By Rev. Dr. Rick Chesher
The Festivals I want to discuss are often called the Jewish festivals, and are associated with Jewish traditions and practices. But really the festivals I want to discuss are really Biblical festivals. Now there are festivals that are traditions, but I will not be concerned with them. I will not deal with an exhaustive study of the festivals either.
My intent in this column is to just show all the importance of following what the Bible says, and not throwing something away, solely because we have heard something described as Jewish rather than Biblical. It really comes down to being right with Yahweh (God) or not.
It is interesting to me that we would find what Yahweh has to say about the festivals in the first chapter of the Bible. That’s right Gen. 1:14, before man was even created, Yahweh, said something about the festivals, but it has been hidden or masked, if you will, with an English word that to us means something completely different.
In Gen. 1:14 it says, “And God said, Let the be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years:” Now remember, this is still part of Yahweh (God) creating the earth that man and women would be part of, just as a reminder of where this verse is in the scheme of things.
A couple of months ago I wrote about the Sabbath, and in that column I talked about this word “token” and how this word token was used as a ring for our weddings. This is the same word used here. So this verse once again is talking about something that is much more important than we would at first glance realize.
But let’s look at the word season. Season in the Hebrew actually means festival or appointment, and is closely tied to the gathering of the congregation or the assembling of the congregation and even speaks of the synagogue. I don’t know about you, but to me this is very interesting. So set in creation are appointed times of gathering, and serve as a token we can keep.
How can these things be something that is done away with if they are built into the creation itself? Are we not still apart of this creation? Doesn’t the lights in the firmament still exist? If this is the case then the only thing that has changed is the way we view these things. I don’t know about you, but this is a very exciting discovery for me, because it is really about celebrating an appointed time with Him.