SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/18/2024 12:03 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Setting the Time”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:17-19
Message of the verses: “17 Now on the
first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked,
"Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?" 18 And
He said, "Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher
says, "My time is near; I am to keep the Passover at your house
with My disciples."’" 19 The disciples did as Jesus had directed
them; and they prepared the Passover.”
In the first paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary
he goes over a list of feasts that were on the Jewish calendar and gives a
short definition of them and so I thought that it would be a good idea to quote
this paragraph so that we all can understand these feasts a bit better. “The Jewish calendar was filled with
religious celebrations, many of them involving feasts. The feast of Pentecost, or of Weeks,
commemorated God’s provision at harvest time (see Ex. 23:16). It was that feast which the Jews were
celebrating in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit came upon believers and Peter
delivered his first sermon (Acts 2). The
feast of Tabernacles, or Booths, commemorated Israel’s wandering in the
wilderness for forty years, when they lived in temporary dwellings and were
dependent of God’s direct provision for food and water (lee Lev.
23:33-43). The Day of Atonement was the
highest holy day of the year, culminating in the once-a-year sacrifice offered
for sins in the Holy of Holies by the high priest. The blood of the sacrifice was then sprinkled
on the altar, symbolizing God’s provision of atonement for the sins of His
people (Lev. 23:27-32). The feast of
Purim celebrated the protection from slaughter of the Jewish exiles in Persia
through the intervention of Queen Ester (Ester 9:16-19). The feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah,
commemorated the victory of Judas Maccabeus over the Syrian despot Antiochus
Epiphanes and the restoration of Temple worship in 164 B.C. (see 1 Macc.
4:36-61).
“But
in many ways the feast of Passover, closely associated with the feast of
Unleavened Bread, was the central feast of the Jewish year. These two feasts combined to make an
eight-day celebration that began with the Passover. As reflected in Matthew 26:17, the two were
so closely connected in the minds of Jews that the feast of Unleavened Bread was
used as a comprehensive designation that included the Passover. The two names were, in fact, used
interchangeably to designate the entire eight day celebration. Technically, however, the Passover was
celebrated only the first day, the fourteenth of Nisan, and the feast of the Unleavened
Bread followed the fifteenth through the twenty-first of Nisan.”
4/18/2024 12:20 PM
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