The Fall Festivals, Part 3: Sukkot
Leviticus 23:1-2 1The LORD said to Moses, 2“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.
Leviticus 23:33-26 33The LORD said to Moses, 34“Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the LORD’s Festival of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. 35The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. 36For seven days present food offerings to the LORD, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the LORD. It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work.
Zechariah 14:16 16Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.
The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, is the last of the Fall Festivals coming five days after the Day of Atonement Yom Kippur. It is a Festival rich in history and deep in Messianic meaning. Another of the names of the Festival is the Feast of Ingathering indicating the agricultural harvest which occurs at this time of the year. Also the Festival commemorates the pilgrimage out of bondage in Egypt. The Israelites lived in temporary tabernacles called Sukkah (pl. Sukkot) during their 40 year travel to the Promised Land, and tradition dictates that modern Jews live in temporary Sukkah-like structures rather than their own homes for the seven days of the Festival.
But the Messianic meaning is even richer. At many places in the Word we see examples of God wanting to tabernacle, sukkah, with His people. He was walking in the Garden with Adam (Genesis 3:8-9), He tabernacled with the Israelites on their wilderness journey (Exodus 25-31, 35-40), and through the Holy Spirit He sukkahs now in the living flesh of our heart (1Corinthians 6:19). But beyond this desire of YHWH to be with His people, we must consider the whole point of Sukkot. After focusing on Yeshua as the soon-coming King returning to the earth to rule from Jerusalem at Yom Teruah, and then Yeshua as the judge that all humanity will appear before to give an account at Yom Kippur, we look at Sukkot as a picture of the Bridegroom Jesus returning to be with us His bride. God so wants to be with His people that He uses a wedding metaphor to describe His heart-felt desire to be with His people.
1You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. 2You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. 5You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.
19If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! 20They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? 22I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139)
Psalm 139 might be my most favorite Psalm because in it we are reminded that God is always with us no matter where we go or what we do, and that in fact God ‘knitted us together in my mother’s womb’. If God desires to be with us, what is our response to Him? Do we grudgingly respond or do we eagerly engage in those activities that will prepare us to receive Him? When we believers accepted Jesus as our Savior, God in the form of the Holy Spirit came to reside in our heart. We became living Sukkot! So beyond Psalm 139, we don’t have to go somewhere to find God, or change the way we live to find God, He is always here, in the most intimate way possible residing in our heart. But even though we don’t have to change the way we live, we may choose to change the way we live because in so doing we reflect the glory of the One in our heart.
19Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1Corinthians 6:19-20)
This is both glorious, wonderful news and sobering, serious news. The God of the universe loves me and loves you! How is that possible? After all, we know what we are like inside. But if God loves us then there must be something deep down in there worth loving, don’t you think? It also means that when we are in the midst of our sin, God is also there. Even after I became a believer I did some things that I’m now embarrassed about. So I try to live reflecting the glory and intimacy of the God Who sukkahs inside me. It’s the most honorable and loving way I can return the love already given me.