Fall Feasts:

1. The Festival of Trumpets
2. The Day of Atonement
3. The Festival of Tabernacles
   

Spring Feasts:

1. The Feast of Passover & Unleavened Bread
2. The Feast of First-fruits
3. The Feast of Weeks / Pentecost

“‘From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the Lord. Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the Lord, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings—a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. Then sacrifice one male goat for a sin offering and two lambs, each a year old, for a fellowship offering. The priest is to wave the two lambs before the Lord as a wave offering, together with the bread of the firstfruits. They are a sacred offering to the Lord for the priest. On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and do no regular work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.
“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.’”
Leviticus 23:15-22

Why two loaves?

‍The two loaves represent the Jews & Gentiles.

Why leaven?‍

Jesus took on our sin.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21

Leaven is an expanding agent.

Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.
Luke 13:20-21

The shadow of the feast of weeks is filled out by Jesus.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”
Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
Acts 2:1-12

Bottom Line

Jesus fulfills pentecost by giving the first-fruits of the Holy Spirit to the church as one new humanity.

We are living in an increasingly polarized and divided world.

Our unity in Jesus is to trump everything else that divides people.

Action Steps

Pray: Create some space to prayerfully reflect on the following:

• Is my commitment to Jesus truly more important than everything else?
• Is there someone or a group of people that I have a hard time loving?
• How often to I pray that God would fill me with the Holy Spirit?
• How do I practice keeping in step with the Spirit each day?
  

Practice:

1. When you put your shoes on each day, pray that God will fill you with the Holy Spirit and help you to keep in step with the Spirit throughout the day.
2. Identify someone you have hard time loving and practice seeing them through the lens of Jesus.