The Feasts we are to Celebrate according to the Bible by Rafael Batista

Rafael Batista

Chapter 4: The Feasts we are to Celebrate according to the Bible

by Rafael Batista

We now know that Jesus, the Apostles, and the early christians kept the law. So in keeping the law they had to keep the feasts as well. Is there ever an example of them keeping the feasts? Well Jesus definetly celebrated the feasts, of that there is no doubt at it is all over the gospels. The Jewish,  law keeping, feast celebrating, old testament supporting picture of Jesus is very rarely depicted or taught today. If we are to be followers of Jesus Christ “Christians” we must learn from his example since he was a living example unto us with his life here on Earth. We can’t pick and choose which aspects of Jesus’s teachings and life we want to live. We must follow his WHOLE example.

Luke 2:41 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover

John 5:1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.

John 7:8 You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.

John 7:10 However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.

John 7:14 Not until halfway through the Feast did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach.

John 7:37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

John 12:12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.

This feast was held at Jerusalem.

Matthew 26

17On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”  18He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’ ”

19So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.

Today, Easter is celebrated instead of Passover. The King James bible even edited Acts 12:4 to include the word “Easter” and give it validity. No other translation dares to give the feast this name, since they were indeed celebrating Passover. The original greek word was Pascha which is clearly passover. Easter was instituted centuries later. It is important to note that Easter and Passover are not celebrated on the same day, are not celebrated in the same way, and contrary to misinformed opinion have nothing to do with each other. Easter claims to celebrate the resurection of Jesus. What they failed to realize is that Passover, instituted by YHWH almighty, already celebrates the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. If ever you get a chance, study this feast. I also encourage you to find a place where people are celebrating it and observe it, when it comes around time (late March, early April). It is the most beautiful and meaningful thing a christian can experience, because it is the prophetic prediction and ceremonial narration of Jesus’s death burial and resurrection. Yet the people who celebrate it (those who practice Judaism) fail to realize it is about Jesus and those who should be celebrating it (Christians) neglect to celebrate this very important feast.

To give you a minor illustration of the symbolism, what you see take place in the Lord’s supper is exactly what takes place in the celebration of passover. Wine and bread is ceremoniously eaten. For centuries this was done until Jesus came and explained that the bread symbolized his flesh and the wine his blood wich would be poured for the sins of mankind. An entire lamb is eaten on this night symbolic of not being partly like Jesus but trying to be entirely like him. Lastly a piece of unleavened bread is hidden in a piece of clean linen cloth somewhere around the house for the children to find. The piece of unleavened bread (matza) is striped and pierced when made, mind you. It is hidden in linen, and then found.

Isaiah 53:5

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Matthew 27:58-59

Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

The holiday we Christians have now come to celebrate is Easter or The feast of Ishtar. This is a feast originally meant to commemerate a Mesopotamian goddess. It is good to note that there are two goddesses in the bible itself that have the very root of this name. Asherah and Ashtoreth. These two Goddesses where the source of much of God’s wrath against Israel and yet christians today celebrate a feast in commomeration to her, in the same fashion even as they did in the Roman empire, with bunny’s and signs of fertility such as eggs. She was known as the fertility goddess. Just to provide two verses out of many.

Judges 3:7

7 So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD. They forgot the LORD their

God, and served the Baals and Asherahs.

Judges 10:6

Then the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals

and the Ashtoreths, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of

the people of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; and they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.

There are examples of this Goddess althroughout the book of Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. If you are unsure, do simple study on the word Easter and the history of it.

During Passover Jewish people became extremely patriotic and many times caused rebellions around the time of this feast in the first and second centuries. They wanted to have their own country free of Roman rule once again. This caused anti-passover sentiment amongst gentile christians who no longer wanted to associate themselves with Jews who rebelled against the Roman empire. Gentiles who went to synagogues and served Jesus were punished for the rebellions of the Jews. Now the feast of Ishtar which many Romans celebrated gave birth to a new holiday, Non-Jewish, and supposedly celebrating the resurection of Jesus. It kept the pagan name, the pagan customs of rabbits and eggs and many today celebrate it without question claiming its fun for the kids. If I had kids, i personally would not like them involved in anything to do with the goddess that God over dozens of times exclaimed he detested.

So we are to throw off the yoke of Roman Catholocism and stay true to the bible let us celebrate the passover as God almighty has instructed us. It will bring the Lords supper into a whole new light and meaning. The correct meaning.

Did the early christians keep the feasts? If they did shouldn’t we?

Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

Acts 18:20-21

When they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them saying “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but i will return again to you God willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus

What are these feasts we are to keep?

There are 7 major biblical feasts.

Passover

Unleavened Bread

First Fruits

Pentecost

Trumpets

Day of Atonement

Tabernacles

The Feast of Passover

Passover should be the most prominent and well known of the 7 feasts. Passover is the feast to commemorate the day that God sent his angel to pass through Egypt. He had previously commanded the Israelites to place the blood of a lamb on their door posts, and remain inside their houses. God was sending the angel of death through all of Egypt. Pharaoh had disregarded the 9 plagues God had issued to the egyptians to let the Israelites go. So God decided to hit them with the most griveous of plagues, killing the first born of each Egyptian.

Exodus 12:12-13

12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”

The thing to observe here is that this is no doubt the perfect picture of grace. The blood of the lamb being spilled for our sins. When sins come to account, God overlooks those with the blood of the lamb (a picture of messiah) and regards them as righteous, not bringing death to their house. What is interesting to note (credit for this interesting point will have to be attributed to my uncle) is that there are two major commands here. One is placing the blood on the door posts and the other is to remain inside the home. So in other words, the blood was not wholly sufficient. If someone placed the blood of the lamb on their door posts but was found outside (in disobedience) when the death angel came he would have surely died. Now if someone remained inside but did not have the blood of the lamb on their doorposts they would have also died. So grace and obedience work side by side. You need both the blood of the lamb and you also need to obey the words of God to avoid judgement.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Exodus 12:39

“With the dough they had brought from Egypt, they baked cakes of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.”

Exodus 13:6-8

“Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen with your, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. You shall tell your son on that day, It is because of what the Lord did for me when i came out of Egypt.”

One can say also that the first feast of the Hebrew year can symbolize the first stage in salvation. Acceptance of the blood of the lamb and submitting to God. If Passover symbolizes the first stage in salvation then Unleavened bread no doubt symbolizes the second stage. It first commemorates leaving the sinful lifestyle behind, in this case Egypt symbolizing sin. It more importantly symbolizes the process of the believer removing all sin from their life. In this second case sin being symbolized by the leaven that is instructed to be removed from your home.

This feast in celebrated in conjuction to Passover. Passover takes place at night, and unleavened bread starts the very day after and lasts for seven days.

Exodus 12

14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD -a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever

eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from

Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day.

Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all

you may do.

17 “Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven

days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it

must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. 20

Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”

In this feast you remove all the leaven from your house. Any grain product that has leaven. Generally this is believed to be any product made of wheat, barley, spelt, rye, and/or oats. Usually a special kind of bread is eaten on this day called Matzah bread. This is a flat, cracker like bread. The feast is symbolic of when the Jews left Egypt and had no time to leaven their bread. The act of removing it from your house is symbolic of removing sin from your life.

The Feast of First Fruits

Leviticus 23 9-14

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath. On the day you wave the sheaf, you must sacrifice as a burnt offering to the LORD a lamb a year old without defect, together with its grain offering of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil—an offering made to the LORD by fire, a pleasing aroma—and its drink offering of a quarter of a hin of wine. You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the

very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.

Today we no longer have crops of our own and pretty much buy whatever food we need with money. In those times the equivalent to money would have been crops, animals, and whatever came out of those two such as milk or wine, etc. So today being a money driven society, those who keep the feasts generally keep this feast by giving an offering unto the Lord on this day. One custom is to give your first paycheck unto God, trusting that he will provide for you for the rest of the year. The first paycheck becomes symbolic of the “firstfruits” of your year’s harvest. This is generally celebrated the first Sunday after the Feast of Unleavened bread.

Leviticus 23:15

” ‘From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks.

This verse immediately follows the excerpt above it outlining the feast of first fruits. This verse is meant to indicate the next feast which is the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), but if you read carefully the beginning of this verse indicates the placement for the day to celebrate the feast outlined in verses 9-14. It says the day after the Sabbath and equates that day after the sabbath (Sabbath being Saturday so the day after is Sunday) with the day you brought your offering.

So Passover, Pentecost and Firstfruits all take place Late March, Early April timeframe. Back to back. It all depends on the Hebrew calendar. The hebrew calendar is a subject all on its own, since it is dependant on the cycles of the moon and the harvest. So since we cannot immediately tell when these will be since we do not have crops to indicate these to us, nor are we familiar with moon cycles, anyone wishing to celebrate these simply has to conduct minor research to find out which days in their respective year these feasts will be taking place. It used to be customary to ask the local rabbi about which days to celebrate. Or the local Rabbi would simply announce which days they would be celebrated to the entire congregation. Since most christians do not celebrate these days and you cannot simply ask your pastor which days to celebrate, the invention of the internet has made it even easier to find out which days these are to be celebrated. Or one can simply ask an observant Jew or Messianic Synagogue. Messianics are Jews who believe and worship Jesus the Messiah.