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Introduction:
Allow
me to echo the sentiments Ari expressed in thanking
you, our family and friends who have come to honor
him today. You have given of yourselves and your
time to be with us, and time is irreplaceable,
so again, we appreciate it very much!
I think
it appropriate and not at all coincidental that
Ari’s Bar Mitzvah falls on Shavuot –
the Feast of Weeks, better known as Pentecost.
It is a very significant and unique festival but
little understood and often overlooked; which
is why many people are weak on the Feast of Weeks.
I. Background
on Shavuot:
-
Called “weeks”
because it falls 7 weeks and 1 day after the
Shabbat of Passover
-
Also called Atzeret shel
Pesach (“completion of Passover”)
-
A harvest festival –
wheat harvest
-
Israel to bring the first
fruits of their wheat crop to the Lord (show
gratitude)
-
One of the 3 mandatory
pilgrimage feasts for all Israeli men
-
Today religious Jews study
Torah late into the night, celebrating the
giving of the Torah, which the rabbis determined
to have taken place at Shavuot
The Feast
of Shavuot holds something very precious for Jew
and Gentile alike, and as you’ve already
noticed, ours is a family that has both Jewish
and Greek roots. It was 25 years ago in March
that I first came to understand and believe that
Yeshua, Jesus, is the promised Messiah. It’s
been quite a ride! I have been questioned more
than a few times as to whether our (so-called)
mixed marriage and my faith in Yeshua will prove
a liability for our children. Skeptics ask me,
“How can you believe in Jesus if you’re
Jewish? Jews don’t believe in Jesus. And
what about your children – aren’t
they going to be confused?” I respond, “Actually,
my children have great clarity. Does it confuse
you?” “Yes!” “Well,”
I reply, “the reason I and my children have
no trouble making this connection is because we
regularly read the Bible. By the grace of God
my children have something real and something
historically verifiable as the basis for their
beliefs. They have acquired a working knowledge
of the Scriptures – a reasoned approach.
And what
do we find between the covers of this most extraordinary
and unique Book in all of human history? We
find that God intended all along for human beings,
Jews and Gentiles alike, to come together! I
believe that is one of the major themes of Shavuot!
You know what else we find as we journey through
the history recorded in this Book? We find our
own very checkered past. One of the things I appreciate
most about the Scriptures is that nothing is whitewashed.
In contrast to much of ancient mythology, details
are not exaggerated, nor are virtues overstated.
Even the heroes of the faith have their flaws
presented with startling candor.
Ari did
a very good job of describing the birth of this
new nation – Israel, and that from almost
the very beginning our people couldn’t seem
to get it right. As stated earlier the rabbis
teach that the giving of the Torah at Sinai took
place at Shavuot. It makes sense, since Passover
marked the time of the Exodus from Egypt. It was
a short time later that we arrived at Sinai, set
up camp and Moses ascended the mountain and received
the tablets of the Law. Let’s compare and
contrast two particular Shavuot events…
II.
A Shavuot Leading to Death and a Shavuot Leading
to Life
So what
did Moses find 40 days later upon his return?
He found the tribes of Israel rallying around
a golden calf, offering it sacrifices and holding
an orgy in its honor! It was appalling and it
was humiliating. The surrounding nations got word
of it and the biblical narrative says that for
a short time we became a laughingstock (Exodus
32:25). When Moses drew the line in the sand and
said, “Whoever is for Adonai come to me,”
did you know that only the tribe of Levi responded?
Only one tribe out of twelve was faithful! That
should teach us adults that the majority never,
ever makes something right. That should teach
our teens that it is no excuse to say it’s
what everyone else was doing. When the crowd is
going in the wrong direction, you break from the
crowd, period!
Three
thousand men - the leaders of that rebellion,
had to be put to death that day. That was a Shavuot
filled with sadness! Nevertheless, it was a very
real part of our history, something not to be
forgotten, but rather to serve as a lesson for
the generations to come – a good, bad example.
By contrast,
on another Shavuot almost 1,500 years later something
wonderful happened, though at the time I doubt
anybody expected anything good at all. You see,
it was the Shavuot following the Passover at which
Yeshua had been put to death.
In the
time of the first century, in addition to the
hundreds of thousands of permanent residents of
Judea, hundreds of thousands more Jewish people
would typically make the required pilgrimage to
Jerusalem at Passover, and remain there until
Shavuot, swelling the population of the city to
more than twice its normal number. You see, Jewish
people at that time had long been scattered across
the Earth - as far west as Europe, as far south
as Egypt and eastward throughout Mesopotamia.
It made a whole lot more sense to stay the 7 weeks
between Passover and Shavuot (both being mandatory
feasts for Jewish men) than to have to shlep possibly
hundreds of miles on foot or by animal each way,
taking perhaps weeks to get to the Holy City and
weeks to get back home, only to have to turn right
around and make the trip again. For that reason,
most Jewish people living in other lands remained
with their families or friends in Jerusalem for
the whole season, returning to their various countries
of residence after Shavuot.
As this
particular Shavuot, or Pentecost, drew near, things
certainly must have been quite different. There
would have been a lot of buzz going around about
this Yeshua who had claimed to be the Messiah,
and who was put to death on the eve of Passover.
There was also quite a stir, because His talmidim,
(disciples), were saying that He had risen from
the dead. There would also have been a lot of
tension, because the same religious authorities
that had orchestrated Yeshua’s death were
now on the lookout for His followers and their
sympathizers, and so for the past forty or so
days the disciples had likely been keeping a low
profile. But they were not the only ones who witnessed
these events, so you can imagine that during this
festival there was an entire substratum of hushed
speculation.
Acts
chapter two opens this way: When the day of
Shavuot had arrived, the disciples were all together
in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven
a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled
the whole house where they were sitting. And there
appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing
themselves, and they rested on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak with other languages as the
Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were
Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout men from every
nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred,
the crowd came together, and they were bewildered
because each one of them was hearing them speak
in his own language (Acts 2:1-6).
You had
Jews from as far away as Persia and Asia Minor,
Egypt and Rome all gathered in Jerusalem, as required
of them, for Shavuot. What should they see but
a bunch of Galileans - followers of Yeshua, preaching
the Gospel in the languages of Persia and the
provinces of Asia and Egypt and Rome! It was astonishing!
So much so that when Peter got up to proclaim
that the Messiah had come and that it was Yeshua,
and that He had risen from the dead, people listened,
and this is what happened:
Now
when they had heard this, they were pierced to
the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the
apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
Peter said to them, “Repent and let each
of you be immersed in the name of Yeshua the Messiah
for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit… and
with many other words he solemnly testified and
kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved
from this perverse generation!” So then
those who had received his word were baptized;
and that day there were added about three thousand
souls (Acts 2:37-38, 40-41).
What
an amazing contrast. At the giving of the Torah
at Israel’s first Shavuot 3,000 men in rebellion
died. At the giving of the Holy Spirit at Israel’s
first post-resurrection Shavuot, 3,000 men in
repentance came alive! The Torah is beautiful,
but the Torah could not give eternal life, because
of our inevitable failure to meet its demands
on account of our sinful propensity. We have enough
trouble even with the Ten Commandments, let alone
613. But what the Torah could not do, the Ruach
HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, is able to do –
regenerate the human spirit and give us eternal
life.
Consider
for a moment all that the Holy Spirit is able
to accomplish by the many biblical symbols used
to portray Him. The Holy Spirit is likened to
fire, because fire purifies and the Holy Spirit
dwelling within the life of the believer enables
him or her to overcome the ever-present temptation
to sin in one way or another. Fire separates precious
metals from the dross that is mixed in with them.
The Holy Spirit does a work of purifying us so
that those aspects of our lives that are displeasing
to the Father are gradually burned up and only
what is good and right and pure remains.
The Holy
Spirit is likened to oil, because a lamp without
oil will quickly go out and its wick burn up.
We need to be being filled with the Holy Spirit,
because we can only go so long on our own strength
and by our own wits before we come to their end.
The Holy
Spirit is described alternately as a Parakletos
- an Advocate; as a seal, an imprint – securing
our place in God; as a pledge – someone
given as a down-payment, a guarantee on all the
heavenly glories that await us. He has been likened
to the wind, because while the wind is invisible,
you see its effects dramatically. So it is with
those who have entered the New Covenant made by
Yeshua. They receive the Holy Spirit, and while
the process itself is invisible, the effects wrought
by the Holy Spirit are noticed by others. When
people see change in you, they wonder how it came
about. It is God at work within you by the Holy
Spirit.
The Holy
Spirit has been likened to water. Water is essential
to life; without it you cannot survive long. Even
the most lush, fertile land deprived of water
for more than a season or two quickly turns to
desert. The ancient Jewish prophet Zechariah wrote,
“’Not by might, nor by power, but
by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts”
(Zech. 4:6). Even the most talented person will
not succeed long relying solely on their own talent;
the strongest among us will miss out on the best
of life if they rely on themselves and ignore
God.
III.
Shavuot: Bringing Jew and Gentile Together
But I
told you at the outset that I believe a central
theme of Shavuot to be the bringing together of
Jews and Gentiles in the Messiah. There are two
more things that took place on Shavuot –
rituals that were performed by Israel’s
High Priest; two wave offerings.
On Shavuot
the High Priest waved two loaves of baked bread
before God. This particular wave offering was
unique in all of the Torah. Why? It is unique
because the two loaves were baked with leaven,
whereas leaven was, in every other respect, prohibited
from inclusion in any offerings. Leaven, in biblical
imagery, is symbolic of sin. As yeast causes bread
to rise and puff up, sin causes us to become puffed
up with pride. Adonai did not want a symbol of
sin to be part of Israel’s offerings –with
this one exception.
I believe
we should see it in contrast to the wave offering
on the feast of First Fruits during Passover week.
During First Fruits, which fell on the third day
of Passover, the High Priest would wave a single
loaf of unleavened bread before God. The absence
of leaven may be equated with the absence of sin,
and that is descriptive of Messiah – the
One, unique, sinless Son of God. Its being lifted
up and waved on the 3rd day of Passover may be
equated with the Yeshua’s resurrection on
the 3rd day.
But fifty
days later, the High Priest waves two loaves,
and these have leaven. Messiah was sinless; we
are not. And why two loaves? I believe they represent
the bringing together of Jew and Gentile –
the two groups into which humanity is divided,
as one.
But there’s
more. On Shavuot the High Priest also waved two
lambs before the Lord. Lambs as sacrificial offerings
were very common, so why is this exceptional?
It is unique in all the Scriptures as the only
wave offering of two lambs. I believe the lifting
up and waving of two lambs before Adonai is symbolic
of two flocks - a picture of Jew and Gentile coming
together. But I am not alone in that opinion.
Listen to what Yeshua had to say about sheep and
shepherds:
I
am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My
own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I
know the Father; and I lay down My life for the
sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this
fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear
My voice; and they will become one flock with
one shepherd (John 10:14-16).
IV.
The Book of Ruth – More Evidence for the
Unity of Jew and Gentile
But wait,
there’s even more! Let me ask you a question:
What are you going to do when you get home this
afternoon? Rest, of course (it’s Shabbat)!
But I think you should also definitely read the
Book of Ruth. I say this because one of the long-standing
traditions among the Jewish people on Shavuot
is to read the Book of Ruth. It is appropriate
for a number of reasons, not the least of which
is that the story of Ruth is woven around harvest.
Now the
story of Ruth has something for everybody. It’s
a tragedy, it’s a love story, it has adventure,
suspense, … a genealogy! A genealogy? Who
cares about a genealogy? You should! Or perhaps
you didn’t know that the end of the story
has Ruth and Boaz giving birth to a son named
Obed, who gives them a grandson named Jesse and
a great-grandson named David – as in King
David! Ruth is an ancestor of the great king of
Israel!
So what’s
the big deal? Ruth wasn’t Jewish. In fact,
not only was she not from Israel, but she was
from a nation considered one of Israel’s
worst enemies – the Moabites! How does King
David wind up with a complete foreigner in his
ancestry? You’ll have to read it to find
out, but the beautiful discoveries you’ll
make along the way will make it more than worth
your while. But listen to her immortal words,
spoken to her mother-in-law Naomi,
"Do
not urge me to leave you or turn back from following
you; for where you go, I will go, and where you
lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people,
and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die
and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD
do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts
you and me" (Ruth 1:16-17).
This
is yet one more way that God was showing us His
heart – that through faith in Him and ultimately
in Messiah Yeshua, people from every nation, language
and people group might come together in genuine
love and in a common faith. This is what Rabbi
Paul wrote about in his letter to the believers
in Rome. We, Jews and Gentiles, when united in
faith in Messiah, are like an olive tree that
has both natural and wild olives grafted in. Just
as we are incomplete without Yeshua in our lives,
we are incomplete without one another. To this
magnificent olive tree the natural branches bring
a long and abiding culture, maturity and wisdom,
and the wild branches bring life and vitality,
color and flavor and strength.
V.
Conclusion
To be
sure, there are many people, and all too many
professional clergy, who bristle at the idea of
Jews and Gentiles worshiping together. Some have
a vested interest in maintaining the divide. But
it’s an artificial divide, and the truth
of it is that they are fighting against God, who
from of ancient times revealed His greater calling
for mankind. Let me close with these powerful
words, uttered by the ancient Jewish prophet Isaiah:
Let
not the foreigner who has joined himself to the
Lord say, "The Lord will surely separate
me from His people." Nor let the eunuch say,
"Behold, I am a dry tree." For thus
says the Lord, "To the eunuchs who keep My
sabbaths, and choose what pleases Me, and hold
fast My covenant, to them I will give in My house
and within My walls a memorial, and a name better
than that of sons and daughters; I will give them
an everlasting name which will not be cut off.
"Also the foreigners who join themselves
to the Lord, to minister to Him, and to love the
name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one
who keeps from profaning the sabbath and holds
fast My covenant; even those I will bring to My
holy mountain and make them joyful in My house
of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will
be called a house of prayer for all the peoples."
The Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel,
declares, "Yet others I will gather to them,
to those already gathered" (Isaiah 56:3-8).
So if
God intends Heaven to be filled with people from
every walk of life, let’s practice it now.
Consider this, your life, a dress rehearsal. Remember
Shavuot, and the message it holds for those “with
ears to hear”.
Shalom,
Rabbi Glenn
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