Main Street Church Sermon (17.11 - )

Okay, we are doing the Feast of Israel still. And I hope you've got your your your uh Thinking cap on this morning, or your little orphan anti-decoder pin going, because today we're going to try and unwind a tremendous mystery. And uh uh and uh I'll be fine. The problem is with this particular feast, there is no distinctive food. That's why I gave you an open plate this morning.

You know, the other feasts, almost all of them have characteristic foods that accompany them traditionally when you do them. Um this one doesn't and there you'll see why it can't. What?

Well, you'll see. This is really this is really kind of interesting.

So we come to actually one of the lesser known feasts, but in the entire realm of the seven appointed feasts, it's a biggie. And you'll agree with me when you'll see why at the end.

So let's get a review about where we're at. This is the, again, this is the year calendar. Around the edges are the 12 months of the year. They're lunar months. They start and stop on the new moon.

By the way, for us right now, the full moon just happened a day or so ago. In the lunar months that start on new moons and end on new moons, the full moon is exactly in the half.

So we are halfway through a lunar month right now, so because we're at full moon. But we started with Purim up here, which is the entire celebration about Esther, the story of Esther. Then we went, we're going backwards on the calendar. Then we went to the month nine. We went to Hanukkah, Hanukkah, which is the celebration of what happened about a century or more before Jesus, in terms of the rededication of the temple that was all messed up.

And then when we get into the seventh month, as we go backward to the first month, we're in the seven appointed feasts, which are different from those first two. The seven appointed feasts were appointed immediately after Israel came out of Egypt and God said, oh, stop. When we leave Egypt and go into Israel, I'm giving you seven feasts that you need to do. These are all designed by God. And what I say about these seven feasts is that by God's design, They are an integrated message system.

They're meant to say something like a lesson. when you do them.

So they're not just celebrations because some big event happened. They're lessons that have a great meaning to them. And so our challenge and the wonderful mystery for us is to look at them and see what it says. And you'll see that there's great design to it. And I think of all the feasts, the one today shows the most cosmic design on God's part.

Whoa.

So we came into the seventh month, which has the last three of the seven appointed feasts right here. Sukkot, which is a feast of shacks, I call them. And then we went on to Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, where sins are taken care of once a year. And then just before that, on the first day of Tishrei, we have the feast of trumpets, or today, what is more commonly referred to as New Year's.

Okay, Rosh Hashanah, that's actually it's it kind of overshadows trumpets. And then when we get to the middle of the year, again here last time we looked at in the month of Sivan, it turns out that we looked at Shavuot, which is the feast of weeks. Very strange name, but we made sure that we understood why it's called the Feast of Weeks, because it's. a number of weeks after some event that we're going to look at today. Do you remember how many weeks?

Seven. Seven weeks.

So it's time to be seven weeks after something at the top in the first month. We'll look at that beginning of the timer today. But that's an interesting connection because almost all of the feasts. are pinned to a specific day On the calendar, on the Jewish calendar. But it turns out Feast of Weeks isn't.

It is seven weeks after something else, which means that it has kind of an umbilical connection to something that happens over there.

So we need to see what that thing is.

Now the thing it comes from is way up here in the first month of Nisan. Nissan is not a car. It's the first month of the calendar.

So that area up there is a little hard to see, but there's three events up there in that first month.

So let's see if we can blow it up.

Okay, here we blow it up. And the one we're looking at of these three is called the Feast of First Fruits. That's what we're doing today.

So the Feast of First Fruits, there's three things up there. And we're going to give you a preview of those three things because they all kind of work together as a team.

So the three in the first month. Act as a team, the three in the seventh month, act like a team, and the one in the middle acts as a bridge.

So we're going to look at these three today. By the way, this year... Feast of First Fruits is on April 20th, so it's coming up pretty soon. And it's called Reshit. Reshit is what it is, Reshit, first fruit.

There are between what happens today in Rashid and Feast of Weeks, seven weeks. And it said in the passage in Leviticus 23 about the Feast of Weeks: it's that many weeks from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. And last time we didn't know what that meant. Today, We're going to know what that means.

Okay?

So these are kind of coupled together. We're going to go back to the starting point that we counted these seven weeks from.

Okay. You always go back to Leviticus 23. That is where God specified the seven appointed feasts.

So if someone says, what are the feasts of Israel, the seven appointed feasts, just go to Leviticus 23. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They're all there. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

So we're going back to that of these appointed feasts. And today we're looking at verse 9 about the first fruit.

So let's just read it and see what kind of clue it gives us as we start our kind of Sherlock Holmes investigation into the integrated message system of the feasts. Too dramatic, sorry.

Okay, here we go. Verse nine.

So the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruit of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. on the day after the Sabbath. The priest shall wave it.

So it's just saying that there's a beginning of a harvest. And last time we looked at Feast of Weeks, there's a harvest. There's actually two harvests. Last week we looked at the Feast of Weeks and that is coincident on the calendar, which is why it's placed in a certain place, with the harvest of wheat. This is earlier.

Barley is the feast we're talking about here. And the barley harvest happens anywhere from a month to two months before the wheat is going.

So we have two harvests going on, so we're at harvest here.

So what he says is when you come into the land, so clearly God gave this to them before they'd gotten into the promised land. They were wandering still.

So when you come into that land and when you harvest your barley, then what I want you to do is before you do anything else with that crop, Take one sheaf of it. Just take one sample of it, right? You know what a sheaf is, right? You take a bunch of wheat, you bundle it up, you cut them off, and you have this thing. Take one of those sheaves, and what you do is you bring it down to the priest, is what he's saying at the temple, and the priest is going to wave it.

Wave it? Yeah, you're gonna give it to him. He's gonna go into the holy place, you know, in the temple area, and he's gonna take what you bring, your first sheaf of this barley, and he's gonna wave it before the Lord. Just like this. Just going to wave it before the Lord.

Okay, well now many sacrifices in the temple were waved. That was a way of visually showing that this is being offered to God.

So what you're doing is you're taking this first harvest from your barley crop and you're offering it to God and you're waving it before him. Yeah. But he says a couple of things that are really kind of interesting about this sheaf. Um He says you need to wave this sheaf so that you may be accepted.

Okay, that's interesting.

So it's kinda like a sacrifice.

Sort of. But it but that's but it's important. And it has to happen by design. It has to happen on the day after the Sabbath.

Well, that makes sense, because the Sabbath we restrict things we do on the Sabbath.

So the day after the Sabbath, you do this.

Okay. But I want you to look at this word first fruits right here. This first fruits word right here is this word in Hebrew, Reshith.

So that's why I put this on before Reshith. That's what it's about. That's going to be a very important word in a few minutes.

So just get that in your head. Reshith. That's what first fruits is. And then, so I added on the title page over there. And then it has to be on the day after the Sabbath.

That's very curious. Very curious.

Okay. This is what they would do. They did this during that time when they came into land. And as long as they had barley fields and they were living in the land, this is what they did. Since this was a very important.

It's an important part of the barley crop. And you'll see in a second that you can't do anything with the barley crop until this is done first. This is preeminent. It must be first. which by the way caused a little bit of anxiety with the farmers.

Because what if the barley crop has been ripe for a long time? And it's on the head and it's ready to be harvested, but you can't harvest until you do this. And you can't do this until the calendar comes along.

So there could be some anxiety from the farmers, like, but it's ready. Do you know any farmers? It's ready to harvest right now. We got to do it right now. The fear when you're harvesting grain is the fact that it's going to rain and the drying process on the barley is going to mess it up.

So every farmer, every farmer kind of stands center as he watches his field after it's completely grown and everything looks good and then it's drying out and you're just crossing your fingers that the clouds don't come on the horizon because that's got to be dry. This happens with hay crops, a lot of crops.

So this is the same thing.

So here, this is kind of a moment of drama in the barley entire thing because who's to say whether the barley's going to be ready on this part of the calendar? It's a pretty good guess, but.

So this is what they would do. This is a very important symbolic thing about this crop. The first thing you do is you would judge the grains. You would actually get a Levite, a priest, but a Levite for sure. And they would accompany you into your barley harvest, into your field where your barley is.

And what you want to do is you want to find the most ripe. And the best barley in that field.

So you would walk and you would do this judging tour in the field. And you'd walk around and go, huh, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. And then you many times you get to a corner of the field that was watered differently or had different amount of sunshine and you'd look. And the Levite would look at it and you would look at it.

You go there. That's the best. And so you'd take that, you'd bundle a bunch of them together, you'd tie them, and you'd cut it.

So you first you had to judge it.

So this is very important. To this very day, many sacrifices that are talked about in the Old Testament and that are symbolized today have to be judged very carefully. Remember the lamb that's spotless? Have to judge it carefully, look at it.

Well, you're doing this with the barley right now.

So first you gotta judge the grain with someone who understands what good grain looks like. Then you need to gather it together, all right, and then you need to bind it and cut it.

So these were all very symbolic steps that you would do once everyone agreed this was the right stuff, and this is what you want to gather, and then this is what you want to bind together with a string, and then you want to cut it. By the way, many times you would bind it and let it stay unbound and then cut it, but you would bind and cut it. And then you had to wait for the day after the next Sabbath. Because you could do all this stuff before, before that Sabbath. You wanted to be ready to go when the Sabbath came.

So the day after the Sabbath, you'd say, I've got it ready. I'm ready to go. I'm going to take this down. We're going to have the priest wave it. And then we'd be good.

And then we can harvest the rest of our barley crop. But until then, So you would do all that stuff and then you'd wait for the day after the Sabbath. And then when the Sabbath would come, it would be presented and waived.

So that's what they would do every time they did this. That was the steps that they would do.

Okay. Let's go on to the rest of Leviticus 23, because this is really interesting.

So, on the day when you wave the sheaf, remember that's the day after the Sabbath. On the day that you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish. As a burnt offering to the Lord, and the grain offering with it shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord with a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be wine, a fourth of a hin.

So, this is a pretty standard food offering that's accompanying this very distinct thing about this special sheaf that's being waved. That sacrifice, that food offering would go with it. But what is distinctive here, like in the Feast of Weeks, the distinctive in that harvest was the two loaves. Fascinating. Th what's distinctive in this harvest is this one particular preeminent sheaf that's the most important and goes before all the rest of the harvest.

Really, really important. There's a little bit more. And this is a little staggering, verse 14. And you shall eat neither bread nor grain, parched or fresh, until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God. It is a statute forever.

throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

So it's basically saying this barley field, which is ripe and ready to go, and you want to cut it, and you want to do all the stuff you do when you process it, and you want to get it out of the field so you can dry it and make sure it doesn't get contaminated by early rains. You want it to be bone dry? You got to do this first. You must do this with this one preeminent. inspected Judged Chief of Of barley and offer it to God.

Then, after that's done, then, after the priest does that. Go at it, go harvest, do all that kind of stuff. By the way, barley as an aside is a very interesting grain to me. Because it's very central in making Beard. What?

He's going to talk about beer? No, but there is something quite interesting. Barley is always associated with poor people in the Bible. Wheat is associated with people who are a higher state. Barley's interesting because it's one of the few grains that can actually.

self-enzyme itself to turn the starch into sugar. Rice won't do that. Wheat. won't do that. They won't do that.

It's just starch is starch. The only reason why you put weed in your mouth, like you take a saltine, you put it in your mouth, and it starts to taste sweet. Have you ever noticed that? It's because you have an enzyme in your saliva. that breaks the starch molecules into pure sugar.

And you taste sweet. Barley has that chemical in it already.

So if you take barley and you crush it and you put a little water on it, it has enough of that saliva enzyme that it turns that starch into sugar instantly. And that's how they make beer. I love barley. You always get a little bit of an aside scientifically when you come here on Sunday morning.

So that's the aside for today. But this is interesting. It's saying that this is a really big deal. This first sheaf is quite preeminent. It's important.

It has to be, before you touch anything else in that harvest, you have to do this first.

Well okay. It's an interesting problem right here. It's a statute forever throughout your generations and all your dwellings. What happens as a Jew if you're not living in Israel? and you don't have a barley field.

Which is why this particular celebration is not really well celebrated in the Jewish community today. Because after all, it's a barley harvest celebration, you know?

Well, there's ways in which the most Orthodox Jews today try and do it, and we're not going to go into how they do that. But it just doesn't seem that practical. For the same reason, for instance, that when we got to the Feast of Trumpets in the first day of the seventh month, Feast of Trumpets. Yeah, it's kind of what are you supposed to do?

So that day of the year had been turned into a New Year's Day for some good reasons, actually, but the first day of the seventh month is New Year's.

So today, if you talk to a Jew, what happens on the first day of the seventh month in the Jewish calendar? They'll say, New Year, Rosh Hashanah. Rush head. I saw a year. head of the year.

So they celebrate at that day, they celebrate New Year's, but not much feasts of trumpets. When you get to this time. Yeah, today not too many people really look at the first fruits as a big deal. And you'll see why in a second. It's overshadowed by the other two in the triple.

Okay. I'm going to switch gears for a second. I need to get back to this mindset. This is Jesus with the Woman at the Well, one of my favorite pictures by Jacques Tissot. uh who who went to Israel actually, Jacques Tissot, uh Parisian artist during the time.

And he wanted to go to Israel and paint scenes at the real scenes, including biblical people.

So, this scene you see right here with Jesus and the woman at the well. This is actually he did a sketch of a real well. An actual real well in Israel, just outside of Jerusalem, and decided then he took that sketch of that real well and then he painted in Jesus and the woman. Is this the right well? No, but it is a well.

But it's kind of fine.

So here's Jesus and the woman at the well. And I want to remind you what he said to her. You know this story really, really well. Um The setup is that Jesus is sitting there by himself. The woman has gone back to her village after having this great discussion with Jesus.

And then the apostles who were sent off for groceries came back.

Okay, they came back and Jesus is sitting there alone at the well. And meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat, because they did all this effort to go off and find food. They brought the food back. And they say, okay, Jesus, here's the food, let's eat. And then Jesus says, I have food to eat that you don't know about.

And they're going, what? you know, you sent us away to get food and you and you had food all along? You got pockets in your tunic? I mean They didn't say that. I put that in their mouth.

So the disciples said to one another, Has anyone brought him something to eat? Like, what's going on here? And then it's what Jesus says after that that we need to get our mindset together. Jesus says, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Don't Do you not say There are yet four months and then come the harvest.

Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see. that the fields are white for harvest.

So you know what he's talking about. He's not talking about real barley or real wheat. He's talking about the woman at the well in her village.

So in Jesus' mind and in God's themes throughout the entire Old Testament, The harvest is a symbol. The harvest is a symbol of the reality of souls being brought to God. the harvest of the people.

So again, and we saw this at Feast of Weeks. We see this over.

So we've got to get that frame of mind in our heads before we untangle this today's feast. Is that the harvest? Is the God's collection? of people.

Okay, that's what he's talking about here.

So if we go back to this, again, the feast of weeks. Paddle. A harvest attitude to it. And this harvest over here on the Feast of Weeks. With these two loaves, we said was the Jews and the Gentiles.

It was the final fruit, the end fruit of the harvest is this. It was just really clear when you see that, when we go back and take a look at it. If you didn't see it, it's online. You can look it later. But this harvest is connected to a harvest start.

That looks like a harvest end. There's a harvest start. That's why it's connected. In fact, it's kind of a complete harvest. It's a full harvest.

And you know how you can tell? Because it's timed at seven weeks after the other thing.

Well, what's so complete about seven?

Well It's seven times seven days. And whenever you see seven, you think complete. Fool. When you see 7 times 7, it's complete and really complete and full.

So this is picturing a Harvest. A harvest of what? A harvest of people that God brings to Himself, souls that He saves to Himself.

So if it ends here with the Gentiles and Jews being harvested in that sense, and we're included in one of those loaves, then what is the start? The start is where we are today. What is at the beginning of the harvest, not the end of the harvest? Because remember, the barley harvest, the barley harvest, what we're supposed to do when we talk about. This sheaf is the thing you do at the start of the harvest, not at the end of the harvest.

Okay?

What's that all about?

Well, what I need to do is expand for you the first month.

So I'm going to take a little over a week out of the first month you saw. Remember up here on this top picture, there's Nissan right there.

Okay, I'm going to expand that so you can see these three together because we can't answer this unless we do a blow-up on this. And in doing so, we're also going to get a preview of the next two feasts we're going to look at over the next two weeks.

So here's the week. This is really important. Um Nissan's the name of the month and it's the first month.

So let me just cover, and here's your sneak preview, here's your plot spoiler for what we'll look at over the next two weeks. We need to look at the companion celebrations there. Leviticus 23, 5. says in the first month that's nissan On the 14th day, there it is. of the month at twilight is the Lord's Passover.

So you know about Passover, and we're going to talk about that in depth in two weeks. Passover.

So that happens, must happen, has to happen, must happen on the 14th of the first month. Has to, has to. And just as an aside, I'll let this brew in your head for a while. If the month, remember, start at new moons, then the middle of the month is going to be. Full moon.

So Passover. is gonna be on full moon. What does that mean? Uh we'll let you brew on that.

Okay, so there's there's Passover. And then right after this, Leviticus 23, it says, And on the 15th day, right there, On the 15th day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We'll look at that next week. It's another feast that's on the appointed list here. The Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord.

And for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

So there's the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So by law, Leviticus 23 says Passover has to start on the 14th, and then the next seven days after that is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Those go together, just like this.

Well, where's our feast for today, the third one we're going to talk about?

Well, our feast today says it's got to be on the first day You shall have a holy convocation, and you shall not do any work.

Well, what I wanted to point out right here is that there's also, don't go to ARP Feast today, the 15th is the first day here. He adds, he says, on the 15th, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, is a special day, kind of like a Sabbath. You don't do any work. And on the last day, too, over here on the 21st, it says, on the seventh day is a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work.

So the whole feast of unleavened bread is kept by two Sabbath-like days. And by the way, too, I might mention that Passover, in the way it's described, is kind of like a Sabbath day. It's special. You don't do ordinary work there.

So these are all special days that are kind of Sabbath-like, and that's important to understand in a second here.

Okay, so what about our feast today?

Well, our feast today says that we have to wave this sheaf of barley the day after the Sabbath.

So where on that week is the Sabbath that after that day You wave the sheaf.

Well, this is part of the debate about this entire structure of the thing. Could it. Could it mean Passover?

Well, probably not, even though it's considered like a Sabbath-like day, almost like a super-Sabbath in that sense. Could it be the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the 15th? Could be, because you don't do any ordinary work there, that's a Sabbath. Could it be the last day, the 21st of that? Could be because it's describe like a Sabbath.

Could it be if the actual seven-day Sabbath happens in the middle of the week somewhere? And based on how their calendar works, it could be anywhere in the middle. In fact, the d the weekly Sabbath could be on any of those days.

So which of those Sabbath days do we do our feast today, the day after? When do we wave our sheaf of barley the day after the Sabbath?

Well, there's debate. Today, today, and in generations of Jews. They had always decided that what they would do is they would wait for one of the seven-day Sabbaths, the week Sabbath. The Saturday? And wherever it fell on the on the unleavened bread, and they take that, and the next day after that, they'd wave the sheaf.

So that's what they chose. But there is some ambiguity about that. Could it be the special days or is it just the regular weekly day?

Well, most scholars agreed that it was on the weekly Sabbath day, wherever it would fall in this week. But it had to be somewhere in this week. And if you ask a rabbi today, when do you wave your sheaf? The day after the weekly Sabbath, not the special day Sabbath. That's what they'll say.

But there's some ambiguity there.

So for the sake of argument, I'm just going to pick a day. Uh 'Cause it could be any of those. It could be anywhere if it was like a weekly Sabbath. It could be anywhere from the 15th to the 21st. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

So so I'm just I'm just gonna pick the 15th. I'm gonna pick the first day.

So there's our sheaf. That's a big sheaf, by the way. Uh it b that's like way too big a cheek. But so then We're going to waive that when, what day? The 16th.

Okay, so this is the day after the Sabbath.

So we're just going to pick that. But those, the Sabbath and the sheaf day could move around, but I'm going to pick that. For just sake of argument.

Now why are we doing all this, Jim?

Well, remember I said that the feasts are an integrated message system? And remember that we even saw the Feast of Weeks as being something a profound statement about the salvation of the Jews and the Gentiles? And it's tied in celebration to one event. And that event Is this chief? seven weeks later.

That sheaf right there, that's the start of the counting. In fact, today, as a Jew, when you get to this time of year, you do this thing called counting of the Omer. Omer is the word in Hebrew for sheaf.

So from this part, when the sheaf is shown, then you count basically the omers as you harvest, but it actually it's seven weeks after this. And the clock starts right there when you wave that sheaf.

So, if the Feast of Weeks is kind of like the end of the harvest, Jews and Gentiles harvested. And there's a complete time, the seven times seven before that, then this point right here, right here, that little sheaf mark. is where everything starts.

Well on this calendar that doesn't mean anything to me. I mean, it's it's okay, but But why that? And this is a really big deal, by the way. This until this is done, it stops the entire harvest. The entire harvest, this has to be the start.

So we're going to do something kind of crazy. We're going to overlay the events in Jesus' crucifixion on it. Mm-hmm. Ooh, why? 'Cause we know On the Jewish calendar, we have when Jesus was crucified.

Now Yeah. Before we do this. Jesus could have been arrested and crucified any day on the calendar year, any day. I mean, there are times early on in his ministry. where things are getting a little bit hot.

And if Jesus hadn't kind of, you know, chilled things a little bit, then it would have sped up the date that he was going to be crucified. That's why Jesus would tell people, well, look, I I know that you know who I am, but don't tell anybody yet.

Now it wasn't because he was just trying to be secret overall. He was trying to forestall a day.

Well, the day he was going to forestall was the actual day that he was sacrificed.

So What was the day that God aimed for for Jesus to be crucified? It's all around the day of Passover.

Okay, and you've probably made a lot of these connections already. Here, John 19, John says now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. That means the 13th. That's the day of preparation, the Passover. It's the day before.

It was the day of the preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king. And they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

So this is Pilate saying that. Remember in the public trial? All the people are there. It's the day of preparation. This is going on with Pilot.

Now, if you fast forward a little bit, you go through the crucifixion, the death of Jesus, and the burial is coming up. and you go to the end of John 19, you see this. Since it was the day of preparation, 13th, And John's trying to be very specific that you understand what day of the week this is. Super important. It's the day of preparation that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath.

For the Sabbath was a high day, he's talking about Passover. It's a special Sabbath day. It's a high day at the Passover. The Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

So before sundown, before sundown, which is when the 14th starts. They wanted to make sure that they were dead.

Now, that's not a guess on the calendar. That's the calendar. Passover on the 14th, the day before the 14th is the 13th. That was when Jesus died. the 13th, the day of preparation.

Okay, let's overlay the rest of it. How about this?

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

Well, where is the first day of the week on the normal calendar? It's the day after. The Sabbath. It's Sunday. the day after the Sabbath.

Mary Magdalene came on the day after the Sabbath, the first day of the week, At the beginning of the week, of unleavened bread. 'Cause Jesus died just before the Passover.

So some are like right there.

somewhere in that Sabbath. She saw that the tomb was open. First day of the week is right there.

So Could we say, and it's possible, could we say that the actual waving of the sheaf? was happening on the day of the resurrection. I think that's a r that's a rational guess. Also, it illustrates what Jesus was saying early in his ministry when he said, truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

He's using the harvest term about himself as being the first grain that will yield many grains. Mm. Ooh, see in parallel here? See, this is a thinking cap morning.

Okay, and then... I want to show you this. Remember we talked about what the process is when you define your sheaf? This was going on at exactly the same time Jesus was being arrested.

So while they were doing all of these things, While they were judging the grain that they were going to use, while they were gathering the grain that they were going to use, while they were binding and cutting the grain they were going to use, and then they had to wait a period of time and then wait until the day after the Sabbath. At the same time, at the same time, probably around the 12th, 13th, around in there, the same time they're doing this. Jesus is being judged. Jesus is being gathered. Remember that from the Garden of Gethsemane?

Jesus is being bound. And he's being cut off from the land of the living. And then you have to wait. How long? Three days.

And then he's presented and waved to the world.

So why did God deliberately make sure that Jesus died when he did?

So you would understand that he himself is the first fruit. Jesus is the first fruit. He's the rashit. He's the rash sheet.

So remember that entire that entire seven-week countdown from the beginning of something? until the finish of the harvest, the feast of weeks, and those two loaves. What is the beginning of the harvest? The beginning of the harvest. Is Rashid?

Is Jesus. He is. He is. Leviticus 23, we read about this: you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest. That word first fruits we said in Hebrew is Reshith, and it is Reshith.

But that word rashith It's not well translated first fruits because it's a very common word that just simply means. The beginning. It just means beginning. And in fact, if you've got a Jewish Old Testament, if you go to the first word of the Jewish Old Testament. He says But Rachid.

In the beginning. What?

In the beginning, balance sheet. The beginning. He's the beg he's the beginning. He's the beginning of what? He's the beginning of the harvest.

And what is the harvest? The collection of souls worldwide to him who love God. And he's the beginning of all of it. By the way, too, I looked, if you look for the Greek version of the Old Testament that's called the Septuagint. They translated into Greek about a century or so before Jesus.

If you look at the Greek version of the Old Testament that Jesus and many at his time would read, And you look at this word in Leviticus 23. What is the word they use?

Well, the word they use in Greek. is aparchai, aparchai. And aparchai, it just means beginning. It means of the beginning.

So it's the word for beginning. And so when you see the word beginning in the Old Testament written in Greek, it's aparchai, which means... Rasheet. It's the beginning.

So first fruits, although it is the first fruits, the better translation is the fact that this first fruit, this sheaf that's waved, this Jesus who's raised. Is the beginning of the harvest worldwide. It starts with him and it doesn't do anything until he's there. He's he's the one.

Now Do you think I'm crazy? The Apostle Paul figured this out too. And in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, he talks about resurrection. It's where we go when we talk, when someone asks, is there life after death? Is there resurrection?

Go here. Go to 1 Corinthians 15. And this is what he says. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead the first roots, the aparchae. of those who fall asleep, For as by a man came death, by a man Has also come the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ. The first fruits, or Christ the aparchae, or Christ the beginning. Christ the beginning, And then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Paul had it figured out.

Paul quoted the exact Greek word from the Old Testament he was familiar with. That came from Leviticus 23. Nice sheet. Yeah. So again.

You know, this integrated message system is a way for God not only to clue us in as Gentiles about who Jesus is, but also to clue in the Jews. I firmly believe that when Jesus was resurrected and he's walking with those two guys to Emmaus, remember that? And it says as they're just completely downtrodden, they're really bummed. And they say, man, we thought this Jesus was the guy, but they didn't know this was Jesus that was walking with them. And then Jesus.

Jesus starts to tell them all about where he shows up in the Old Testament, both in Moses and the prophets and the writings. He tells them where he shows up. I firmly believe he did this. I really firmly believe he did this. Because these guys, these two guys who are walking to Emmaus, they were in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion.

So Jesus could ask them, okay, so What day what day was Jesus crucified?

Well, he was, you know, it's crucified on the day of preparation before Passover. Oh, before Passover. Yeah. And then what day did he rise?

Well, he rose the day after the Sabbath. Ah, what day was that?

Well, it was, let me think. Oh, that's when we were waving the sheath. Wait, the first fruits. Wait, the beginning. What?

Wait, you know?

So he could tie this together. This is a cosmic statement to the Jews that eventually I think the Jews will finally piece together. But Paul had it pieced together before he started writing his letters. He'd figured it out.

So the symbolism that's in the feasts of Israel are meant to say something profound about God's biggest plan for mankind. God's biggest plan for mankind.

Now what we're going to have to do is a little bit more kind of detective work as we go on and do the last two we haven't talked about yet, the f the feast of unleavened bread, and then just before that at the beginning of it, Passover. And then we're going to have to tie them all together and stand back. and try and get a large view to see if the seven fees say something from a cosmic perspective, from God's heavenly perspective. about what these feasts are supposed to mean to us. And we've already cracked pieces of them.

But I think until you stand back and you start with Passover and you read them forward instead of backwards like we've been doing, Yeah. You'll be amazed that God's trying to proclaim to the world what his plan for mankind is and for the Jews' role in that. But there's no mistaking. God deliberately designed for Jesus to die in coincidence with the Passover lamb who was sacrificed. That's that's not that's not a symbolism that's missing with us.

We get that. But did you realize that not only is the death of Jesus supposed to be connected to the Passover Lamb, but the resurrection of Jesus is supposed to be connected? to the beginning of the Harvest. I just I had and you know what? Until this week I'd never made that connection.

Blows my mind. It blows my mind. One last point, and then we're going to sing a song. There is a sense in our lives that when bad things happen, we feel like God's out of control.

Well we know he's in control. But it's just that his control hasn't reached down to where we are. Because if he was in control, he wouldn't let this happen this week because, you know what, I can't afford a new engine in my car. Or, I can't believe the fact that so-and-so died, or I can't believe that I've come down with a fatal disease, or I can't, I can't, I can't. I mean, everything is bad.

Everything is bad. And in those moments when things are bad, we say, God must not be in control because if God loves me, he would never have allowed this to happen. And we know in our heads that's wrong thinking. Right? We know that's wrong thinking.

Because God's never out of control. It brings up a a deeper question. when we pray is but why God? But why is this going on? We can't understand, and I'll just say this because I say this to myself when hard things happen, we can't understand the bigger picture of what God's got going.

We don't understand it. And in God's graciousness, sometimes He allows you in on what's happening, but He doesn't always allow you in on what's happening. But things happen that for you you'd say, Gosh, just It's a bad deal. It's the same thought that I'm sure everyone who followed Jesus for three years on the day he's crucified and he dies. I mean, he really dies.

He doesn't jump off the cross like some Messiah with great power. He dies. And when the point when they see that he's died, like the two guys walk into Emmaus, They're thinking, well, God God's not in charge. You mean the Romans and the Sanhedrin are in charge? How did God stop being in charge?

We thought for sure this Jesus was the Messiah. He should be the one that's in charge. How can he die? How can he allow the power of Rome and the power of the Sanhedrin to overcome him? God must be out of control.

And that's what the two guys walking to a mausole thinking. And that's what Jesus' followers were thinking. That's what everyone is. They're questioning in those dark few days before the resurrection Is God still in control? Did we misjudge who this Jesus is?

And are you in Suited to Sue? No! You saw him cast those demons out. You saw him do what he did. Of course he's the Messiah.

Well, then how can this happen? This is the worst thing we could ever imagine to happen. God's out of control. And yet when you look at these feasts, And you look at the fact that God wanted Jesus' death to coincide with the Passover. because it says something profound to the Jewish world and profound to the world.

Then you realize that God was always in control. And he had picked a day and he had orchestrated events So that wasn't an accident that Jesus died and it wasn't an accident that he died on the day he did. Could it be Could it be that even in the worst events in our life That there's more design behind them from God than we can see. And I have to, by faith, say that to myself all the time when bad things happen. Because if indeed the worst thing that could ever happen, which is Mobs arresting Jesus and killing him.

I mean, he was. Stone cold debt. If That is a horrible thing. But if in the larger picture it brought so much great good to all of mankind. Then maybe there's more design behind the events in our lives than we're willing to admit.

Just because you can't see it and just because God didn't call you up and fill you in on it. I mean, did he call you up the week after you lo before before you lost your job and say, Well, Jim, here here's the deal. You know, you might you might want to sit down for this, but um next week at this time you're going to be fired and it's going to be unjustly and it's because of bad things people say about you and well, you know, that's That's the way things are. And you go, well, why is this happening? Why don't you stop it?

Well, you know, I could. This is why God doesn't call you up before bad things happen, because it's not going to help you at all. You're just going to sit there and like, what? Why is this happening? This is the world we live in.

It's fallen. Because of sin. Bad things happen. But that does not mean that God's lost his control over things. And if he can with pinpoint accuracy Guarantee that the message of the death of Jesus and his resurrection is placed on the calendar in such a way that light bulbs go off.

Then he's in control and he always will be in control. I think that's one of the greatest messages I see when I look at these feasts, and I look at this in particular. The day that Jesus died was the day before the Passover. The day that they were checking out their barley fields to find out what they were going to wave in front of the Lord, what their first fruit was going to be. And then they had to wait for Sabbath.

And while that's happening, they're crucifying Jesus. around the same time that they're actually s the sacrificed lambs are being offered, we'll see that. Is anyone making a connection here? And then he goes in a tomb like he's been planted. Like he's been planted.

And you wait until the day after the Sabbath? And as they're raising all this new barley, He's sh showing up all around the town. Did anyone make this connection?

Well, not immediately, but eventually they did, and Paul certainly did. I think we've got a song after this. Yeah. The feasts of Israel are an integrated message system to clue us in that God's always been in control. and that the feast says something profound and great about the God who has plans.

to gather us to himself. Like a harvest. I gotta tell you as a personal note, I've wanted to do this study for years and haven't had a chance. Nine new tiny pieces of it. But I'm being daily blown away as I read this stuff.

In the beginning. Parachute. God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the word. And the word is with God.

A parquet.

Okay, let's just pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your persistent love for us. And Lord, I I I suspect that even though what what I have learned, what we have learned today, is is still percolating and not fully digested. I I don't think that we've got it all, do we? I think there's more here than meets the eye.

But Father, what we do know, we We celebrate. with with great joy. We celebrate the fact that that you went to all this in order to gather us to yourself. to harvest us into your kingdom. to be part of this harvest that has started with the death of Jesus himself.

and his resurrection.

So, Father, we pray that we would be capable communicators. of your love and your intentions for any who would come to you. to any who would Admit their sin. confess their sin to any who would cast their hands up to you and say, God, what must I do to be saved? We pray that you would make us capable communicators through your Holy Spirit that lives within us.

in order to communicate the hope that there is in this God who from the beginning of the creation of the universe had this in his plans.

So again, personally, we thank you. We thank you for looking on us. We thank you for gathering us to yourself. And we thank you for the death and the resurrection. the Rishiet of Jesus himself.

So thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.