As summer comes to a close I enter one of my favorite times of the year, fall. It’s this time of year we get to celebrate what has become a series of festivals that have become family favorites. These celebrations are the fall “Feasts of the Lord”. They are also known as the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. These are special times of anticipation and reflection because they are the only Biblical Feasts yet to be fulfilled by Jesus. Each of these feasts can be found described in the Old Testament of the Bible.
The Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanna, occurs in September or October and is the only Biblical feast not celebrating a historical event but points toward the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. It is the Jewish new year and we celebrate it by spending time together as a family, reflecting on what God has done for us, and end the day with the blowing of a trumpet, or Shofar.
This celebration is followed by the day of Atonement. This is a day we spend in prayer, reflection and often fasting. At the end of the day, we have a special meal together.
The last fall event we eagerly look forward to is the Feast of Tabernacles, also known as Sukkot. This is a week long autumn harvest festival and is a time we look forward to God “tabernacling” or living with his bride, the church. We celebrate this by having special meals with family and friends. We often have these in temporary shelters called “booths” or “sukkah” placed outside our home. These Feasts of the Lord have helped enrich our own understanding of what God has done in the past and what he will be doing in the future. They have been such a blessing to our family.
I hope that learning a little about them encourages you to investigate them more yourself.
Article Written By: Carla Waldemar
