The Christian Pentecost Sunday and the Jewish Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) are one and the same celebration, and they occur on the same day this year, May 24, 2015. This is an unusual occurrence, because normally the Jewish calendar and the Church calendar are different. What is the significance of this? Well, I think it is a "double-whammy" of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the earth at this time! Jewish evangelism is on the rise. Christians are recognizing their Jewish roots more and more, and this is a fulfillment of Paul's words: "For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved ..." (Rom. 11:25-26)
Then you know what happens next? Jesus (Yeshua) says this must happen before He comes back: "For I say to you [religious leaders in Jerusalem], you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!'" (Matt. 23:39)
Christians are familiar with the story in Acts, second chapter, about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, but they may have not noticed that it was Jews who had come from everywhere to Jerusalem for the required gathering on Shavuot. About 1,500 years prior to this, God had required the Israelites at Mt. Sinai to keep this feast, seven weeks plus one day (50 days) after the third day of Passover, beginning to count it down on the Feast of Firstfruits. You can read all about it in Leviticus 23. It was a harvest festival, and, indeed, in the fulfillment of this feast there was a harvest of souls! Three thousand souls heard Peter preach about the Messiah and His resurrection from the dead, indicting the hearers for crucifying Jesus (Yeshua)! They believed and were baptized right then and there, and this was the "birthday" of the Church!
So, Christians celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. What do the Jews who don't believe in Yeshua celebrate on Shavuot today? They celebrate the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai, and they stay up all night reading the Torah ("instruction" = "law" = first 5 books of the Old Testament)! They have the Book of Ruth read aloud. It is a great day of rejoicing in Israel at the Western Wall in Jerusalem!
The Jews celebrate God giving them His Holy Word, the Old Testament, mainly the Ten Commandments, but also the entire Torah. Christians celebrate the same day, but they celebrate the New Covenant of God that was written on their HEARTS by the Holy Spirit, not on tablets of stone. The prophet Jeremiah foretold this momentous event. Notice WHO the promise was given to:
"Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah -- not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jer. 31: 31-34)
That is what happened on the first Pentecost/ Shavuot - the church was born, and all the members were Jewish. So today, the Jews celebrate the Scripture, and the Church celebrates the Spirit. We must have both. They are not opposites. Paul wrote, "... in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).
There is a great contrast in the events at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19) and the events on Mt. Zion (Acts 2). When God spoke the Ten Commandments audibly to the Israelites, there was thunder, lightning, an earthquake, a trumpet sound, fire, and smoke on the top of the mountain! On Mt. Zion there was a "mighty wind" that filled the house (temple), and tongues of fire appeared on the heads of 120 disciples, and they began to speak in tongues the wonderful works of God. Like the trumpet blast at Mt. Sinai, the disciples speaking in tongues on Mt. Zion got the attention of the people! After Moses brought down the tablets of the Law engraved by the finger of God from the top of Mt. Sinai, he saw the people worshiping the golden calf. Judgment fell and three thousand died! But on Mt. Zion, after Peter preached, 3,000 were saved!
Another interesting part of the observance of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) is that TWO loaves of bread are presented as a wave offering of firstfruits to God, and they are are LEAVENED! What does that signify? The Feast of Unleavened Bread was symbolic of the sinless body of our Messiah. But the two loaves of leavened bread are symbolic of the Church, born on the Day of Pentecost, which still has sin in it and which consists of both Jews and Gentiles who are born again by the Spirit of God.
Yes, indeed! The gospel is GOOD NEWS! Celebrate it on Pentecost Sunday/ Shavuot!
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