Sermon Archives (October 13, 2000):

The Feast of Tabernacles

Would you please rise for the reading of God’s Word.  Open your Bible’s to Zechariah 14, as I speak to you this evening on the theme, “The Feast of Tabernacles.”   Speaking of the end of man’s age, the prophet writes (Zechariah 14:16-18)

“And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.”

You may be seated.  God appears quite serious about his Feast, when not keeping it will leave people with no rain and plagues upon them.   God takes his law seriously.  But sometimes, there are laws, which are not quite so clear.

There is a law that says that the man is head of the house.   Will Rogers said, that any man that tells you he is the head of his house, will lie on just about everything.

There is an unwritten law about teenagers.  Why is it that it takes so little time for a child that is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?

There is a law about children.  They never do what you expect them to do.   After several years of marriage, Thelma and Bob had their first baby and they called him Barney.   The problem was that one year passed and Barney hadn’t said a word.  Two years passed and Barney hadn’t said a word.  They took him to the Doctor.  The Doctor examined him.  The Doctor said, “Barney looks perfectly healthy.  Just be patient.”  And Thelma and Bob waited.   The third birthday, he hadn’t said a word.   It was Barney’s fourth birthday, and the family was having breakfast.   Suddenly, Barney turned to his mother and in perfect English said,  “The oatmeal is lumpy.”   His parents were thrilled.   They were amazed.  “Why haven’t you talked before?   Barney responded, “Well, up to this point everything has been all right.”  You see, with children, the law is, they never do what you expect.

With the Feast upon us now, maybe we should try tonight to get a handle on just what is this Feast of Tabernacles, and how we should relate to it.

The Feast of Tabernacles, known today as Sukkot, is held by divine decree on the 15^th through the 21^st days of Tishri in the Jewish or sacred calendar.   In the Julian or Roman calendar that we live by today, this is a 7 day period within September and October.

The Feast begins after the fall harvesting of crops, and is the happiest of biblical feasts.   It celebrates God’s bounty in nature and God’s protection for his people.   God’s protection is symbolized by the fragile thatch booths (3 sided quancid huts) in which the Israelites lived in while in the wilderness.

Sukkot, according to Jewish tradition, points to and involves the Gentiles as well.   At this feast 70 young bulls were sacrificed in the Temple.   These 70 bulls represented the seventy know nations known by Israel to be existing in that time.  Recall from our opening scripture in Zechariah, how the prophet predicted that “all nations … shall go up from year to year .. to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.”   That includes the Gentile nations.

The basis for the Feast of Tabernacles is to be found Leviticus, (specifically in Leviticus 23:33-35, 39-43) “Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,  "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the LORD. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. … Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a Sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a rest-rest. And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.' "

The Feast of Tabernacles is the 7^th of God’s Feasts.  In the Bible, the number seven represents fulfillment and completion.  The Feast of Tabernacles points then to God’s rest on the Sabbath day, and to the 7^th 1000 years of man’s era, the thousand-year Millennium, the reign of Christ.

The Feast of Tabernacles is also call the Feast of Lights, commemorating the pillar of fire that led the children of Israel by night while 40 years in the wilderness.   At the end of the first day of this feast, the priests and the Levites went down in the temple to the court of the women.  Within this court were four huge golden candelabras.   The base of each candelabrum was 50 cubits or 90 feet high.  Each candelabrum had four branches.  Each branch terminated in a huge basin in which rested a twisted wick, made from the holy garments the priests had worn the previous year.  While priests and the Levites sang praises and waved torches, 16 young men of priestly descent climbed ladders to pour seven gallons of pure oil into each basin.   According to the Mishnah, that is the first part of the Talmud containing traditional oral interpretations of scriptural ordinances, when these great wicks were set on fire, the light from the flames was so great that it would lit up every courtyard in Jerusalem.   This points of course to the return of New Jerusalem, where it is prophesized (in Revelation 21:23-24)  “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.  And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.”

How prophetic and fitting that Jesus proclaimed (in John 9:5) “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

The Feast of Tabernacles is also called “the season of our joy.”  Why?  Many scholars, including myself, believe that Jesus was born during this Fall feast.   He could not have been born in December, because the Bible records (in Luke 2:8) that at the time of Christ’s birth there were “shepherds living out in the fields, kept watch over their flock by night”.   Even to this day, shepherds in Israel pen their sheep up at night beginning in the month of October and do not themselves sleep in the cold open fields.   Due to the nighttime cold of the Winter months, there were no shepherds at night in the fields during December.   Customarily shepherds would take their flocks out into the fields after Passover, and would remain with their sheep until the first rain or frost in October.   Thus, by this evidence Jesus had to be born between Passover and early October.  

On the morning of Christ’s birth, angels gathered and announced to these shepherds (Luke 2:10-11), “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Sukkot points to the coming time when Jesus Christ will rule the entire earth.  (Zechariah 14.9 proclaims) “And the LORD shall be King over all the earth.  In that day it shall be –‘The LORD is one,’ And His name one.“

We see then in Sukkot, that Jesus is our joy.  Say this with me, “Jesus is our joy.”  Say it again, “Jesus is our joy.”  In it we await his second coming.   He will rule over the entire earth.   We rejoice in his given name, one being Emmanuel, meaning ‘God with us.’   He remains our wonderful Counselor, the mighty God of the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, our Savior and Deliverer, Friend and Comforter.  

He is for God’s people “Joy to the World”.    250 years ago, the English writer Isaac Watts wrote a hymn based on Psalm 98.  Although the world sings this song at Christmas, the lyrics are about Christ’s millennial reign.   How more appropriate then would it be were we to sing this during Sukkot, that feast pointing forward to the Millennium, and backward to the birth of Christ:  “Joy to the world!  The Lord is come; Let earth receive her king; Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing.   He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove, the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of his. Love.”

Before the Babylonian captivity, the Feast of Tabernacles had degenerated for many into a drunken party.  Instead of focusing on temporary shelters, many Jews began honoring the fruit of the fall harvest, particularly the grapes of the vineyards, as was the custom of their pagan Canaanite neighbors in celebrating the conclusion of the fall feast.  Remember how God had instructed Moses to have Israel kill all the Canaanites as Israel entered into the Promised Land.  Well, they+ didn’t do it.  Here we see the result of that disobedience:  Sin as Israel in later generations is led astray.   God hated such a degeneration of his festivals, and says so (in Amos 5:21-26)  “"I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies.   Though you offer Me burnt offerings …,  I will not accept them.”   (Hosea 9:1-2)  “For you have played the harlot against your God.  You have made love for hire on every threshing floor.   The threshing floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. “   (Isaiah 28:7)  “But they also have erred through wine, and through intoxicating drink are out of the way; … They are swallowed up by wine.  They are out of the way through intoxicating drink.”

Israel was sent into exile.  Years later, as the Jews returned from Babylonian captivity, Ezra the scribe opened the books of the Law and read to teach the people and priests.  (Nehemiah 8:13-18) “They found written in the Law, which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths (these quancid huts) during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, "Go out to the mountain, and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written." Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house, or in their courtyards or the courts of the house of God, and in the open square of the Water Gate and in the open square of the Gate of Ephraim. so the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great gladness. Also day-by-day, from the first day until the last day, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. And they kept the feast seven days.”

By the time of Christ, “Sukkot” (which in Hebrew means “booths”) was along with the Passover the two great pilgrimage festivals.   The people called the festival by different names:  The Feast of the Ingathering, in references to the Fall harvest; the Feast of Nations, because Zechariah had prophesized that even the Gentile nations would celebrate it in Jerusalem, and as the Festival of Lights.

As the people journeyed to Jerusalem for the feast, they sang Psalms of ascent.  (Psalms 84:1,2, 5)  “How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints For the courts of the LORD” (speaking of the temple court in Jerusalem)  “Blessed is the man whose … heart is set on pilgrimage.”  All in Christ Jesus are but pilgrims, sojourners in this, Satan’s world.

When the pilgrims reached Jerusalem, they staked out corners of the city in which to build their booths.   Any available space would do.  Why?   Because the population of Jerusalem was about 125,000 at the time of Christ’s birth, but during the feast the population would grow to over a million. There simply weren’t enough hotels.  Is it no wonder that when Joseph and Mary were in search of lodgings as described in Luke, there was no room at the inn.  Were you a Roman tax collector, would you be collecting taxes in a city of just a 125,000 during the dead of winter, or would you do it right after the harvest, the farmer’s payday, when the city’s population swelled to over a million.

The three sided booths these pilgrims constructed, that had an appearance of a quancid hut, not only symbolized the tents in which Israel lived during Israel wandering in the wilderness, but these booths represented man’s earthly bodies as temporary dwelling places for our souls and spirits.   Man is not a physical body that contains a soul, but rather a spiritual creature for now living within a physical body.

We see in the celebration of Sukkot further images representative of Christ.   Remember how in the wilderness, living water was drawn from the Rock as Moses hit the rock.   We see this story told in Exodus 17, versus 1-7.   In remembrance of this miracle of living water at Mount Horeb, a priest would on the first day of the feast carry a great golden water pot from the Temple mount down to the spring of Siloam.   Surrounded by jubilant worshipers, the priest representing Christ would draw water from the pool, then return to the Temple, walking through the water gate, which led to the inner court.   A great cheering crown waited for the priest as he approached the alter.   Other priests would blow the ceremonial silver trumpets, which we know symbolizes the return of Christ:  (1 Corinthians 15:52) “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”  Other priests chanted the words of (Isaiah 12:3),   “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. “   Note the significance.  The word “salvation” in Hebrew is “Yeshua”, the same word in English we translate as the name “Jesus”.

On the first through the sixth days of the Feast, the priest and his joyful processional circled the altar once. But on the seventh day, the priests circled the altar seven times, signifying completion.   The highlight of the ceremony occurred when the priest stood and poured the water on the altar.   While the water washed away the blood of the morning’s sacrifice, a long line of priests, all bearing willow branches, sang psalms of praise.   The Talmud describes this ceremony in detail, including a portrait of venerable sages juggling lighted torches and performing somersaults.   The Talmid describes experiencing the Feast as one of intense and total joy.   The Talmud claimed that any one who had not been to Jerusalem for this ceremony had not experienced real joy.   The water ritual, known as “Simcha Bet Ha-Sho-evah”, the Rejoicing of the House of Drawing Water, prophetically illustrates the time when the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon Israel.

We see in this ceremony that truth that Jesus, “salvation”, the giver of living water, came to earth at Sukkot, in other words to these temporary booths of God’s spirit.   Consider how Jesus told the Samaritan or Gentile woman symbolizing the Church at the well of life, (in John 4:10, 13-14)  "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water…  "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

Like all devout Jewish men, Jesus attended the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.   On the last of the Sukkot festival, He stood and cried out to the crowd  (John 7:37-39)  "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."  Here Jesus was speaking of the words of (Isaiah 44:3), “For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring.”  John tells us that Jesus “spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

In the theater of your mind, see Jesus and his disciples as they attended this glorious celebration inside the Temple of our God.   They had sung psalms with the priests as we have.   They had followed the golden water pot of water seven times around the altar.   They had watched the water stream over the altar, cleaning away the blood of goats and rams from the mourning sacrifices.  As the rustling of a thousand palms filled the air, foreshadowing the palms that would be lifter to hail Jesus when He would enter Jerusalem to die for us at Passover, Jesus spoke in a commanding voice and explained the ritual the Jews had just witnessed.  (John 7:37-39)  "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."

I close with this question:  Jesus was the Light of the World, the Living Water, the Word made flesh to dwell among us.  He would soon be the Passover Lamb, the Bread without Leaven, the Firstfruits.  As our sinless High Priest, he atoned for our sin once and for all.   Hundreds in the Temple heard Him that day, but how many understood as you do this day?