It is a time of great joy! Doesn’t it feel like we need it? The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, starts this week and God commands rejoicing at this feast more than any other. In fact, the direction occurs three times, an important number. This great time of rejoicing follows the most somber day of the year, the Day of Atonement, by only a few days.
During this time of celebration the Jewish people are instructed to live in temporary shelters, or sukkot. These shelters remind them of two important things, their wilderness experience and God’s provision of the harvest.
After God rescued them from slavery, God protected and provided for His people as He guided them through the wilderness to their future home. I don’t know about you, but that kind of sounds like my life. God rescued and redeemed me and now provides and cares for me as I head toward the Promised Land.
It is also a reminder to celebrate the harvest. God has continued to provide in their new land and it is a time to bless God, similar to our Thanksgiving holiday.
God said to build temporary shelters and live in them during this festival week. They recall their wilderness wanderings as well as their time in the fields during harvest season.
There is a water drawing ceremony that was added by the priests long after God’s original instructions. The rabbis say that you don’t know joy until you’ve seen the water drawing ceremony. Interestingly, I could find no reason written why it is so joyful. But it is during this ceremony that Jesus stood and declared that He is the Living Water. I find that a great reason to rejoice and bless God. We can come to Him and be filled.
One other picture that the rabbis draw is the command to rejoice inside the shelter. They believe that the structure itself draws us together and is a picture of unity. You are to invite the stranger, the foreigner, the widow and orphan as well as your family and neighbors. It’s a time to come together to celebrate.
There is so much to celebrate. But I am convicted that He has to command – 3 times no less – to rejoice. I get so caught up in the events around me that I actually need to be ordered to stop and rejoice. Lord, forgive me. Your provision is enough.
Do you need to be reminded to celebrate God? What pictures help you?
You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful. Deuteronomy 16:14-15
