HAPPY FEAST OF TABERNACLES

Isaiah Chapter 9













Today we are walking in: Happy Feast Of Tabernacles










Today we look to the word-TABERNACLE- H4908 mishkan-- dwelling place, tabernacle















The Torah testifies...............




Numbers 16:9




Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself to do the service of the tabernacle H4908 of the LORD, and to stand before the congregation to minister unto them?











The prophets proclaim..................






Ezekiel 37:27




My tabernacle H4908 also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.










The writings bear witness...........................






Psalm 43:3




O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. H4908






Tishri 15: Happy Birthday Yahusha and the Feast of Tabernacles is open!




Sukkot is the last of the Biblical Feasts of the year (Moedim or Appointed Times) as instructed in the Torah. It is also the last of the pilgrimage festivals where every male was commanded to come before The Most High as in Passover (Pesach) and Pentecost (Shavuot). Still today many from all over the world come to Jerusalem to worship The Most High if Israel. The Feast of Tabernacles is (we can see it taking place today throughout the world but mainly in Israel) a very joyful celebration filled with love and fellowship. It is amazing how the entire city (am referring here specifically to Jerusalem) transforms as the makeshift huts start to appear in plazas, streets and balconies all over. Sukkot commemorates the time when the Glory of The Most High ‘tabernacled’ with His people in the wilderness for forty years. It was a time of joy and celebration right after the spiritual constriction of Yom Kippur; a time of happiness when The Most High had reconciled with His people and atoned for their sins. The Feast, besides has been a most jubilant event, is a prophetic image of the ushering of the Messianic Era. Zechariah 14 abounds on the prophecy of the Day of The Most High (literally Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey in the Tanach not Day of the Lord as it is translated); verses 16 to 19 go over the future fact that all nations will come to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. Basically by keeping the feast we are not only looking backwards to thank our Abba for His blessings but also rehearsing and preparing for the return of Messiah at the End Times.




Unfortunately for most citizens today this feast has no other significance than a mere reference to a tradition of the past (if even this); according to them unnecessary due to the death and resurrection of Yahusha who most affirm ended the keeping of the Torah for the formerly believers in the nations. Paradoxically, especially for Christians, this Feast should be of the outmost relevance since there is biblical evidence that our Savior, the Hebrew Messiah Yahusha was born on Tishri 15, at the head day of the Feast of Tabernacles. I was taught (and believed until recently) that no one knew the day Yahusha was born, that December 25th was a symbolic day chosen by the Church to celebrate the almost seen as mythical story of the nativity in the Gospels. Little did I know that not only December 25th is somberly associated with the pagan saturnalia and the birthday of major pagan false gods. The early Christian Church practiced paganism it is evident that due to the influence of the Roman emperors (mostly Constantine) and the internal need to accommodate the pagan celebrations, they compromised agreeing to syncretize the birth of Yahusha (allegedly not specified in the Gospels) with the known holidays of the Greco-Roman world. Yet the birth date of Yahusha can be traced back to the date as events unfold thanks to markers left by the Gospel writers. Those markers, so evident to me now, remained ignored until I decided to get myself up from the slumber and go back to the days of the original apostles in order to re-discover my faith.




The first chapter of Luke goes further backward in time than the other 3 Gospels writers to tell us about the parents of John the Baptist. Zacharias was a Priest “of the course of Abia”; Elizabeth his wife “was of the daughters of Aaron”. He goes on to say that “they were both righteous before The Most High, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Most High blameless”. Here is the first marker that synchronizes everything: the course of Abia or Aviyah. King David had organized the Temple service and subdivided the priests offices in 24 courses that would serve twice a year (I Chronicles 24:10); Aviyah was the eighth course of the priests. The cohenim (priests) of the first course of Yehoyariv began their service in the first week of the year, the first day of Nissan (first month of the year; the month of the Aviv barley when we celebrate Passover –March-April in the Gregorian calendar). Each course was to last from Sabbath to Sabbath (one week) in a way that in the Sabbath there were always two courses ministering concurrently. Zacharias’ course would come to serve on the seventh Sabbath from First Fruits (the Sunday after the following weekly Sabbath after the first day one of Passover) also the 49th day of the counting of the omer, meaning they will minister in the Temple on the fiftieth day, Shavuot (the word Pentecost derives from five -penta in Latin- or fifty). This was the day Zacharias was chosen, by casting lots, to offer incense on the altar in the Temple (cohenim were only supposed to do this once in their life time). Six months later, the course of Aviyah was back again to minister but this week did not fall on any of the major feasts (it was prior to the Feast of Hanukkah some time in November) so there was no reason to be such great crowds in the Temple as we see in Luke 1:10 and 1:22. During the Feast of Shavuot Zacharias was officiating in the Temple when the angel Gabriel appeared to him to announce the good news that they were going to have a son in spite of their old age. Luke 1:24 continues: “And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived (…)”. So we can easily corroborate that John the Baptist was conceived within two to three weeks after the new moon of the month of Sivan (May-June). Some theories synchronize the ovulation in women with the full moon (since we are talking about conception) which is the middle point between the new moon and the term of the waxing crescent, commonly around the fifteenth day of the month.




The second marker can be found at the moment when the angel Gabriel appears to Mary to announce the conception of Yahusha. Luke 1:26-27 reads: “And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from The Most High unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary”. The angel also declares to Mary: “36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.” This means the conception of Yahusha takes place six months later in the month of kislev (November-December). We must not be ignorant that our Heavenly Father sets His dates around His Moedim, His Appointed Times. I do not consider it then to be unreasonable to state Yahusha was conceived during Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Hanukkah was not a biblical feast but it was still vetted by the Father through the miracle of the oil for the lamps usually enough for a day lasting throughout the entire week. This miracle took place when the Feast was established for the first time after the rededication of the Temple by 165 BCE. Yahusha kept the Feast as well at the Temple (John 8:12) where He said: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”.




The rest is just pure simple counting. If Yahusha was conceived during the festival of Hanukkah around mid-December, forty weeks later, His birth would fall on Sukkot , and again going by the prophetic character of The Most High, Tishri 15 will be the target. Also the fact that Mary and Joseph received the baby in a ‘manger’, technically a Sukkah is confirmation that they were in the days of the Feast. The justification that the inn was full for a woman in labor is not a reason strong enough to give birth or to nurse a child in a hut; in fact Luke 2 does not say he was born in the manger, it reads: “7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn”. The reason why this took place is because the Messiah was to ‘tabernacle’ with men, the same way the Glory of The Most High did in the times of Moses. He was to level Himself with the Abba also establishing He had to humble down to the Majesty of The Most High as a testimony for His people. The reading and translations of today’s Christian world have mentally and spiritually fogged this amazing connection to the prophetic that Yahusha not only came to show us all but to display in front of our very eyes. Why choose to remain ignorant of this?




Just looking at this from the surface (there are more astrologically sustained and better calculated explanations for the Tishri 15 birth that can be consulted), I believe we have by far more indications and biblical pointers for a Tishri 15 birthday than the explicitly wrong December 25th. Since our current calendar is completely out of synchrony with the biblical calendar, His calendar, Tishri 15 will float a week or so from year to year in ours, a great inconvenience for retailers that must organize their sales and discounts around specific dates and can’t be waiting to verify if the new moon was sighted or if the barley was Aviv or not making the year shorter or longer. How are they going to have their advertisement ready for the shopping season! Our western mentalities have lost contact with the things that are at the Heart of the Abba, including the true character and personality of His Messiah, those things kept for generations by His people and honored as well by Yahusha when He walked the earth. We must recover the lost truth about our faith and stop repeating the same errors year after year as the Friday crucifixion and a two days later resurrection; when he clearly said it will be THREE DAYS with its nights. Not sure if it is we want to be ignorant or remain being fooled. I also understand such drastic corrections will throw any person’s life out of orbit all of a sudden but The Most High is patient and merciful. He gave us His only begotten Son and His Instructions, His perfect Torah, to guide us through the thicket. We just have to read the Gospels with a sincere desire for the truth and be aware we have been ‘snared’ (‘skandalisē’ commonly translated as ‘offended’ in the Gospels). Come out of the trap into the Truth. Pray to Yahusha to open the scriptures for you as He did for His disciples. Let us rejoice with the fact that the Light ‘tabernacled’ among us and those who are of the Light will follow Him in Spirit and in Truth.




Happy Birthday brother Yahusha!