Feast of Harvest/Pentecost Will be Celebrated Beginning Tonight

God gave us two of His most priceless gifts on this day: The Torah (His Holy Word) and the Holy Spirit. We need both—the Truth of God’s Word AND the Holy Spirit. But it is the Spirit that gives us the grace to live out that Truth in our daily lives.

Feast of Weeks marks the summer harvest or the wheat harvest. A Wave Offering was given of two leavened loaves of wheat before the Lord. It is a day to give thanksgiving for God’s ONGOING provision for His people. A Burnt Offering of 7 lambs, one bull, 2 rams, grain, oil, wine, a Sin Offering of a male goat, a Peace Offering of 2 male lambs were also part of Shavuot.

Feast of Harvest is 50 days after First Fruits (seven weeks/Sabbaths plus one day after Day of First Fruits) lasts one day. It is the only Feast that does not have a specific date attached to it, but you must count it down from Passover. The Jews call this “counting the Omer.” The counting begins with the wave offering of barley at Passover and continues for 49 days until the wheat offering on Shavuot.Historical –

According to Rabbinic tradition, Moses and the people received the Torah or Law at Mt. Sinai on this day.

This is also the same day that God poured out the Holy Spirit on His followers and united believers into the church referred to in Acts 2. Instead of the priest waving sheaves before the Lord (as was done at Passover), he waved together two loaves of bread baked with leaven, which were brought to the Temple. This unity of the Jews and Gentiles is illustrated by the two leavened loaves waved together.

Believers were empowered that day to live a holy, Spirit-led life and be His witnesses – in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth!

They also made animal sacrifices as an offering to the Lord. No work was to be done on this day. This event would have marked the end of the wheat harvest and the Jews were commanded to remember the poor as they harvested the grain God had generously given them. They were reminded to leave the corners of the field for the poor and alien to glean. The traditional Scripture reading for Shavuot is the Book of Ruth, who gleaned in the fields of Boaz.

On Pentecost (the same day as Shavuot), Israel saw an amazing reversal. After receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, 3,000 souls perished because of the sin of the golden calf (Exodus 32:28). On this same date, all those years later, this same number of souls were saved after the Holy Spirit was poured out! About 3,000 people were added to the community of believers on Pentecost (Acts 2:41). The Spirit of God reversed the destruction caused by the sin of man!

 The promise of the Holy Spirit, the mystery of the Church: Jews/Gentiles in one body