The Word This Week
John 2:13…
After the conclusion of the wedding at Cana of Galilee, Jesus, His mother, and His disciples headed to Capernaum for a few days before heading up to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover Feast.
They would have been among the hundreds of thousands streaming up to Jerusalem for the holy days, which would have included the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of Firstfruits, all included over the course of seven days.
When we go back to the Book of Exodus and the Book of Leviticus to discover the origins of these feasts, which were to take in the spring of each year, we see great significance in what is taking place as a memorial to God’s care and provision for His chosen people as they had been delivered by God from slavery in Egypt. God had nurtured them and protected them in their desert wanderings, and then brought them into the Promised Land, where the people would then be blessed by God with the rain and climate conditions and fertile ground they would utilize to plant crops and enjoy a harvest of joy.
In going up to Jerusalem, as God had instructed, they were joining in with all those Jews who were memorializing the seismic, God-arranged events that took place 2500 years earlier. This had been the custom of the Jewish people for that long. For all they knew, all they were doing was looking back.
They had no reason to believe they were also looking forward.
Jesus knew.
Something had happened along the way over the course of the 2500 years since the inception of those feasts, designed by God specifically for the Israelites. They had become traditional. By tradition they had become rote. They had lost the essence of why the feasts had been given by God in the first place. This often happens with memorial events, and we are to guard our hearts from lapsing into the behavior evidenced by the Jews at the temple on this Passover.
Jesus would dramatically reawaken them to how far they ventured away from God’s intent for having all the Jews gather together for this week of celebration and commemoration.
In doing so He would place all their eyes upon Himself, to awaken them to possibility of a future fulfillment of the prophetic meaning of these three feasts which they had never considered.
Pastor Bill
After the conclusion of the wedding at Cana of Galilee, Jesus, His mother, and His disciples headed to Capernaum for a few days before heading up to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover Feast.
They would have been among the hundreds of thousands streaming up to Jerusalem for the holy days, which would have included the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of Firstfruits, all included over the course of seven days.
When we go back to the Book of Exodus and the Book of Leviticus to discover the origins of these feasts, which were to take in the spring of each year, we see great significance in what is taking place as a memorial to God’s care and provision for His chosen people as they had been delivered by God from slavery in Egypt. God had nurtured them and protected them in their desert wanderings, and then brought them into the Promised Land, where the people would then be blessed by God with the rain and climate conditions and fertile ground they would utilize to plant crops and enjoy a harvest of joy.
In going up to Jerusalem, as God had instructed, they were joining in with all those Jews who were memorializing the seismic, God-arranged events that took place 2500 years earlier. This had been the custom of the Jewish people for that long. For all they knew, all they were doing was looking back.
They had no reason to believe they were also looking forward.
Jesus knew.
Something had happened along the way over the course of the 2500 years since the inception of those feasts, designed by God specifically for the Israelites. They had become traditional. By tradition they had become rote. They had lost the essence of why the feasts had been given by God in the first place. This often happens with memorial events, and we are to guard our hearts from lapsing into the behavior evidenced by the Jews at the temple on this Passover.
Jesus would dramatically reawaken them to how far they ventured away from God’s intent for having all the Jews gather together for this week of celebration and commemoration.
In doing so He would place all their eyes upon Himself, to awaken them to possibility of a future fulfillment of the prophetic meaning of these three feasts which they had never considered.
Pastor Bill