Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.5MB)
Here we are – once again approaching the most delightful of holidays, Sukkot – the Feast of Booths, or Shelters, or Tabernacles; the seventh of the annual God-given holidays found in Leviticus chapter 23; completing the cycle of these sacred times. Whatever name you choose to call it, Sukkot is, I think, the most joyous of celebrations, and the most far-reaching in scope, in terms of what it symbolizes. Once again, Rabbi Jerry and I are preaching about it in tag-team fashion. The two themes I’d like to talk about are the lavishness surrounding Sukkot, and the gathering together of people from all nations to dwell forever under God’s shelter.
If you like camping and the outdoors, this holiday is for you. If you like the Fall change of colors, this holiday is for you. If you like cookouts and barbecue, this holiday is for you. If you like flowers and beautiful leafy trees and fruit, this holiday is for you. If you like music and celebration, this holiday is for you. And if you are a follower of Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, and look forward to the day we’ll all be gathered together with him, this holiday is REALLY for you!
Let’s have a look at what God commanded in Leviticus 23:
“On exactly the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord for seven days, with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day. Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. You shall thus celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
Why did Adonai tell us to put up booths and decorate them and rejoice for a week and a day? The answer, simply, is that He wants us to remember. Sukkot is retrospective. God designed Sukkot to help us to remember and, as a result, to be appreciative. Isn’t it just like us to be momentarily thankful, but chronically forgetful? Just as soon as we forget to count our blessings, we lapse into self-centeredness.
By dwelling in sukkahs for a week, we remember God delivering us from slavery in Egypt, we remember our wandering in the Sinai wilderness for a generation with His protection, and how He faithfully brought us into the Land He promised us. Adonai intended Sukkot to be a joyful retrospective.
Notice, He didn’t say He wanted us to make ugly little huts for ourselves. His purpose for Sukkot was not for us to be miserable, but to rejoice and have a great time! That’s why we were to decorate it with beautiful foliage. This is consistent with the nature and the character of God, who is Himself beautiful beyond our imagining, and who has lavished Creation with exquisite beauty and variety.
Charles Darwin once wrote: “Beauty created for its own sake… would be absolutely fatal to my theory.” And, yet, our Creator invested the earth with millions of species of living creatures and plants, many of which exhibit a stunning beauty that doesn’t serve any particular survival purpose. They are beautiful purely because the Lord our God is a God of supreme artistry. If you have not yet seen it, I urge you to go online to www.thejohn1010project.com and watch their newest video, entitled Beauty, Darwin and Design.
Sukkot is an extension of our Creator’s delight in giving us joy and beauty. I can think of a lot of worse things than a week-long festival, replete with singing and dancing, a lovely decorated booth, and recounting the mighty acts of God – not to mention a lamb roast! But, like our life in this world, the sukkah is meant to be pleasant but temporary, and it is God’s way for us to remember and to be grateful.
Sukkot – The Holiday of Booths or Tabernacles, is the most joyous of festivals; so much so, that it has come to be known as Z’man Simchateinu – ‘The Season of Our Rejoicing’. So significant is this, the seventh of these seven God-ordained festivals, occurring in the seventh month and lasting seven days, that by the First Century it came to be known as Ha Chag – The Feast!
As I mentioned, there is a second theme for us to consider. Namely, how Sukkot is a foretaste of something much greater to come – an amazing promise contained in Scripture. The promise is that redeemed humanity, Jews and peoples from all the nations, will soon be brought together in unity, forever, under the shelter of God’s protection and in His dwelling presence.
This promise is alluded to even in the early chapters of Genesis. If you pay close attention as you read Scripture, you’ll notice hints of it, woven like a distinct yet complementary thread in the stories of many of the individuals in Israel’s history. You find hints of this promise in people like Jethro, Rahab, Ruth, Namaan, and Ittai. Eventually the promise is spelled out and described in great detail for us in the last book of the Bible, The Revelation.
But let’s take a look at that earliest hint, found in Genesis chapter 9.
In Genesis 9, Noah and his family have survived the catastrophic worldwide Flood and emerged from the ark. Noah plants a vineyard, and one day gets drunk and falls asleep, uncovered. His son Ham finds him naked, but rather than taking measures to preserve his father’s dignity, goes and tells his brothers about it. Shem and Yafet (Japheth) cover their father with a blanket, making it a point not to look on his nakedness. Noah wakes up, realizes what has happened, and through the Holy Spirit prophesies over them. He pronounces a curse, but it’s important to note that it isn’t Ham who is cursed, but Canaan the son of Ham. This is a passage of Scripture that has historically been twisted and misused to justify bigotry against those of African ancestry. But of particular interest to us this morning is the prophecy in verses 26-27. Noah declared:
“Blessed be Adonai, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem…
(Genesis 9:27).
“May Yafet dwell in the tents of Shem…” The imagery is wonderful, if you understand that ‘big picture’ (metanarrative) of the Gospel. Shem became the progenitor of all the Semitic peoples, including the Jews. Yafet became the progenitor of all the northern (i.e., Caucasian) and north Asian peoples. And the prophecy calls for Yafet’s descendants to spread out far and wide (which they most certainly did) but also to dwell in the tents of Shem. This is a hint that God desires Jew and Gentile to dwell together. But note that it isn’t Shem dwelling in Yafet’s tent; it is Yafet dwelling in Shem’s tent. In other words, people from the nations coming under the covering (the sukkah, if you will) of the Jewish people! How would such a thing happen, you ask? The Jewish Messiah Himself would bring them. In fact, He will bring both Yafet and Ham under that tent!
Concerning the Sukkot imagery of nations joining with Israel in worship, we have a lesser-known prophecy in Zechariah chapter 14.
Chapters 12 and 14 describe what we have come to know as the Battle of Armageddon, when the nations of the world will assemble in order to annihilate Israel. And, according to this prophecy, just when all seems lost, King Messiah Yeshua will return to planet Earth, His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives, and He will rescue Israel, completely destroying those armies. When my Jewish people see that it is the Pierced One who has saved them, the nation will enter into a time of unprecedented grief, given the centuries of disdain for Him. And the Lord will pour out healing on the land, and Israel is turned to faith in Messiah Yeshua. In that context we have this prophecy:
Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them; it will be the plague with which the Lord smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths. This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths (Zechariah 14:16-19).
Sukkot not only gives us a picture of Jews and Gentiles coming together under God’s covering, but according to the Word of God, which cannot fail, this seventh and greatest Feast will be the one that all the world celebrates during Messiah’s Millennial reign. And any nation that refuses to send its delegates to Jerusalem to worship King Messiah and participate in Sukkot will have no rain and suffer drought until they repent. This is because they refuse to acknowledge Yeshua’s divine kingship and refuse to identify with His gathered people.
Can you see, then, why divisive people who start factions are such an affront to God? This is why it was right and necessary for Paul to confront Peter publicly for separating himself from his Gentile brothers and sisters out of fear for what other Jews would think (Galatians 2). God’s ultimate goal is not only to save Jews, and to save Gentiles, but to bring us together and remove forever the wall that once divided us. Hinei ma tov, u’manayim, shevet achim gam yachad. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133:1).
In the person of Messiah Yeshua, God Himself will tabernacle with man in that day in a greater way than He did through the Incarnation. That was a brief sojourning among us. This time it will last for 1,000 years, followed by the New Heavens and the New Earth, where we will dwell with Him for all eternity!
And in that light, let me conclude my part of the Sukkot message with these words from The Revelation.
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb…” And he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them!” (Revelation 7:9-10, 14-15).
And from chapter 21:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new!” (Revelation 21:1-5)
What wonderful things await us on that day, and this Holiday of Booths helps us keep everything in perspective. We remember that our ancestors lived in temporary shelters when we came out of Egypt… free – but not home yet. There was a journey to take before entering Eretz Canaan. In the same way we are living out this life on earth in these temporary shelters we call our bodies which aren’t meant to last into eternity. We’ll have new bodies for that! And just as Israel had a sojourning to do before entering the Land of Promise, we have been set free from our own bondage – bondage to sin and death and Hell; but we’re not home yet, either. The Greater Land of Promise awaits us.
As wonderful as these tandem themes are of the lavishness of God and of the bringing together of all of redeemed humanity, Rabbi Jerry gets to have the last word this morning, because his message is… well… out of this world!