Series: Contributing Authors
These are the appointed feasts of YHWH, which you shall proclaim as times of sacred assemblies (Lev 23:37).
To honor the Holy One who designed the Fall festival season, I offer seven reflections on the biblical Feast of Tabernacles (Sūkkōt) meant to provoke your passionate pursuit of and continuing transformation into the likeness of King Jesus.
Lesson One:
It is the third of three pilgrim festivals: Passover (Pesach) and Pentecost (Shavuot) in the Spring, with Tabernacles (Sukkot) six months later in the Fall. These were conceived by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus and are referenced in all five foundational books of Moses (Torah). Each festival plays a role in the New Covenant as well. Together, they connect the Testaments by telling a coherent story of the God of gods, the salvation history of humanity, and your place under his kingship.
Lesson Two:
You can only get to Sukkot through the Day of Atonement (Yōm Kippūr). On this most solemn of days, the LORD mandates individual fasting and communal repentance. Repentance, like a coin, has two sides. Yom Kippur emphasizes what we turn away from; Sukkot emphasizes what we turn toward. Sin is a power wielded by the father of lies aimed at the enslavement and ultimate destruction of humanity. We are called out of the problem (sin) to be part of the solution (God’s healing presence on earth).
Lesson Three:
The Feast of Trumpets (Yōm T’rūah)—literally, The Day of Blowing—kicks off the Fall festival season. This mysterious and holy one-day festival serves several compelling purposes. It is the first day of the seventh Hebrew month (Tishrei), known from ancient times as the beginning of a spiritual new year. The rushing wind of the blowing hearkens back to Genesis in a celebration of the Creator and his glorious creation. And its traditional link to the ram’s horn (shofar) recalls Abraham, Isaac, and the faithfulness of the Promise Keeper.
The sound of the shofar is a call to return to our first love, an opportunity for us to begin again. As the first day of the festival rhythm, it inaugurates a ten-day countdown to and preparation for Yom Kippur, characterized by times of concentration and reflection on God, his good gifts, and the inroads of evil in our lives and faith communities. This period is known traditionally as The High Holy Days and The Ten Days of Awe.
Lesson Four:
Sukkot meant all this and more to Yeshua from Nazareth. His participation in it connects us with the history of God’s covenant love. His public declaration on The Feast’s last and greatest day infuses it with messianic fullness: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. His revelation of the Spirit as The Gift of God is crucial to the New Covenant mission: Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (Jn 7:37-39). Indeed, Jesus was God’s Word enfleshed, tabernacling among us (Jn 1:14).
Lesson Five:
The great symbolic action of Sukkot is to move out of day-to-day life for one week into a temporary, hand-built shelter called a little tabernacle or booth (sukkah). The goal is to remember sojourning with the LORD in the wilderness on the heels of being rescued from Egypt (Passover) and divinely instructed at Sinai (Pentecost).
Jesus died on a Roman cross and rose from the dead during Pesach. Fifty days later, as he foretold, God poured his Spirit into the disciples on Shavuot. Passover presents our way out of slavery, and Pentecost our way into the divine presence. Tabernacles illustrates our way forward—learning to journey through the wilderness to the promised land as his ambassadors. As followers of Jesus, we are in but not of the world. Abide in me (Jn 15:4).
Lesson Six:
The great commandment of Sukkot is to be altogether joyful. Now that the deep work of repentance—awakened by the call to return on Yom T’ruah and informed by the fear of the LORD at Yom Kippur—has led to The Feast, rejoice! Deuteronomy 16 presents this in two distinct ways. Rejoice in your feast (vs. 14) requires our response; it is a divine call for kingdom people to practice joy. You will be altogether joyful (vs. 15) supplies the why to go with the what—because the God of all blessing is with us.
As in all things, the cross-bearer is our example. Jesus, like us, had to walk by faith, not sight. His was a life characterized by the joy of knowing the Father deeply and serving him faithfully. And I will abide in you (Jn 15:4).
Lesson Seven:
The great commission of Sukkot is that God’s love, aflame within us, is to be offered to all people, in all places, at all times. Looking to the past, the total number of festal sacrifices was seventy, the biblical number representing the totality of nations. Looking to the future, Zechariah connects Tabernacles with both the nations and the consummation of the new creation (14:6).
In the present, we live as the first fruits of that new creation, inaugurated by the death and resurrection of our King (James 1:18). Followers of Jesus were once part of the sin problem. He brought us out and to himself. Now, as a critical part of the solution, he leads us back into the fallen world to help him rescue others. I am with you always, to the end of the age.
