One of the Jewish festivals celebrated in Autumn is known as the Festival of Booths or Festival of Tabernacles (Succoth) where the Israelites celebrated their cleansing and reconciliation achieved by the two previous festivals: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (particularly Yom Kippur as it is directly before).
For 7 days the Israelites had praise sessions and lived in tents to remind them of their time wandering in the desert when God brought them out of Egypt. It is a time for rejoicing and to stop work and worship The Lord.
Recently I was at Grapevine: a yearly conference/festival in Lincoln. As I was there it struck me how we as Christians almost uphold this Jewish Tradition but in an adapted way. The other festivals are definitely fulfilled and made complete through the coming of Jesus: Rosh Hashanah looks at repentance and being willing to turn away from our sins. It includes remembering one of the moments in Biblical history is Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac and therefore fulfilled in the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Plus Rosh Hashanah heralds the start of Yom Kippur which is the Day of Atonement through blood sacrifices and the scapegoat taking the sins away which is a perfect picture of what Jesus is to us.
But we also seem to yearly keep the Festival of Booths in the way of Christian Conferences and Festivals such as Grapevine, Greenbelt (on the same weekend as Grapevine), Momentum, Spring Harvests, New Wine, Soul Survivors and Bible Weeks. We stay in tents (although I was a ‘wimp’ (or sensible and willing to spend money for warm showers, an actual bed and a cooked breakfast in the morning) and stayed in accommodation!) and go to celebrations and seminars; singing, dancing, praising our Lord and remembering the good things He has done for us. Recharging the batteries for another year and vowing that the coming year we will strive after Him and leave the old mistakes in the past and live a more righteous Christ-like life.
And each year we seem to go back and repeat the experience- meet with God in a major way, renew our strength and prepare to be better followers of Jesus. I know it has been said many a time that we should not rely on the “Mountain-top” moments with God and not act as though we only meet with Him in these sorts of situations; that God should be in the everyday and even when life gets mundane or hard God is still there and we can still have an effective relationship with Him But that said- these sorts of events do help and, as long as we don’t let ‘normal’ life and the stresses and strains and attacks from the enemy get in our way, can remind us and send us out with renewed strength.
With the Israelites and the Festival of Booths their celebration was affirming the cleansing and atonement that had come from the sacrifices and repentance of the previous festivals but as they returned to ‘normal life’ they would eventually need renewed cleansing and atonement so these festivals would be repeated year on year to make them righteous in the sight of God and ensure they’re salvation.
We on the other hand are blessed with Jesus and His perfect sacrifice meaning that we are saved and atoned for. When we make mistakes or don’t live the way any of these festivals inspire us to (a simple example would be thinking “When I get home I’m going to continue reading my Bible daily and really praying”) we don’t have to wait until the next lot of sacrifices to make us right with God. We just have to turn back to Jesus and acknowledge our mistake and repent from our wrong doing.
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