The 7 Feasts & The Days of Omer
Gtcotr/ws033016
Calendars can be so complex in their calculations as to days and length of a year.
* Roman Calendar of AD45 – So many variations during the Empire
* Julian Calendar of AD46 – 365.25 days per year – Julius Caesar
* Gregorian Calendar AD1582 – 365.2425 – Pope Gregory XIII
The Julian calendar is by 14 days from the Gregorian calendar, for example January 1st of this year on our current calendar coincides with January 14th according to the Julian Calendar. Russia was the last major country to change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar which took place in 1930. Interesting to note, the Berber people of North Africa still use the Julian Calendar as well as most branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church to calculate the religious feasts. At any rate, calendars can seem complicated …
And then there’s the Lunar Calendar as set by the Bible to calculate feasts and times and seasons of harvest and celebration. This year the Gregorian calendar set Easter as the 27th of March while the Lunar calendar used in Israel does not put the coinciding Passover celebration until April 22nd, a full lunar cycle later. (Interesting to note the Eastern Orthodox Church will not celebrate Easter according to the Julian calendar until May 1st this year, a full 5 weeks after the Roman Catholic Church and more than a week after the Jewish Passover.)
The importance may not be so much getting the correct date as it is getting the correction interpretation and the correct estimation of this all important day and its importance to each one of us.
Let’s look a little further by first briefly mentioning the Seven Feasts of Israel and their significance.
1. Feast of Passover
2. Feast of Unleavened Bread
3. Feast of First Fruits
4. Feast of Weeks
5. Feast of Trumpets
6. Day of Atonement
7. Feast of Tabernacles
Leviticus 23 will account for these feasts and further study from their will help to understand their significance to the overall plan of God. The children of Israel were told to live these feasts out each year as a picture and a sign of what God would do for His Children through Messiah.
The Old Testament, the Law of Moses and the Psalms, along with the writings of the Prophets, take us on a natural pilgrimage of a spiritual journey which God fulfilled through the life of His Son, Jesus.
* The Passover Lamb was always about Jesus and His Blood and how God was going to deliver His Children from the bondage of this world.
* The Unleavened Bread was always about Jesus body which would be broken and buried in a grave to provide healing for us.
* First Fruits was always about the Resurrection and the blessing and acceptance of the abundant harvest to come.
* The Feast of Weeks was always about Pentecost and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and the subsequent indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God. (Joel 2; Acts 2)
* The Trumpets will one day signal the rapture of the Church and our gathering to Him as it always was meant to symbolize. (1Th 5)
* The Day of Atonement will be His Second Coming when they look on Him whom they have pierced and final judgment will take place …
* Tabernacles will be that time when God dwells with us in the ultimate habitation eternal, immoveable and unshakable. (Zechariah 14)
Ok – so what about the “Days of Omer”?
According to the Lunar calendar of the Bible, (and remember it is not the date but the fact which is important), the days of omer begin on the first day following the first Sabbath after the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread and it last 49 days. In other words, the Days of Omer are the 49 days between the Resurrection of Messiah and Pentecost, Pentecost being the 50th day.
So, what does this have to do with us right now in history? We have just celebrated the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus on the first day of the week, as was mentioned in all four Gospels. It was clearly the first day of the week after the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. The resurrection of Jesus coincided with the High Priest going out into the Kidron Valley just before sunrise on the Sunday following the crucifixion and cutting a sheaf of barley at the first ray of sunlight and waving it before the Lord God to the North, East, South and West, asking God for blessings and abundance to come on the great harvest because of the dedication of the First Fruits unto Him.
1 Corinthians 15 NKJV
20 ¶ But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
And the rest is history … or future … depending on your theology!
On our way to Pentecost!
