When we start talking about the Feasts of the Lord/YHWH, the "holidays" have traditionally been divided between Spring and Fall. The Christian or messianic church recognizes that the prophetic nature (shadow) of the Spring Feasts were fulfilled in the first advent of Yeshua and the Fall Feasts will be fulfilled at His second coming. The Fall Feasts are no less remarkable in their significance:
- Yom Teru'ah (often called Rosh Hashanah because of its place at the beginning of the Jewish civic calendar) is also referred to as the Day of Remembrance because we are commanded to remember to blow the trumpet. We are to remember who we are, who we were created to be, to remember that YHWH is our King.
- Yom ha-Kippurim (also called Day of Atonement) is significant in that it symbolizes a day of deliverance and salvation. Over the years, some Jewish traditions have imbued the celebrations with more than is prescribed in scripture, likewise some messianic sources have gone so far as to assert that this will be the day that Yeshua returns. I am of the opinion that it is about repentance and restoration. You can read it for yourself.
- Sukkot (or Feast of Tabernacles / Feast of Booths) wraps everything up with a week of rejoicing for God's blessing and provision for us. It represents a time of restored fellowship with God (following our repentance.) I think of it as the prototype for Thanksgiving. Or, as one wit said:
Bottom line, it's no more up to us to decide whether or not God cares about a certain tradition or not than it is for me to tell you what you should have for breakfast. Simply because we have slapped some symbolism on them and “Christianized” the original pagan meanings to somehow make "our" religion more enticing to those outside of it doesn't change God's word. I think that what we do in our ignorance or innocence has very real spiritual significance, even when we try to shrug it off and claim that we “don’t mean it that way.”
Ultimately, it is not about what we want or think, but it is about what The Lord God Almighty, Creator of the Universe, says and thinks that is the final authority.
And what He says is this:
“When יהוה your Elohim does cut off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, guard yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire about their mighty ones, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their mighty ones? And let me do so too.’
“Do not do so to יהוה your Elohim, for every abomination which יהוה hates they have done to their mighty ones, for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their mighty ones.
All the words I am commanding you, guard to do it – do not add to it nor take away from it. Deuteronomy 12:29-32 The Scriptures 2009
I don't know how it could get any clearer than that.
