Torah Portion: Exodus 19:1-20:23, Numbers 28:26-31

Shavuot (‘Weeks’)

Shavuot, ‘Weeks’, is celebrated seven weeks after Passover and is the second major ‘pilgrimage’ feast, when the people of Israel were commanded to gather before the Lord with their offerings (in Greek it is called ‘Pentecost’, meaning ‘fiftieth’ – a reference to the number of days between the two festivals). This was the time to bring the first fruits of the wheat harvest.

It has also become the feast at which Israel remembers the Lord giving the Torah, since it was in the third month after the Exodus (the first Passover) that the people arrived at Sinai. There Moses met with the Lord in a dense cloud, with thunder and lightning and a very loud trumpet blast – signs that made the people tremble with fear. They could not doubt that these were supernatural events, just as they had been shown miracles of provision and deliverance on their journey up to that point. In this, God was testing them so that the fear of God would be with them to keep them from sinning (Ex 19:20).

The Lord had offered to confirm Israel as His treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, set apart from all other nations on the earth – if they would obey Him fully and keep His covenant. The people all responded together: “We will do everything the Lord has said” (Ex 19:5,8). The covenant was later confirmed and so Shavuot is regarded as marking the birth of Judaism.

Shavuot Fulfilled

Yeshua gave Himself as the Passover Lamb and rose on the day when the first sheaf of the grain harvest was brought to the Lord. At Shavuot, seven weeks later, the Holy Spirit came suddenly on the gathered believers with the sound of a violent wind from heaven, what appeared to be tongues of fire and the ability to declare the wonders of God in the different languages of the crowd.

These were dramatic, supernatural events. Peter stood up to address his fellow Jews, explaining the significance of the events and their connection with the crucifixion of Yeshua just a few weeks before. The people were cut to the heart and 3,000 responded to Peter’s call for them to repent and be baptised. This was the birth of the ekklesia, the New Covenant community of believers (the ‘Church’).

Peter told them that they would receive the Holy Spirit, a promise that was for them, their children and all who were far off (Acts 2:39). This promise was fulfilled among Jews gathered in Jerusalem that Shavuot, but it would extend to the Gentiles, so that they too would be included in the covenant people of God.

A Chosen People

Through belief in Yeshua, the way is open for Jew and Gentile together to be the chosen people: a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. This is a great privilege and may also seem a daunting responsibility. We should live our lives as strangers here in reverent fear, having been born again through the living and enduring word of God (1 Pet 2:9, 1:17, 23). Yeshua is the Word of God to whom the Torah points and the Holy Spirit was sent to make it possible for us to live as a holy nation in the fear of God, with the Torah of God written upon our hearts.

Are we limited to a natural understanding of the events of this time and held back by a sense of our own inadequacy? Or are we living as strangers here in reverent fear, enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit to obey the word of the Lord?

Author: Catharine Pakington