Feast of Tabernacles: Thursday thoughts

Happy Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). This meditation, which I pieced together from a couple sources, gives a Christian perspective and a good spiritual lesson.




Sukkot, or the Feast of the Tabernacles, begins at sunset on Wednesday, October 12 and runs until sundown on the 19th. This festival not only marks a time of thanksgiving for God’s provision, but it also commemorates the Jews’ deliverance from bondage in Egypt and their subsequent wandering in the desert for 40 years without a permanent place to call “home.” During Sukkot, Jews and Messianic Jews (who believe in Jesus) construct booths outside their synagogues and homes. These booths, consisting of improvised walls and open roofs covered with branches or leaves, resemble the temporary shelters that Jews erected while living in the desert.



The word Sukkot means "booths", a reference to the temporary dwellings that are built and inhabited during the festival.



At the end of the eight days, the Jews leave their temporary dwellings to return to their permanent homes. (This is one of the reasons some suspect that this feast, rather than the Feast of Trumpets, is suggestive of the Rapture of the Church.) This day, traditionally, is the day that Solomon dedicated the first Temple.



In the time of Jesus, Sukkot involved a daily processional to the Pool of Siloam to fetch water for the Temple. This ceremonial procession is the setting for the events of John 7, where Jesus offers his listeners "living water."



As Christians we may not celebrate many of the traditional Jewish holidays, yet they hold great spiritual and prophetic significance. Colossians 2:16-17 says, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come." (emphasis added)



Most observers note that the three spring festivals - Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Feast of First Fruits - are prophetic of the Lord's First Coming. They each were also fulfilled on the day they were observed.



Between these three spring feasts and the final three fall feasts is the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, which is predictive of the Church.



It is believed that the last three feasts, in the fall, are prophetic of the Lord's Second Coming. It seems little coincidence that the seventh day of Sukkot is called Hoshanah Rabbah - "Great Salvation". Many believers are particularly watchful each fall in the hopes that "this" will be the year these final three feasts are fulfilled when Jesus comes again.



The Sukkot festival is a great reminder to us to rejoice in the Lord’s constant protection of and provision for us. But it also reminds us that our homes are temporary dwellings and that life is fleeting. Our permanent home with the Lord awaits us.



We find this expressed beautifully in the New Testament book of Hebrews, describing our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth” (Hebrews 11:13).



Next time we are discouraged by our circumstances and our current struggles, it helps to remember it is only temporary.