The appointed times
In Leviticus 23 the Lord names a set of appointed times and calls them His own. Seven of them, set to the harvests of a small country, and each one carrying a piece of the story. This is the teaching this church keeps returning to.
Because the appointed times are the shape the Bible uses to tell its own story. Leviticus 23 opens with the weekly Sabbath, then lists seven feasts across one year: four in the spring, three in the autumn, with a long silence in between.
Read them in order and you are reading a sequence rather than a set of rituals. That is why we teach them as a whole, and why we do not treat the calendar as a countdown to be feared.
Leviticus 23
Choose one. The wheel turns the way the year does, spring at the top.
First · Spring
Pesach
The fourteenth day of the first month
A lamb without blemish, chosen days in advance, and its blood put on the door of the house. The judgement passing over every home that carried the mark.
The Lamb, and a door nobody has to be good enough to walk through.
1 of 7
Second · Spring
Matzot
Seven days, from the fifteenth of the first month
Every trace of leaven carried out of the house before the week began. Seven days of eating bread that had not risen, as a household, on purpose.
A life with the old corruption taken out of it, not hidden at the back of a cupboard.
2 of 7
Third · Spring
Bikkurim
The day after the Sabbath of that week
The first sheaf of the barley harvest lifted up before the Lord, before a single loaf had been baked from it. A down payment on a field still standing.
The resurrection. The first one raised, out of a harvest still to come.
3 of 7
Fourth · Late spring
Shavuot, called Pentecost
Fifty days counted from Firstfruits
Seven weeks counted out one day at a time, then two loaves brought and waved. Baked with leaven, which is unusual, and offered anyway.
The Spirit poured out on ordinary people, who are the loaves.
4 of 7
Fifth · Autumn
Yom Teruah
The first day of the seventh month
After the long quiet of the summer, a day defined by sound. No sacrifice named first, no harvest to bring. Only a blast, and a nation told to listen.
A call that gathers. The point of a trumpet is that you stop what you are doing.
5 of 7
Sixth · Autumn
Yom Kippur
The tenth day of the seventh month
One day in the year, one man, one room behind the curtain. The nation did no work and waited outside to find out whether it had been accepted.
Reconciliation already finished, and a curtain that is not there any more.
6 of 7
Seventh · Autumn
Sukkot
Seven days, from the fifteenth of the seventh month
The harvest all in, and the whole nation moving out of its houses to live for a week in shelters made of branches. The most joyful week of the year, spent deliberately without walls.
God moving in with His people. The harvest home, and the tent pitched among us.
7 of 7
How we handle this
Bring your Bible or borrow one · Questions are welcome, including the awkward ones
Staging
Fourth Ground Consulting
