The Christian Jewish RootsChikamu

I would like to briefly teach on the third and final Jewish feast called The Feast of Tabernacles or The Feast of Sukkot. You will read about it in Lev.23: 33, 34, 42 - 44. 

To commemorate Israel's deliverance from Egypt and the 40 years of supernatural guidance and miraculous provision and protection in the wilderness God asked His people to construct   “booths” to serve as a reminder of their temporary dwellings when they passed through the wilderness. So every year God told His people to build a small tabernacle and to dwell in it for seven days.

Sukkot is also called the Feast of Nations. On this day God asked the Israelites to sacrifice 70 bulls. This may seem strange in today's world but the Bible claims that there were 70 nations at that time. What they were doing was making sacrifice not just for the Jewish people but also for every nation on earth. Remember, God told Abraham that through him, all nations would be blessed.

In Jewish teaching, there is what is called the Messianic period, a time when the Messiah will come, and all the nations on earth will recognise Him and gather on Sukkot at Jerusalem where we will live under the blessing of the Messiah, and every area of our lives will be taken care of forever. 

Thus beginning on Sukkot and going for seven days, all the priests in Jerusalem would gather together at the temple and divide into three different groups. One group would go out the main gate. One group would go out the east gate. The third group would go out the water gate. 

One group would go out to gather the sacrifices for a blood offering. The next group would go down to a certain area, off to the west of Jerusalem, where they would cut long branches off of willow trees. The third group would go with the high priest to the pool of Siloam  the same pool where Jesus healed the blind man  and use a golden pitcher to gather its “living water.” Accompanying them would be an assistant carrying a pitcher of wine.

At a certain moment all three groups would head toward the gates of the temple. The shofar would blow, and the three groups would meet at exactly the same moment with the sacrifice, the trees, and the water and wine. At the moment they all met, the shofar was blown again.

This would call forth a man who would begin playing a flute - always a symbol of the coming Messiah, who was also called the “pierced one.” 

The first group would be the ones with the bulls - a sacrifice so all the world could be adopted into the family of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. After the blood was sprinkled all over the altar, they would remove the carcasses. Then would come the ones with the trees, and they would arrange the trees over the altar, angling them upward to make a tabernacle or a wedding canopy. 

Thus the blood is shed and the canopy is built, symbolising that the Messiah would come and be the bridegroom for all of God's people. The third priest would then come and pour the water onto the blood, symbolising the Holy Spirit and an outpouring of joy. Then, the associate priest would pour wine onto the water and the blood, the symbol of a marriage covenant. 

Imagine how powerful it was for the first-century Jews who were familiar with this ceremony when Jesus went to a wedding feast in Cana and turned water into fine wine. What better way could there have been for Jesus to announce that the Messiah had come?