Community on Columbia

The Feast of Tabernacles is a festival of light and joy. The spiritual meaning of the feast is expressed in a number of types – the booth, the ethrog and lulav, the lighting of the lamps, the water-and-wine-pouring ceremony, wearing of white garments, the 7-day Jewish wedding and the final eighth-day meal. Jesus fulfilled all these pictures (See John 7:37-38, 8:12).

Memo on the Feast of Tabernacles

More Notes on the Feast of Tabernacles

Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the climax of the ten days of awe and is
considered to be the most important day for the Jews in the liturgical year. The fast, which we will observe Sept. 28-29, coincided with the sin offering offered for all Israel and the Kol Nidrei, the absolution of vows. Twin goats were chosen by lot, one for sacrifice and the other for release, bearing away the people’s guilt into the wilderness. It was the one time of the year that the high priest entered into the Temple’s Holy of Holies and spoke the Tetragrammaton, the secret name of God.

Jesus fulfilled this ritual:
Hebrews 9:12 – “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”

Memo on Yom Kippur

Notes on the Kol Nidre

See Also Notes on Leviticus 16

Rosh Hashanah, also called the Feast of Trumpets, begins the Days of Awe. For 10 days between this feast and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Israel trembled in repentance as, according to tradition, their lives hung in the balance while the Book of life was opened in heaven. The blowing of the shofar or ram’s horn is a feature of this celebration. Many scholars believe Jesus was born around the time of this feast, and it represents the new birth of believers, too.

Memo about Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah as a ‘Memorial’

… and some additional notes here

Rosh Hashanah is in two weeks – the start of the High Holy Days and the Ten Days of Awe, which end at Yom Kippur.

One traditional Rosh Hashanah reading is the fall of Jericho in Joshua 6, in which blowing the shofar causes the city walls to fall down. Crucial to the story is the aid Rahab the harlot gave to the Israeli spies related in Joshua 2:1-24.

Other calls to flee coming destruction are found in Lot fleeing Sodom (Genesis 19) and Jeremiah 51 when he calls for the exiles to flee the coming destruction of Babylon. It is repeated in Revelation 18:4. Jesus warned believers to flee to the mountains before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (Matthew 24:16).

In this season we must examine ourselves and rediscover the critical urgency of God’s call to separate from entanglement with the world system and its values.

Notes on Joshua 2:1-24, and Joshua 6:1-27