FEAST OF TABERNACLES – DAY SIX

FEAST OF TABERNACLES – DAY SIX

Here we are already.  It is Day Six of The Feast of Tabernacles.  Are you enjoying every moment?  Our group has spent a lot of time talking about how important it is to be present in every moment of this year’s feast.  We only have one more day to celebrate this festival, and none of us want it to end.  Not only have we felt more present ourselves, but we have also felt the holy Presence of YHVH among us.  It has been so peaceful, relaxing, and joyful.

BIRTHS

Since the sixth day of creation was the day that YHVH created mankind, we have picked this day to celebrate births. We will sit inside our sukkah and sing songs about the birth of Yeshua tonight.  Today for lunch we will visit one of our favorite restaurants to celebrate the birth of our twin daughters. 

In honor of all these wonderful “birth” subjects, I have made our traditional gluten-free chocolate cake.  The younger children are already asking about it. 

THINKING ABOUT HARVEST

Last night as we did our family’s water celebration ceremony, Erin and Alex cooked dinner for us at their house. After our meal, they brought a pitcher of water to the table. Then we passed the pitcher around the table.  Each person poured water into their glass first. Before anyone poured. they picked a word to focus upon within this next year. The word serves as a prayer in their lives. The thoughts about this word can be just between them and God, or shared.

This has become another tradition for our family. First you tell your word for this year. Then you take a sip of water.  Next you tell the word you and God worked toward last year. This is your opportunity to explain the blessings you experienced from your prayer and word choice from last year. Each person takes a turn. In the end of the ceremony, we all made a group toast proclaiming “next year in Jerusalem.” This year’s water ceremony was a lovely and inspiring evening.

The word I picked for the coming year is “harvest.” I’m getting older now. I want to begin to experience all of the “harvest” elements of living my life by following Yeshua. It will be exciting to see how this next year plays out. Harvest is my prayer for 2026-2027.  I desire to see the harvest.

LOOKING FOR SPIRITUAL HARVEST

In ancient days, this Feast of Tabernacles festival was actually more about bringing in the physical harvest of the crops and thanking God for His provision.

We too will be thanking God for the way He has provided a harvest for us.  We’ve experienced so much of the harvest, both physically and spiritually.  However, there is more than can be put into words here. It is like I said in an earlier article about the subject of obedience.  This is something you have to DO to UNDERSTAND. It requires stepping out in faith, trusting God, and going wherever He leads us to go.

Experiencing a harvest requires leaving the cares of the world behind. This becomes easy as we focus on the goodness and joy God brings. Yes, that little word “go” would definitely be a good word to describe one of the things we do in order to experience some of our best harvest experiences. We go to the feast with the harvest of our year and rejoice before The Lord.

A TIME OF “GOING”

We go.

This means actually leaving our permanent dwellings. We go to places set aside and prepared for us. Often we travel to an unfamiliar place.  In each and every journey, we trust God for what He is going to do with us when we arrive. 

Honestly, we never know EXACTLY what is going to happen.  That doesn’t matter because God does know. We simply trust God with the outcome.  His plan is always better than our human imagination.

When we arrive in our temporary places, there are moments when we begin to take a look back.  We remember how God’s people dwelt in temporary dwellings called tabernacles. YHVH commanded us to remember how they faithfully and willingly traveled to the places where He was leading them to go.

We remember these things at each Feast of Tabernacles. Often we read that scripture found in Leviticus 23:43: That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.

A TIME OF REMEMBERING

So we remember our humble beginnings. We think about that on Day Six this year.  It is a good time to ponder when God formed a people from a people who were not a people.  He made them into a great nation who set the pattern for God’s ways to live.  This became the nation which brought us Messiah. The people God created on Day Six of Creation week sinned soon after. They were not perfect. So, they needed someone to show them the way.

We remember how Moses was used of God to bring us the law.  The Commandments happened in order to show us the best ways to live.  All of the people following Moses represented mankind as created on Day Six of the Creation. Something was missing though. Later Yeshua Messiah came to show us an even higher way to keep that law.  This new way is written inside our hearts, minds, and souls.  The laws did not change.  The people created on Day Six changed. Someone came to change us. Our hearts knowing the law changed us. Yeshua Messiah showed us the example. We simply need to follow His footsteps.

All of  those thoughts overflow and spill out of us in the form of love.  Sometimes we go beyond the law.  A few pass through Day Six and change. We come to that place of grace and mercy.  These three elements called grace, mercy, and love are partners in God’s Kingdom. We find them all at each Feast of Tabernacles. Day Six becomes Day Seven. We come to a Sabbath that is full of rest, grace, mercy and love. It is the day we come to know Yeshua Messiah more.

A TIME OF MAKING NEW MEMORIES

On each Day Six of the feast, we remember the past with thanksgiving to God,. We are also grateful to God for the time of the present.

Therefore, we practice mindfulness.  Our hearts are determined to try to be more intentional in our actions toward God and one another. Also, we practice “presence” in all that we do in this feast. By Day Six, we have experienced a constant awareness of honoring God with worship and praise as He comes to tabernacle among us. We determine to show that same love for one another.

On Day Six of the Feast, as in all the other days, we do simple, yet amazing things which illustrate the presence of God within our lives.

LIKE A FAMILY REUNION

It is actually a lot like attending a huge family reunion for all of God’s family. Like most family reunions, there are family traditions we love to honor. Way before we come to Day Six, some of us have actually built sukkahs. We observe the spiritual significance found in the waiving of the lulav and the citron.

After day six, on The Great Last Day, some of us observe The Water Ceremony.  During those moments we remember those words of Yeshua Messiah on that day at the time of another feast so long ago: “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14).

There are so many vivid lessons to be learned from carrying out all of these old family traditions. Day Six is full of such lessons. We hear about them and observe the same thoughts over-and-over again.  Every year is the same, but every year is also a bit different.  Somehow we never tire of hearing of these same subjects.  They are significant in many different ways. For some strange reason these subjects never grow old to us. Many subjects are repeated and meditated upon in this time of day six.

We have found God builds from year to year on the things He teaches us at the feast.  It comes to us layer-upon-layer, precept-upon-precept.  Each year we gain a greater understanding of why we have all of these family traditions. More and more, we appreciate the wisdom of our Father in giving them to us.  Annually, we marvel at the ways of our Great God

WE CELEBRATE THE WONDER OF THE BIRTH OF MESSIAH

Most of us believe this season of Fall is the actual time of the year when Yeshua was born.  That is yet another thing we remember and traditionally focus upon. The bible does not say the exact date of Jesus’ birth, but we know it was not during the winter months because the sheep were all put up in the shelters at that time.  Thus, Shepherds were not out in the fields. They were out of the pastures during the winter. So, it is logical that the livestock was not out in the fields during the coldest part of winter. (Luke 2:8)

If we do a study of the time of the conception of John the Baptist, it reveals  he was conceived about Sivan 30. We know this by the designated course times when Zechariah was ministering and serving his time as a priest at the Temple. This was when he received the announcement from God of a coming son.

The eighth course was when Zechariah was serving in the Temple. This would have been the week of Sivan 12 to 18. Adding 40 weeks for a pregnancy time reveals that John the Baptist was born on or about Passover time, in the spring. We know six months after John’s conception, Mary conceived Yeshua. (Luke 1:26-33) This means Yeshua would have been conceived six months later during the month of Kislev on the Jewish calendar (the one that God uses – they got it from Him; He didn’t get it from them.)

CONCEPTION AT HANUKKAH

Kislev 25 is the usual time of Hanukkah. Jesus, the Light Of The World was CONCEIVED during this time – which is also about the same time of the Christian celebration of Christmas. Notice I said CONCEPTION, not BIRTH. Starting from Kislev 25 at the CONCEPTION and counting nine months forward, which would have been the duration of Mary’s pregnancy, one arrives at the approximate time for the birth of Jesus being around the time of the Annual Feast of Tabernacles (always in the time of the early Fall.)

We know that Joseph and Mary were unable to find a room in Jerusalem. It was too crowded and full because of the influx of people taking the required religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  They were coming in large numbers to celebrate the harvest festival of Sukkot. We call it The Feast of Tabernacles.

It was also common during this harvest festival season for governing officials to declare tax time. They choose to do this during this period of festivities. This was partly because of the difficulties  people sometimes experienced in traveling during those days. There were no automobiles. The Feast of Tabernacles was a “foot festival” because people walked to the location of the feast. When the times of tax and religious observations were the same, the faithful, good citizens only had to make one journey. This assured the officials got more money in their pockets.

So, we celebrate Messiah coming to us during the time of this Feast of Tabernacles.  It was the beginning of God coming to tabernacle among us. Emmanuel; God with us! This is yet another family tradition to celebrate during our time of great joy!

CELEBRATING THE DAYS TO COME

We also look to the future. This is a good time to celebrate things we have read in the holy scriptures about the days to come.

There will be a day when Yeshua Messiah will return to earth a second time. This time, He will not come as a little baby. He will be a Mighty King. Yeshua Messiah will set up and establish His government. He will appoint His people to rule and reign with Him. This festival represents what that time means to us. In Micah 4:1 the scriptures actually speak of this future time:

But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and the people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Micah 4:1)

CONSIDERING THE FUTURE

We can find another description of a future time in Zechariah 14:8-19: 

It shall be in that day living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder seas. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day shall there be one LORD and his name one….And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came up against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.”

 Also it shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. (Zech. 14:8-19)

IT IS GOD’S WILL THAT ALL COME TO KEEP THE FEAST

Apparently, even after Messiah returns and is King of Kings, there will be those who still refuse to see the necessity of keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. However, it is clear that it will be God’s will for ALL to keep this commandment. After all the joy I’ve found in keeping the feast in the past, it is amazing to me that anyone would ever want to stay away.

So we will all go up this year.  We will sing and dance and praise The LORD, for He is good!

This will be an awesome time. We are actually performing a dress rehearsal of the latter times each year at the Feast of Tabernacles.  This will be our practice until the time that God makes it actually happen.

Therefore, Let us keep the feast!