that is a huge thing. “If you receive the Holy Spirit and walk in spirit of God’s laws, you will fulfill the requirements of Torah. Because we Christians don’t know the requirements of Torah, we don’t really understand what that means,” he said, telling for Paul, who probably memorized the first five books of the bible, he knows what it means to fulfill the laws of God and to walk in that authority.
“Some of us who wants to reach out in that same kind of anointing, in that same kind of authority that was in the ministry of the Apostle Paul, that is your key,” he said. Go back, learn the laws of God, understand what it means to walk in the spirit of those laws and you can begin to see this whole transition when we look at the calendar. At Passover, we literally as Christians cut the root and replace it with Easter.
Centuries later, God is restoring them, he exclaimed. With it He’s restoring the deep meaning to the law itself. We don’t celebrate Pentecost as a feast of the Lord, we celebrate is as the giving of the Holy Spirit; what we don’t realize is that’s exactly at the same time when God gave the law. We need for these two things to be put together.
The letter kills but the spirit gives life. We have the Holy Spirit, we are able to interpret the law and the spirit, you have that opportunity; you can walk through the spirit of the law and fulfill the requirements of God. This law is what gives the body of Christ authority and allows us to rule and reign, be seated at heavenly places with Christ Jesus. This is when authority comes back into our lives, he said.
The third and last one is Sukkot or feast of Tabernacles. This comes in the fall or around September. In Israel, tents are set up this time in every observant homes and public buildings. They are temporary and made of sheets. They sell all sort of things, especially palm branches to put on top of your Tabernacle, Ps Tsukahira told. You are supposed to sleep in the tent for seven days. A kosher tabernacle, one that is so flimsy you can see through the roof and see the stars.
“The tents are about the temporary houses the people of Israel lived in on the way to freedom, on the way to the promise land,” he explained, telling this is a reminder that we are on a journey to our home, temporarily passing through this world.
Leviticus 23:39-40, “‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.”
In Israel at this time, four things including the fruit of citron tree, long branches from palm tree, branches from a myrtle tree, branches from a willow tree, are put together in a bunch and you go before the Lord and wave them. It’s to fulfill verse 40, he said.
Verses 41-43, “Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”
“What Sukkot speaks to us about is the deepest longing of a human heart, I believe, is a longing for home,” he said stressing every one of us is looking for a place that we can call home. “The deeper longing in each one of us that is based on the realization that at some point this world will never be our home.”
You have a home waiting for you after this life is over. Jesus said to His disciples He’s going to prepare a place for you, our God has gone before us into heaven to prepare a place for us. There is a home that is truly our home that’s waiting for us. And this is what we remember when we celebrate the feast of Tabernacles, he said. The Apostle Paul really understood this and really tried to relate this to the Corinthians.
2 Corinthian 5:1-2, “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling.”
This house he’s talking about is our bodies. He’s saying the day will come when we will have to put off this earthly house. “At that point we need to understand that we go from this to an eternal house that is not made with hands, it’s not human. God has made it for us eternally in heaven. When he talks about this earthly tent, I believe, he’s referring to the feast of Tabernacles,” he said telling when we live in these purposely made flimsy tents for seven days, it is to remind us that we’re on our way; and one day we would put off this earthly tent.
There’s something about the feast of Tabernacles that has to do with all humanity. The feast was initially commanded to the children of Israel and then it was passed on to us through the Scriptures, he added. We became inheritors, it is meant to be for all humanity. We’re all in this process whether we realize it or not. The reason why I can say this is because of prophesy in the prophet Zechariah, for he speaks about the future destiny, the purpose of the feast of Tabernacles.
Zechariah 14:16-17, “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. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain.”
Most scholars believe that this prophesy has to do with the millennium, after Jesus comes to rule and reign on this earth.
“But what’s amazing, that even in that time which is really projecting us into the future, God is saying I will require every nation on earth to come up to Jerusalem and worship at this particular feast. There’s something about Tabernacle that has to do with all nations of the world, and I believe it’s because of this process that we’re all gathered as humanity in a process of moving through this life on our way to a heavenly dwelling place. That is why the feast of Tabernacle is about to remind us of celebration; it’s a time of rejoicing. Not a time of fasting, not a time of mourning. Seven days of great rejoicing,” he said. “We are on our way to a home that is eternal.”
“Just by talking about these three important feasts, you get some idea in the laws of God are riches that really provide our foundation for our understanding of the New Testament. If you think that all important points of the bible are in the New Testament, is like you came to a movie after the intermission. It’s time to go back and re-dig those laws, restore the foundation, so that we can really go out in strength and have fulfillment.
We need to understand why God made these commands and see them restored so that the fullness can come back into our lives,” he ends. The session ended with prayer. Ps Peter Tsukahira is the author of Culture of the Kingdom and God’s Tsunami. He currently lives in Israel, serving at the Mt Carmel School of Ministry. He was in Kuching from July 16-17, 2013.
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References for pictures:
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