Now that I have survived Yom Kippur I think, tomorrow is Sukkot, just ten days later. It was a day we as a family had always looked forward to. That’s interesting you’d say but what does it have to do with us, and christianity?
“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” (Zech 14:16).
That’s right people will go to Jerusalem every year to celebrate Sukkot, or Feast of Tabernacles! Tabernacles means temporary dwellings, tents or booths.
We saw in a previous post that God ordained his Feast Days, now usually referred to as Jewish holidays. Of the Feast of Tabernacles He said:
“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. 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.” (Lev 23:40-43)
So it is a time of rejoicing, I will not have to explain to anyone why I am fasting as I won’t be! It is a time to reflect on the Exodus and all that God had done. As we’ll see in a future post that the Exodus points to the future return of Jesus to set up the kingdom.
Zechariah 14 makes for very interesting reading. Please do take some time to study it. Note especially how the phrase “that day” is used!
In verse 9 we read “The Lord will be king over the whole earth“! When? In that day of course.
For the next ten days, while we rejoice before the Lord, we will be remembering how Father brought the Israelites out of Egypt and how our brother Joshua will be the anointed King ruling from Jerusalem, as Father had planned it from the very beginning!
In the next post we’ll look at what Jesus said about the time – that day – mentioned in Zechariah 14 and sparrows have to do with it.