Our favorite family traditions all revolve around God’s feasts listed in Leviticus 23. We find so much joy and fulfillment in celebrating the days that God has set aside to meet with us. Each one is truly a treasure. And, as each day finishes, we look forward to the next with great anticipation. Right now we are in the midst of the fall holy day season. We recently celebrated the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. Now, on this Sabbath, we are anticipating Sukkot!!
Our celebrations always include lots of praise & worship and circle dancing. And, we enjoy learning from one another as we study God’s word. Food is always present at our celebrations – except on the Day of Atonement, which is a day of fasting.
We are thankful for the weekly Sabbath (Lev 23:3), which the kids usually start asking about on Sunday. Only 6 more days!! The Sabbath begins on Friday night with a special meal, then dancing and singing and dh blesses each of the children. The next morning we enjoy family time before we host a home fellowship, which includes more dancing, singing, teaching and food. Just as we spend extra time with our heavenly Father on Shabbat, our little ones get to spend extra time with their earthly father because he doesn’t work on Shabbat. So, he is home to spend time with them.
Each year we celebrate the annual Feasts listed in Leviticus 23. The first is Passover and our year begins with a great celebration! This observance begins with a more solemn tone as we remember that Yeshua (Christ) died for our sins. And, it ends with a celebration of our salvation because Yeshua died for our sins. And, we finish up the celebration with lots of food. J This begins the week of unleavened bread. We have put all leaven out of our house and we eat unleavened bread every day. This is a reminder of how difficult it is to remove all the sin from our lives. God gives great object lessons. We see that if we spend more time at home (come out of this world) then it is easier to avoid the sin (leaven) because we have removed it from our home. But, if we spend much time away from home (in the world) it is easier to sin without thinking about it (remembering just after we eat that piece of bread). And, since we are commanded to eat unleavened bread during this time, we can see that when we put sin (leavening) out of our lives, we need to replace it with righteousness (Yeshua - unleavened bread) so that spot doesn’t get filled back up with sin.
Then we continue through the Feast of the Pentecost – remembering the day when the early church first received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). And, after a short break, we come to the Autumn Feasts. The Feast of Trumpets (or Yom Teruah) is the first of these celebrations. We aren’t sure yet what the fulfillment is of the Autumn Feasts. But, we enjoy celebrating and doing just as the Bible says. On Yom Teruah we make a loud noise. On Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), we fast and realize how weak we really are and how much we need Him. Then, the season finishes up with Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). Eight days of living in tents. Celebrating God and Yeshua and what they have done for us as we live with other believers for eight days. We leave the outside world and enjoy a tiny taste of the Kingdom.
After Sukkot, there are about 6 months until Passover. During this long break, we are thankful for the weekly Sabbath to consistently return our focus to Him.
If you’re interested in more details of how we celebrate these days, see specific posts on my blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment