Just a few verses are all Leviticus gives us to describe the Feast of Trumpets and yet it is such a powerful holiday. We know this day as Rosh Hashanah. It symbolizes the beginning of the new year (I know – it occurs in the 7th month of the Jewish calendar. This can be confusing, but think of it in modern terms: January 1st is New Year’s Day but we also have the first day of school which symbolizes the first day of the school year.) According to Jewish tradition, the Feast of Trumpets marks the day God created Adam and Eve – truly the first day for humanity (Leviticus 23:23-25).
This celebration is marked with the blowing of trumpets. When we put Jewish tradition alongside scripture, we can see how God uses this celebration to foreshadow a coming moment in mankind’s history. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 says,
“Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”
Jewish people the world over, celebrate this feast with prayers that have been passed down through the generations. Chabad.org explains Jewish practices. Regarding Rosh Hashanah, they say,
“As we read in the Rosh Hashanah prayers, each year on this day ‘all inhabitants of the world pass before G‑d like a flock of sheep,’ and it is decreed in the heavenly court ‘who shall live, and who shall die ... who shall be impoverished and who shall be enriched; who shall fall and who shall rise.’ It is a day of prayer, a time to ask the Almighty to grant us a year of peace, prosperity and blessing. But it is also a joyous day when we proclaim G‑d King of the Universe.”
If you are like me, you are starting to get excited. The similarities between the prayers that have been read in synagogues for centuries and what we know awaits us are amazing. Jesus referred to what will happen on the last day much the same way as the prayer we just read. In Matthew 25:31-32, he said,
“When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
The Feast of Trumpets occurs at the end of September, but the spirit of it should be always with us. There will be a day when God sounds the trumpet that signals our escape from this world. Many of us long to hear that sound, especially as we see evil growing in our world. However, we must remember that not all will rejoice on that day. For as much as the Lord’s sheep will celebrate new life, those who rejected Him, the goats, will be tormented with eternal death. Let us remember the Feast of Trumpets often.
Let us strive to grow God’s flock as we await that final trumpet blast. And let us remember that our lives are truly in God’s hands. Our future and our present are closely watched over by the King of Kings. Let every blast of the trumpet stir your heart to worship, praise, and to urgency spread the gospel while there is still time.
Day of Atonement
All of us have sin. There is no difference in my sin and your sin. Sin is sin and all sin leads to death. That is the hopelessness of it. We can devote ourselves to trying to live a perfect life, but we will be left frustrated when we discover that the end is the same for us as it is for those who reveled in their transgressions. That is the point though. None of us can achieve perfection or a right relationship with God on our own.
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Look at the men and women that God held up in the Bible as people whom we should copy. When we do, we see people who struggled. People who failed almost as much as they succeeded. People who would have been helplessly lost without God’s intervention. That’s the point. We all need a Day of Atonement because we all have sin in our lives. We all fail from time to time. We all miss the mark occasionally. God knows we are not perfect.
Our imperfection was part of His design. It is through our imperfection that we realize just how much we need Him. There can be no glory without God. There can be no righteousness, no perfection, no peace. Our weakness was created so that we could understand God’s power. Without God, we cannot exist. A life without struggle attempts to fool us into thinking otherwise.
Romans 3:23-25 says,
“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
God knew we needed help and sent Jesus. The time from Adam and Eve to Mary and Joseph was given to build expectation and understanding of the need for a savior. The time we are in, the time from the cross to the second coming, is given to us to spread the word and increase the flock. Both sections of history have the same themes in common: we cannot achieve holiness without atonement and we are desperately looking forward to seeing Christ.
The Hebrews had a celebration of atonement. Let us have a lifestyle. Let us never forget that our sins are just as lethal as the person sitting in the jail cell. Let us constantly remind ourselves that without God’s grace we would all be desperately lost. For us, the Day of Atonement is now. It is every day. It is the day we accept, by faith, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. And let us use this time as we await the second coming of our Lord and Messiah to spread the good news of the salvation through faith – not works.
Shalom
