Shavuot: A time to Renew Our Commitment
Friday 29 May 2009
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Shavuot is the biblical Festival of Weeks. To Jews, it is a celebration of the giving of the Torah, God’s Law, and to Christians, Pentecost, the giving of God’s Holy Spirit. It comes 50 days after Passover. We believe that on this day God met with Moses on Mount Sinai and it is known as Zman Matan Torateinu, the Season of the Gift of Torah (The Law of Moses). At Shavuot Jewish people celebrate the anniversary of God’s giving of the Torah and renew their acceptance of it.
Shavuot is also called Atzeret which means, The Completion. Passover was when God set His people free, for a purpose, so that 50 days later, on Shavuot, they could receive His Torah, the “first fruits” of their freedom!
Shavuot is rich in meaning for us and so is also known as “the Day of the Great Oath” (shavuah also means oath). When God gave the Torah, He was making an eternal promise to be the God of Israel and make Israel His treasured possession and they in turn promised to keep His covenant and obey His commands. (Exodus 19:5-6)
On that today those who had come out of bondage in Egypt were invited to enter into a holy relationship with their Maker to be His special people; that is, if they would accept His Laws and obey His commands. So God asked them to prepare themselves, to bathe, to wash their clothes and to sanctify themselves; to wash away the stench of slavery and become a holy nation before God through the receiving of His Law, and enter into fellowship with the Living God their Creator and Deliverer.
Shavuot is more than just the giving and receiving of a gift, the Torah - which God gave to Moses on Sinai. Because Torah is more than just a set of rules and regulations governing worship: it is a Ketubah - a marriage contract between God and the Jewish people whom He had redeemed from their bondage and slavery in Egypt to be His and to lead them into the Promised Land.
This pivotal moment forever changed their relationship and their future. Redeemed, the people entered into a covenant relationship with the Eternal God. Today, it is a celebration and affirmation that we accept His Covenant and we are His people, a treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.
As Jewish people we observe many customs to show this. Some will not sleep the night before Shavuot but, instead, study the Torah. We do this because the rabbis say that the thunder and lightning and the sound of the Shofar woke our people that day and, according to tradition, they weren’t up ready and waiting! So by staying awake on this night we are signalling our desire and readiness to be God’s people and to obey His Word.
Another custom is to decorate their synagogues and homes with greenery because it is said that although Mount Sinai was in the desert it so rejoiced at the giving of the Torah that it blossomed with flowers.
Many will abstain from meat, eating only dairy foods. Why? Perhaps, because when the Law was given the people understood that they had no kosher meat; meat that was slaughtered and prepared in accordance with the Law. As it was a Sabbath they ate what they could, the dairy produce. The sages also say it is because the Torah is like milk to us, it nourishes us.
The Book of Ruth is read as part of the Shavuot ritual because she chose to accept the God of Israel and His Laws just as Israel did at Sinai. Ruth has become a central figure at Shavuot because she mirrors redemption and acceptance. She chose to embrace the God of Israel and commit herself to His people and His Law. This choice transformed her life. It is read to remind us that we like Ruth have to choose God and accept His Covenant in the Messiah for ourselves.
It is quite a story while still young and beautiful the fortunes of her mother-in-law changed. Naomi has become a widow. Bereft now that her sons are dead and hearing that the famine in Israel is over she decided to return home to Israel. Ruth, now also a widow, has a choice; she can return to her father’s house or remain with Naomi and go to Israel to an uncertain future. Rabbinic tradition says that she was a Moabite princess; so it must have been a hard choice to leave behind her status and her father’s house to go with Naomi and commit herself to the God of Israel. (Ruth 1:16-17)
She arrived in Israel penniless and childless and had to go into the fields to pick up the grain that the harvesters left behind for the poor. Ruth chose to bind herself to God just as the Jews had when, in accepting the Torah, they bound themselves to God in a love contract or covenant. She, too, was on a journey of redemption. In Deuteronomy 23:3-4 we learn that the Moabites were forbidden access to the community of Israel. For Ruth, it was uncertain if she could even marry in Israel. Her choice was for God and her future was entirely in His hands.
What Ruth needed was a Kinsman Redeemer; a member of Naomi’s husband Elimelech’s family who would redeem the family line. Naomi’s husband and sons are dead and so this family member has the right to purchase the land that she owns and marry her daughter-in-law Ruth and so continue Elimelech’s name.
In the Book of Ruth we read how Boaz steps forward to fulfil the role of Kinsman Redeemer. He is impressed by Ruth’s character and blesses her at their first meeting. (Ruth 2:11-12) Later, when Ruth asks him to be her kinsman redeemer by going to him at night at the threshing floor and lying at his feet, honoured that she chose him rather than a younger man or even a closer relative, he promises to settle the matter. Ruth made a godly choice in Boaz.
Ruth’s choices changed her future irrevocably. She gave up what she knew to follow God and God rewarded her faith. She should have been an outcast but, in redemption by Boaz, she found love and acceptance. Her future secured in God; her great grandson was King David and she herself is recorded in the lineage of Yeshua, Messiah of Israel and Saviour of all. (Matthew 1:5)
Ruth’s inclusion not only into Israel but into the Messianic lineage of Yeshua speaks to us of God’s heart to bring salvation to the nations. Ruth’s redemption is a firstfruit of the salvation of the Gentiles. Shavuot is known as a First Fruit Festival and one of the three Festivals when the men of Israel were commanded to present themselves and their offerings to the Lord; when the offering of the first harvest of the year was brought before God. (Exodus 23:14-19)
At Shavuot, Ruth also reminds Jewish people that once they too were converts. They, too, had to choose to embrace God and accept His Law.
So as we come to this Festival we recognise that, like Ruth and the Children of Israel, we too have to make this same choice. Then we will be his treasured possession if we obey His commands. We are being given the gift of fellowship with Almighty God. This is a time to renew our commitment to God.
And, like them, our lives will be transformed, our past redeemed as we are ... ‘rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son whom He loves in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.’ (Colossians 1:13)
Shavuot, or Pentecost, is the marriage of the Word and the Spirit in our lives. Leviticus 23:21 tells us that we are to celebrate it in all the generations to come. So why did God choose the same day to give His Word and His Spirit? Perhaps because we need both His Word and His Spirit to walk in the freedom that Yeshua gives.
Yeshua called the Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, saying; ‘when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.’ (John 16:13) He is the One who ministers and reveals God’s Word and who writes God’s Law on the tablets of our hearts.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. (Jeremiah 31:33)
Ezekiel the prophet tells us that that it is the Spirit that moves us and enables us to keep God’s commands. (36:26-27) Through the Spirit, the Word of God nourishes our faith and empowers us to keep God’s commands.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
....you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:3)
So, as this Festival comes around again, we are challenged to renew our commitment to walking with God, to keeping His Torah, to living according to His design and plan and we have the assurance that as He pours out His Ruach (Spirit) upon us, we have not only the strength but the desire for this.
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