Shavuot the Jewish feast of seven weeks in Greek is known as Pentecost as it is a count of 50 days after Pesach (Passover). Pentecost may speak of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to a Christian, but do we understand that the gift was given to reward thankfulness? The half-glass of life was over-flowing for the Apostles!
At the time of Shavuot when the Apostles went to the Temple in Jerusalem, after counting 50 days from the first harvest after their Lord's death and resurrection at Pesach, they had much more to be thankful for than others. We also may be thankful with their thankfulness - as we have in our hands and minds the words of God that resulted from the Holy Spirit being poured out that day.
Overflowing Blessings
For the servant of the living God, there is no complaining regarding the glass of life being half full. The true servant, like Solomon, can see all the things lacking and the crooked things that can't be made straight (Ecc 1:15, 7.13), but like King David in his famous song Psalm 23, we see our own life is full of blessings to be thankful for.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. (Psalm 23:3-6)
King David says because he walked with God his cup of life is not only half full, but it is overflowing with blessings. As the sheep of the Creator's pasture, we come before Him with heartfelt thanks and praise.
Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. (Psalm 100:2-5)
Not only are we thankful, we seek to go into the presence of our Maker. Three times a year all Israel were to come to the place our Creator (Maker) chose to put his name (Deut 12:5,21) for the redemption of Peasch (Passover), the thankfulness for the blessings of the land of Shavuot (Pentecost), and for the dwelling with God of Sukkot (Tabernacles). The Creator's name in Hebrew is Yahweh Elohim which translates as He who will be Mighty Ones. The Name of God was placed at Salem (peace) in the time of Mechizedek the king priest of the Most High God (Genesis 14). After David conquers Jerusalem, the place of peace flowing down, once again Jerusalem returns to be the place of the Name. For now none can go physically to the place of the Name, as it is desolate still, but we can seek first the Kingdom of God in the Restoration.
The real Shavuot
Some Christians who seek to understand the thankfulness of Shavuot and the outpouring the Holy Spirit may consult Jewish practice, but the Jewish sages have added much tradition to the simplicity. The beginning of the feast of thankfulness was entwined with the first commandments to Israel.
Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year. (Exodus 34:21-24)
The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. (Exodus 34:26-28)
The feast of thankfulness for the first harvest is mentioned after the rest of the Sabbath, and in context of the blessing of peace given to the land of Israel. The peaceful rest of the feast of thanksgiving was a rest of rejoicing for all including the servants (who were not slaves, as they were freed in the seventh year of release) and the stranger. The offering of thanks of the good of firstfruits and harvest is in the context of the end of slavery in an idolatrous country, which they were not to forget. The rejoicing of the Apostles at Pentecost was about deliverance.
Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the LORD thy God, according as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee: And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the LORD thy God hath chosen to place his name there. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes. (Deuteronomy 16:9-12)
The curious feature is the command to count of seven weeks not from Pesach, but from the time of harvest. What does counting to a time of thankfulness in rejoicing teach us? Patience of waiting. Patience as a perfect work (James 1:4). As James says we are to be patient unto the coming of the Lords, as a husbandman wait for the fruit of the earth, until the early and latter rain (James 5:7). It is perhaps therefore no accident that the count to Messiah was also to include seven weeks in the book of Daniel.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. (Dan 9:25)
Pentecost in context
When the Apostles came to the Temple in Jerusalem having counted the seven weeks, bringing their firstfruits, they were in expectation of a great gift.
And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:4-6)
The expectation of the gift of the Holy Spirit led to the question regarding restoration of the kingdom. There could be no doubt that that expectation was there on the day on Pentecost in Jerusalem at the temple, as it is every day of our lives, as we too wait now for the restoration of the place that Yahweh Elohim chose to put His Name. One thing we may not consider was that the Apostles would not have come empty- they came bearing gifts as the Creator and Maker had given them!
Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty: Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee. (Deuteronomy 16:16-17)
As the Apostles gave of the blessings they had been given of the harvest of the land, the over flowing cup, they remembered where they had come from and their fathers' deliverance to the Promised Land – and that Yahweh Elohim heard “our voice” and delivered from bondage by miracles.
And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein; That thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name there.
And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, “I profess this day unto the LORD thy God, that I am come unto the country which the LORD sware unto our fathers for to give us.” And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the LORD thy God.
And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: And when we cried unto the LORD God of our fathers, the LORD heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which thou, O LORD, hast given me.”
And thou shalt set it before the LORD thy God, and worship before the LORD thy God: And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the LORD thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you. (Deuteronomy 26:1-11)
The sweet savour of the offerings
Consider all of what the Apostles were thinking and doing when making their offerings of thanks, and also the smell of the burnt offerings of atonement made that day of Pentecost! Numbers lists the offerings made that day of thankfulness and that the burnt offerings are a sweet savour.
Also in the day of the firstfruits, when ye bring a new meat offering unto the LORD, after your weeks be out, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: But ye shall offer the burnt offering for a sweet savour unto the LORD; two young bullocks, one ram, seven lambs of the first year; And their meat offering of flour mingled with oil, three tenth deals unto one bullock, two tenth deals unto one ram, A several tenth deal unto one lamb, throughout the seven lambs; And one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for you. Ye shall offer them beside the continual burnt offering, and his meat offering, (they shall be unto you without blemish) and their drink offerings. (Numbers 28:26-31)
Are we Thankful to God for Rain and Harvest?
One of the issues of Israel's lapse into unfaithfulness that made our Maker and Creator unhappy was that they were not thankful for rain and did not count the days to the God given blessing of the harvest.
But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you. (Jeremiah 5:23-25)
For those servants who thank God for rain and harvest, their cup is full and overflowing – for those of the world who have no thankfulness in their hearts to their maker – their cup is at least half empty as indeed the overflowing blessing of good things are withholden from them.
Prefiguring the Restoration of the land of the Kingdom
At the day of the blessing with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit of the Apostles in their thankfulness, Peter quotes Joel 3 to explain the phenomena.
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. (Joel 2:25-29)
Once again we see that the blessing from the Creator is the blessing of the good from the land that is remembered and given thanks for at Shavuot! Joel 3 is about a Harvest in Judgement. Shavuot is the feast of the harvest of the faithful, the gathering of the good wheat. Our Lord said his Disciples were labourers to harvest the faithful who are like good white wheat (Luke 10:2, John 4:35). The But there is more. Peter goes on to quote the next portion of Joel's prophecy.
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call. (Joel 2:32)
Just as those who bless God and are thankful are blessed by God so their cup is overflowing. As our Lord said, 'Give and it shall be given to you' (Luke 6:37). So those that call on the name of Yahweh Elohim for deliverance in this age are the remnant that are called to be delivered in Mt Zion for the eternal deliverance.
People from all places were first called to salvation in Christ in the Name of Yahweh Elohim at Pentecost, in their own language.Since that time in the absence of the Temple there is no place to take an offering with thanks, to give as we are able of the blessing of the cup that runs over that is given to the faithful. However instead of the thanks being given once a year after counting seven weeks at the Temple, we may give thanks continually, in Christ in the form of praise to the Name of God, which is His plan and purpose in Christ in those called.
We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (Hebrews 13:10-13,14-15)
The gathering of a people who offer thanks as a sacrifice of praise from their heart is to prepare for the time when the greater Temple, the house of prayer for all nations, is built in Jerusalem, and all are gathered to rejoice for the goodness given of a fruitful blessed earth.
Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. (Isaiah 56:6-7)
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