Note: This sermon was a joint presentation by both of our Pastors.
Pat:
On this morning when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we’re going to continue with a journey that we began last week back to our Jewish roots with a look at the seven Feasts, or festivals that were prescribed by God in the Old Testament as a picture of the Messiah, Jesus. Last week, we began by looking at the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread and we discovered that Jesus fulfilled those feasts completely and exactly.
He came into Jerusalem on the very day the Passover lambs were set aside for slaughter, was nailed to the cross at the exact time the Passover lambs were being prepared for slaughter in the Temple, and then died at the exact moment the lambs were being slain in the Temple. He was then buried at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. At that time, he took our leaven, our sin, upon Himself and carried it to the grave.
This morning, we’ll look at the third of these feasts, the Feast of Firstfruits. Once again, Pastor Dana is going to provide you with some of the historical information on the feast and then I’ll discuss how Jesus fulfilled the feast and the implications for us.
Dana:
The instructions for observing the Feast of Firstfruits is found in Leviticus, chapter 23. This passage immediately follows the passage we looked at last week that set forth the instructions for the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread.
9 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 "Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, ’When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. 11 ’And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 ’Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without defect for a burnt offering to the LORD. 13 ’Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to the LORD for a soothing aroma, with its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine. 14 ’Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.
Leviticus 23:9-14 (NASB)
We need to briefly place this Feast in its proper context. In Israel, grains were planted in the fall. They germinated in the ground through the winter, shot up as soon as the weather got warm, and ripened in the spring, barley first and then wheat. The stalks were cut and stacked in sheaves for the harvesters to collect for thrashing. But harvesting or eating any of the grain was not permitted until a single sheaf was brought to the priests at sunrise on the first day following a particular Sabbath after Passover.". This day was called the Feast of First Fruits.
Each Israelite who possessed a harvest observed the feast by bringing a single sheaf from the firstfruits of the barley harvest to the priest, who would then wave it before the Lord. This wave offering was prescribed by God as a symbol that God would ensure that the remainder of the harvest would be realized in the days that followed.
The whole concept of the firstfruits is very closely related to that of the firstborn. Both of these concepts were well known to the Jews and we find them consistently throughout the Bible. The first fruits were always the choicest, the foremost, the first, the best, the preeminent of all that was to follow. They were holy to the Lord and so they were to be set aside and presented as the firstfruits to Him. And so we find in the Bible that the firstborn of all men and animals as well as the firstfruits of all that was produced from the land were to be consecrated to God.
There are three main principles associated with the Feast of Firstfruits:
• The offering of the very best
As we’ve already discussed briefly, the whole concept of the firstfruits is that it is not only the first, it is the very best. When the farmer went out to cut the single sheaf that was to be presented before the Lord, he took great care to make sure that it was the very best from among his crops.
• The promise of a future harvest
When the offering of the firstfruits of the crop was made to God, it represented a prayer to Him to watch over the future harvest that was about to commence. One of the main aspects of the Feast of Firstfruits is that it anticipated the future harvest that was represented by the single sheaf that was brought before the Lord as an offering.
• The making holy of the whole
The sheaf that was brought as an offering to the Lord represented the entire crop. By offering that portion to the Lord, it set aside the entire harvest as being consecrated to the Lord and thus made it holy.
When the Temple was still standing, the ancient observance of this feast was quite an elaborate ceremony that took place after sunrise on the prescribed date for the feast. The Talmud states that a group of Jewish pilgrims, carrying their offerings of the firstfruits, would be met at the edge of the city by a priest, who would then lead them in a joyful procession, with music, songs of praise and dance, up to the Temple mount. As the group of worshipers arrived at the Temple compound, the priest would take the sheaves, lift some in the air and wave them in every direction. This was a symbolic acknowledgement by the whole crowd of God’s provision and sovereignty over all the earth.
Since the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, the wave offering by the priest in the Temple can no longer take place. Today, the primary activities are reading of prayers and blessings from the Siddur, a Jewish prayer book and reflecting on the symbolic meaning of the day. It is also the beginning of the count up to the Feast of Weeks, which occurs 49 days later.
Pat:
There can be absolutely no doubt that Jesus fulfilled the Feast of Firstfruits through His resurrection. The apostle Paul very clearly links the resurrection of Jesus to the Feast of Firstfruits:
20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming,
1 Corinthians 15:20-23 (NASB)
In order to see how Jesus fulfilled the Feast of Firstfruits through His resurrection, let’s briefly review some of what we discussed last week. Remember that Jesus was crucified on the Passover on the 14th of Nisan and then buried on the 15th of Nisan at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We also know from Jesus’ own testimony that he would remain in the tomb for three days and nights:
for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:40 (NASB)
A lot of Bible commentators have come up with all kinds of gyrations to show how the traditional teaching of a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday morning resurrection could fit the three days and three nights that Jesus clearly taught. But frankly, it seems much better to just take the plain reading of Scripture here and adjust our thinking to it rather than trying to twist it to fit our own thinking.
Let’s begin with the facts we know:
• Jesus was crucified on Passover – the 14th of Nisan
• He was in the tomb at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread just after sunset on the 15th of Nisan.
Therefore we can easily calculate when His resurrection occurred:
• Nisan 15 – one night and one day
• Nisan 16 – one night and one day
• Nisan 17 – one night and one day
Therefore the resurrection had to have occurred after sunset on the 17th of Nisan, which would be the 18th of Nisan. This is also confirmed by other information in the gospels.
For instance, Luke records this information regarding the women coming to the tomb:
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared.
Luke 24:1 (NASB)
There are a couple of reasons that the women don’t come to the tomb with the spices until that morning. First, according to the rabbis, a body was not considered to be dead until after the third day of death. Since they didn’t have all the medical technology that we do today to make sure a person was really dead, the rabbis taught that the soul hovered near the body for three days, but that after that there was no hope of resuscitation. It was only after that that the body of the dead person would be treated by the women of the family with spices and oils to prepare it for final burial. So since the three days had passed the women were now coming to the grave to prepare Jesus’ body for its final burial.
The second reason that the women waited to come to the tomb is that there were two Sabbaths that had occurred after Jesus’ crucifixion. The first was the High Sabbath of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the second was the normal weekly Sabbath that had occurred the day before. This is confirmed by Matthew’s account:
Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.
Matthew 28:1 (NASB)
For some reason, none of our major English translations accurately translate the word “Sabbath” in this passage, since in the Greek it is clearly in a plural form. So it should be translated “Now after the Sabbaths…” – a clear reference to the two Sabbaths – one on the 15th of Nisan and the other on the 17th of Nisan.
And as the women came to the tomb that morning, on the 18th of Nisan at the very time when the priests would have been making the wave offering of the Feast of Firstfruits, Jesus was no longer in the grave. He had risen from the dead! He became our firstfruits. And in doing so, he fulfilled all three aspects of the Feast:
• The offering of the very best
By offering Himself up on the cross and then arising from the grave, Jesus did what no other offerings could do.
For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering
Romans 8:3 (NASB)
As our firstfruits, Jesus was offering Himself up as the very best possible offering. Unlike the blood of animals or the waving of a grain offering, His sacrifice paid the penalty of our sin permanently.
• The promise of a future harvest
We can see this clearly if we go back to our passage from 1 Corinthians once again:
20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming,
1 Corinthians 15:20-23 (NASB)
The fact that Jesus arose from the grave is our guarantee that one day all who have placed their faith and trust in Him will also experience resurrection. Jesus is the firstfruits that provides a promise of a future harvest of all those souls.
• The making holy of the whole
As our firstfruits, Jesus is our representative before God and therefore He has made us holy before God.
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 (NASB)
Because of our association with Jesus, we are positionally holy before God in much the same way that the entire harvest was represented and made holy by that single sheaf of barley that was waved before God.
Once again this is all exciting information, but the important question remains. What does all this mean for me?
Let me first speak to those of you who have never committed your life to Jesus Christ. Over the past two weeks we have presented incontrovertible evidence that the Messiah, Jesus died on the cross, was buried and then rose from the grave to fulfill the Old Testament feasts that God had ordained thousands of years earlier. And for those who choose to trust in Him, Jesus is the firstfruits. He is the very best that God had to offer because he offered Himself. He is the guarantee of future resurrection. And He is the one who has the ability to make you holy before God. He has done everything that He can do to make all those things possible for you.
But he has reserved all those benefits for those who choose to believe in Him and trust in Him alone. If you’ve never done that, we invite you to make that decision today. If that is something that you would like to do or if you are just interested in finding out more about what that involves, then just check the box on the Care Card portion of your bulletin and either hand it to Dana or me after the service or place it in the offering plate.
For those if us who have already made that commitment there are a couple of significant implications for us as well.
You’ll remember that last week we talked about how the Feast of Unleavened Bread was symbolic of how Israel was to be separate from and different than Egypt. For us, it is a picture of the fact that we, too, are to be separate and different from the world. As new creations, we are to put off the old.
But putting off the old is not enough. We must also put on the new. That’s what the Feast of Firstfruits should signify in our lives. In the same way that Israel set aside their harvest and consecrated it to God, we need to do the same. Perhaps you remember this relevant passage from our study in Ephesians:
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:21-24 (NIV)
The resurrection of Jesus should be a reminder to us that we have been freed from our former way of life and that we need to daily put on the new self, which requires a constant consecration of our lives to God.
But there is a second, and equally important implication for us as followers of Jesus. We find that second principle in James:
In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures.
James 1:18 (NASB)
Just as Jesus is our firstfruits, we are to be a form of firstfruits in the lives of others. In other words, we have a responsibility to share this good news with those who have not yet committed their lives to Jesus so that we might be used by God as the firstfruits in perpetuating the word of truth.
