Sermon Tone Analysis

*Times to Remember*

/Exodus 23.14-19/

Pastor Oesterwind

 

Introduction:  My memories of childhood are fleeting.

I’m not sure why.

I want to remember certain things.

Now, Junior High I’d like to forget J  But other times are fun to remember.

Snow days keeping me home from school, little league uniforms and the smell of freshly oiled gloves and the outfield grass for spring, charcoal BBQ grills and the sparks drifting toward the crowd from a dazzling firework show for summer, and the cider mill and plain donuts for fall.

Times to remember are usually pegged upon events that recur through the years.

Those events can lend to solidarity within a family or community, a sense of loyalty, faithfulness, and devotion.

It’s not all that different from what we read tonight in Exodus 23…

 

·         All male Israelites (23.17) made pilgrimages three times a year for the annual feasts mentioned in our text.

Of course, women and children would normally accompany the men.

·         Maintaining these feast times would have provided for national and spiritual unity in Israel.

·         These feasts find their foundation while the children of Israel were still in Egypt.

*1*Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’

” \\ */Exodus 5:1/*

*9*And Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.”

\\ */Exodus 10:9/*

·         God mandates that Israel have three feasts three different /times/ during the year.

The word /times/ in v. 14 is also the Hebrew word for /foot/ or /leg/.

This is interesting because a pilgrimage is something that is done on foot.

All Israelites would eventually travel up to Jerusalem for these feasts.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread

·         “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time of the appointed month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty)…” (23.15)

o    This Feast occurred during the first month of the Hebrew year.

The Gregorian Equivalent would run from mid March to mid April.

So, the Feast occurred in the spring.

o    The Feast of Unleavened Bread is connected with the Passover Feast.

Each spring, Israelites offered up a lamb for sacrifice to remember the night God redeemed them from Egypt.

Remember, the death angel /passed over/ them.

o    Passover was immediately followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

This also pointed to the redemption of Israel from Egypt.

Recall that when Israel escaped that night, they moved quickly.

There was not enough time for the bread to rise.

Not having leaven reminded them of God’s great deliverance.

o    Christians do not celebrate these feasts because they have been fulfilled in Christ.

Christ is our Passover.

However, when we remember the death of our Savior on Good Friday or His resurrection on Easter Sunday, we remember our own deliverance, our own redemption from sin.

The Feast of Harvest (Firstfruits, Weeks, Pentecost)

·         “…and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field…” (23.16a)

o    As the name suggests, this second feast took place when the field were ripe for harvest.

God commanded that Israel reap its harvest, bring the first abundant sheaf of grain to the priest, and he would wave it before the Lord on the behalf of the people (Lev 23.10-11).

o    It is a beautiful acknowledgement of the Lord’s abundant blessing.

Leviticus 23.11 also tells us that it occurred the day after Sabbath.

Israel would then count off seven weeks or 49 days.

On the 50th day they brought an offering to God.

The counting off of seven weeks gives us an alternative name for the Feast of Harvest:  The Feast of Weeks.

The 50th day provides the third alternative:  Pentecost.

o    As you might imagine, this feast was one of thanksgiving for God’s abundant provision.

The Feast of Ingathering (Booths, Tabernacles)

·         “…and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field” (23.16b).

o    This feast occurred after harvesting was complete and all was safely gathered in (hence, Ingathering).

o    This feast lasted one week (Lev 23.41).

Israel during this time lived in tents (tabernacles) or makeshift booths made of leaves and branches (a lean-to).

o    This feast also remembered God’s deliverance from Egypt.

Staying in these lean-tos helped Israel remember their escape to the Red Sea and beyond – their stay in the wilderness.

o    Successive generations learned through this object lesson.

They became assured that God is mighty to save.

o    The feast provided an outlet for rejoicing in the work accomplished through the faithfulness of God (Deut 16.14-15).

o    Every man was to give at this feast as he was able (Deut 16.17).

This is defined as according to the blessing of the LORD given them.

All three feasts testified to the goodness of God toward Israel.

1.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread ~/ Passover – a time of reflection; looking back in wonder at the God who delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh.

2.

The Feasts of Harvest and Ingathering – both times of rejoicing over what God provided for Israel in sustaining them and bringing them to the Promised Land.

The feasts kept teaching each successive generation in Israel that all needed to depend fully upon Him.

They continue to do that today even though they are not practiced by believers.

They are not practiced because they have been fulfilled.

As teaching tools, the job is finished.

How do we learn from these feasts as we read about them in our Old Testaments?

1.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread ~/ Passover

Removing yeast from the bread pictures holiness.

Yeast symbolized sin in the Bible.

As believers, we place our full trust in Christ thereby purging “out the old leaven …for indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us.

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5.7-8).

Once we are saved, we continue on building a life of sincerity and truth.

This is our sanctification – the process of holiness in our lives.

2.

The Feast of Harvest (Firstfruits)

“But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15.20).

How would the disciples understand this reference?

Within the context of Judaism, they clearly would think of the Feast of Firstfruits.

Remember, it was just one sheaf of grain waved by the priest before God, but it contained a promise of more to come throughout those early summer months.

While Christ was the first to rise from the dead, His resurrection points to our own!

We are the more to come!

“In Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

But each one in his own order (according to the laws of harvest):  Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Cor 15.22-23).

The Feast of Ingathering is a beautiful picture of our resurrection yet to come because He is risen!

The Feast of Firstfruits or Harvest was deemed Pentecost in the New Testament.

This word comes from the Greek word for 50 – remember that the feast culminated on this 50th day.

50 days after Pentecost, the disciples gathered to wait for the Promise in the early chapters of Acts.

It was on this day that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2.4).

Peter preached so that people who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost would understand the gospel in their own language.

People came from many different nations.

God-fearing people came and received the glorious message of repentance from dead works and full trust in Christ.

Then, these people turned the world upside-down.

[Insert Gospel with transition:  What message did they hear in their own tongue?]

OT believers would not have understood the full impact of this feast.

For them, it was a time to thank God for a wonderful harvest and express their dependence upon Him.

NT believers understand how Christ ultimately fulfills this figure.

We see it in rich NT passages pertaining to the idea of the harvest.