Shavuot also is known as the Festival of Weeks celebrates 7 weeks from Passover plus one day. That brings you to 50 days on the calendar from the festival of Passover. This correlation is relevant to the Christian denominations that celebrate Pentecost.
Pentecost comes 50 days after Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection and announces the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell in a living temple God created in each one of us. We are living temples. The temple building was a reflection of how we should live our life before God.
Shavuot is celebrated by the Hebrews usually as a one-day festival or rest period reflecting on the 2nd barley harvest after the Passover harvest. The day is generally celebrated with a milk meal like pasta.
The Synagogues are open and this is a time when the Hebrews observe the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The fire consumed the mountain where God gave the first 5 books to Moses.
In the same way, many years later during Shavout/Pentecost, we see fire come down from Heaven again this time in the form of flaming tongues. We also know that the Holy Spirit is like fire and is a representation of dwelling inside of humankind. God created us to worship him in Spirit and Truth and to make his home inside of us. We are the home of God.
The book that is read in the Synagogue is Ruth. Ruth represents a gentile woman who agreed to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She left the ways of the Moabite to learn the ways of the God of the Hebrews. Her obedience resulted in Boaz marrying Ruth and becoming a relative to King David.
The first fruits that are gathered during this time are produced on the threshing floor. Most threshing floors were community threshing floors. You ended up working together as a community to get your crop in from the harvest.
The Hebrew mindset of the community has been there for thousands of years. The importance of coming together for a common set of goals and ideas that God himself gave them together.
There is much insight to be gained through the union of Boaz and Ruth and how they remind us of the one new man. God plans to bring the Hebrew and God Fearing Gentiles together into a position of worshiping God in Spirit and Truth.
This timing of Ruth is another example of the time of year that Boaz and Ruth encounter each other. Original context and intent bring us into a richer view of what God is trying to show us during Shavuot.
The Ruach Ha’Kodesh (Holy Spirit) is for all of the world to receive regardless of being Hebrew or Gentile. The amazing opportunity to see two loaves of baked bread from the fruit of the earth is a wonderful result. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the lives of humanity brings full circle God's original design and blueprint. To be living sacrifices and temples for Him.
May we be encouraged to Love God with everything we have and love our neighbor as ourselves.
"Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" - Isaiah 43:19. -
Are we perceiving this new reality He is doing?
Photo credit: Unsplash Melissa Askew
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