Here we are! Fifty days after First Fruits. Pentecost is the final of the four spring feasts. If you need a recap on the historical and agricultural significance of Pentecost, you can read the earlier post by clicking here. Today we’re going to talk about the Redemptive significance and the way that Jesus has fulfilled this feast.

Here we are! Fifty days after First Fruits. Pentecost is the final of the four spring feasts. If you need a recap on the historical and agricultural significance of Pentecost, you can read the earlier post by clicking here. Today we’re going to talk about the Redemptive significance and the way that Jesus has fulfilled this feast.

We saw last week that the Law, given by the Lord to the people of Israel, was a gift that showed them how to live with a holy God in their midst. But the Law, while a gift, was limited in its power by mankind's sinful tendencies. We are unable to abide in God’s ways in our own strength. Isn’t that the most frustrating thing?

We are moving from the season of Passover into the season of Pentecost. The Israelites were instructed to count fifty days from the Feast of Firstfruits to the Feast of Pentecost. As we remember and count those fifty days, we will consider the history of Pentecost as well as the significance of Christ’s fulfillment of this feast.

On this day of Firstfruits, we remember that the Lord is risen. The grave is defeated. Death does not have the final word. It strikes me this Easter weekend that the women at the tomb didn't go hoping their Lord had risen. They went with the same passion that had held them at the cross, wanting any chance to be near Jesus, even in His death.

I’ve been thinking so much about this holy week before Easter Sunday. Yesterday was Palm Sunday, when the crowds in Jerusalem laid down their coats before the Lord, welcoming Him with excitement when they thought He’d come to do what they wanted Him to do (Mark 11:1-11).

The feasts are next week! And we get to celebrate them together (and apart). We've already talked a lot about Passover but here are some ideas for the feasts that follow it as well. The Feast of Unleavened Bread begins the day after Passover and continues for seven days (April 11-18). The Feast of Firstfruits occurs in the middle of that week. We are going to observe it on the day after the weekly Sabbath (on Sunday, April 16).

On Monday night, I hosted “pre-Passover” because I wanted to make sure I’d sorted out all the details and that it was going to work. Good news for you (and for those I’d gathered around my table): it did!

Since we left Jesus lying lifeless in the grave at the feast of Unleavened Bread, I’ve been antsy to get to the feast of Firstfruits. I’m just going to dive right in today.

Since we left Jesus lying lifeless in the grave at the feast of Unleavened Bread, I’ve been antsy to get to the feast of Firstfruits. I’m just going to dive right in today.

We were talking about saints at the family dinner table last weekend. We were talking in terms of the Catholic church, and to be honest, I have no idea how that works. But I've been thinking about it since then. Because we're all so bent toward earning what we somehow know is out of reach. We want to be saints, but we keep looking at the sin on our hands and wondering what in the world we are to do with it.

Things I’m learning: there are a lot of details involved in the feasts! I feel like I’m just throwing a lot of information out at y’all (and I feel like a lot of information is being thrown at me). But it also feels necessary so that when we get to the actual celebrations of the feasts we will have a good frame of reference for what’s going on. So we’re gonna roll with it. K?

The first three biblical feasts of the spring are Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits. They all occur in the same week, but Passover occurs first, on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan. Growing up, all I knew about Passover was that my Jewish friends got to miss a day of school. If anyone felt passed over, it was my nine-year-old self in Social Studies class staring at three empty seats and wondering what holiday I could convince my parents we needed to observe. Deep thoughts.