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 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,  "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.
Lev 23:1-2 (NKJ)
 

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Updated  06/29/05


jewish roots of christianity
 
Celebrate the 
Feasts of the Lord 

 

God told his people to set apart special days including Sabbath, Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost, Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Tabernacles (Succoth). The are two other holidays mentioned in the Bible, Hanukkah (Chanukah or the Feast of Dedication) and Purim. These Feasts days or Sabbaths are a beautiful picture of the Messiah's first and second coming! 

What are the Feasts?? 

There are 7 major FEASTS of the Bible. God's Chosen People the Jews have celebrated them since Moses was given the instructions from the Lord. 4 of the 7 feasts have been LITERALLY fulfilled. There are still 3 to be fulfilled.

There are 3 spring feasts and 3 fall feasts. The feast in the middle is "Pentecost" and that has been fulfilled with the New Testament Believers. Jesus fulfilled the first 3 with his life, death and resurrection. We can indeed expect the last 3 feasts to be fulfilled with His Glorious Second Coming.

The Feasts are still celebrated today by the Jewish people. The Messianic Jews also celebrate the feasts but they do so with an understanding of the fulfillment and yet have an expectancy that the last 3 feasts will be fulfilled. Some Christians today even celebrate these feasts. I am not saying whether you should indeed celebrate these feasts BUT you do need to know about them.


So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,  and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. Col 2:16-19 (NKJ)

Why Do We (or Why Should You) Celebrate The Feasts of the LORD?? 
(Aren't we Christian??)

I take certain pleasure in answering this one... though I am certainly not Jewish by any means.  Most Christians have no problem celebrating feasts that are well known to be deeply rooted in pagan culture and ideas.  Yet we are most offended at the notion of celebrating a "Jewish" festival as if that is somehow not "Christian".  Easter, Halloween, and Christmas are by far the largest festivals we celebrate without really much thought to their origin or true significance.  We may even attend events and celebrations (Mardi Gras comes to mind) that are actually rooted in the occult or pagan practices without realizing it.  Of course, in the final analysis, the FESTIVAL does NOT MATTER, nor does the celebrating or not-celebrating of it.  It is the SPIRIT behind the FESTIVAL that DOES matter.  I have a lot of problems with Halloween personally, but I am not going to say you should or shouldn't participate in it.  Read about its origins and make your own mind up.  Christmas and Easter hold deep significance for me because I see the spiritual aspects of them.  For the majority of OTHER, unsaved people, however, these two holidays are about Easter egg hunts, presents under a Christmas tree, and an imaginary man named Santa Claus.


Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." Luke 24:44 (NKJ)

 The FEASTS of the LORD leave no room for debate:  though the FESTIVALS can (and have) become the FOCUS of worship, they were not INTENDED to be so.  They were intended as times of commemoration for the Lord's people to reflect and re-align their lives constantly to a God-centered viewpoint.  They were also direct pictures of the ONE who would eventually FULFILL all things concerning the reconciliation of man with God and the redemption of ALL things unto God: Messiah.  Yeshua, or Jesus, the Messiah IS the fulfillment and embodiment of every redemptive purpose in God.  He is the ONE to whom we look at when we look at and participate in the Feasts of the LORD.  For most Christians, a severe foundational crisis exists because they have never been properly taught the "Jewishness" of their faith.  They have somehow been lead to believe that their faith is not a "Jewish-based" faith, and that somehow their savior is not the "King of the Jews".  

We celebrate the feasts of the LORD (and recommend all believers to at least acquaint themselves with them) because they  are the Lord's  OWN PICTURE of the person and work of Jesus, the Son of God.  If Jesus after His resurrection told His disciples that "ALL THINGS" concerning Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning Him had to be fulfilled, would it not behoove us as His disciples to KNOW and UNDERSTAND what those things were??  Is the shallowness of the faith of many Christian's linked to the shallowness of our root into the depths of the Word of God??  That root is a Jewish Vine, for Jesus Himself said that He WAS the VINE.  He is the "Branch of Jesse", the "Root of David", the "Lion of the Tribe of Judah".  Folks, you can't get more Jewish than that.  

God gave His covenant people many pictures of Messiah in these festivals... though we know that our relationship and our righteousness before God is not based on observing some OUTWARD form of worship associated with a feast or festival, we do know that God will SHOW US the picture of His Son the same way He showed the original and current participants of these feasts.   There is a rich treasure house for us all to partake of in these "Biblical" holidays.  They are not just for the Jew only... no more than salvation is for the Jew only.   We enjoy a common heritage by faith as children of Abraham, not genetically, but definitely spiritually.  In this regard, we feel that celebrating these holidays are more "Christian" than celebrating the ones that the world has already blurred the definition of.  The FEASTS of the LORD have no such blurred distinction.. they are HIS feasts, they are HIS holidays, and they are for us to commemorate and celebrate HIM.  We are not trying to say you must abandon Christmas and Easter.. just realize that there are much better and deeper expressions for celebrating our faith in the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

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