No 3

(Shavuot)

The Feast of Shavuot is another of the holy feasts that God ordained to the nation of Israel. The Hebrew word “shavuot” means weeks; the feast is called the Feast of Weeks (Exod 34: 22. It is also called by other names in the Old Testament: The Feast of Harvest (Exod 23:16); The Day of the First Fruits (Num 28:26). The book of Ruth revolves around this feast because the wheat harvest occurred during the time that Ruth arrived in Israel. The Shavuot season began with the waving of the omer (Lev 23:10, 11) and 50 days later, the actual feast was celebrated. People were to bring “first fruits” of their harvest to the temple and offer them to God. Those living outside Jerusalem had to come from wherever they lived and carry baskets of their harvest to the temple; tens of thousands would arrive for this feast. In Acts 2, the Bible lists 15 areas from which people had come to celebrate the Feast of Shavuot. In the New Testament, this feast is called The Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1) and it coincided with the descending of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. They were given special power to speak in several foreign languages unbeknown to them (Acts 2:8). The Bible is so wonderful and our God is so awesome; listen to this – just as the first fruits were offered to God in the Old Testament and then 50 days later, the feast of Shavuot was celebrated; so was Jesus offered as first fruits (1 Cor 15:20) and then, 50 days later, the Spirit descended upon the earth to, in a way, offer a redeemed humanity to God. Isn’t that amazing?