Leviticus 23-24

What’s Happening?

God has called his people and his priests to be holy, to be set apart, to live with him in a holy place where his presence dwells. Now, God makes time itself holy.

Israel’s calendar is filled with seven appointed feasts—set apart moments that create set apart time. These days are not simply holidays; they are holy days, times when the rhythm of creation and history are re-ordered around God’s saving work. Every day and every week are ordered around the Sabbath day, every seventh day. Each feast marks a different way God has brought life out of death, order out of chaos, and communion out of exile.

The feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread remember Israel’s deliverance from Egypt—the night they were joined to God in covenant and rescued from slavery. The lamb’s blood on their doors marked them as belonging to God, brought into his household. They ate with him and became his people.

The feast of Firstfruits celebrates the first green shoots of harvest, a promise that more life is coming. Offering the first fruits of the harvest to God is an act of thanksgiving, naming God as the provider of all they have. It is also an exercise in trust, believing that the God who provided the beginning of the harvest will bring the rest of it to completion.

The feast of Weeks, also known as Pentecost, comes fifty days later, when Israel gives thanks for the fullness of the harvest. Jewish tradition later linked this feast to the giving of the law at Sinai—the moment when God’s newly freed people received his word and became his covenant partners.

The festival of Trumpets makes the beginning of the Sabbath, or seventh, months. Trumpets would sound, ushering in the peace and rest meant to mark the holy people of God.

The Day of Atonement follows. On it, the priests prepare for the glory of God’s holy presence to fill the tabernacle. God removes the residue of sin so that his people and his dwelling can be made clean again, ready to receive his presence in the tabernacle’s most holy place.

Finally, the Feast of Booths gathers everyone under leafy tents, or tabernacles, to remember their wilderness journey, when God’s presence tabernacled with them. Living in these temporary tents, sometimes called booths, Israel rehearsed God’s faithfulness to sustain them through the wilderness.

Together, these feasts sanctify the year. They turn the passage of time into a rhythm of grace—a calendar of communion—so that Israel’s history, work, and rest all participate in God’s holiness.

Where Is the Gospel?

Jesus fulfills not only holy people and holy places, but also holy time. He entered the story of Israel at the very moment God appointed, to make all of human history in all times set apart for his rule and reign.

At Passover, Jesus shared a covenant meal with his disciples, giving all humanity access to a covenant meal with God. The bread and wine of that table became the sign of a new covenant, sealing God’s people to himself.

In fulfillment of the Feast of Firstfruits, Jesus rose from the dead—the first harvest of a renewed creation (1 Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection sanctified time itself, turning the flow of history toward resurrection life.

Fifty days after Passover, on the Feast of Weeks, God descended on his people as he did back on Mt. Sinai. God once gave the law on stone, defining his covenant people through external commands. But at Pentecost people are cut to the heart as God brings people into his covenant by writing his law internally within them. Holy time and holy people meet as the Spirit fills the church with divine presence, making them the location of God’s holy place.

As it did every seventh month, The Trumpet will sound again at Jesus’ return, calling creation to awaken as he completes his work of renewal (1 Corinthians 15:52). Then, at the final Booths festival, we will see that “the dwelling place of God is with humanity” (Revelation 21:3). What was once celebrated in palm-branch shelters will be eternal reality—the world itself becoming God’s tabernacle.

Through Jesus, time itself becomes sacred. Every moment becomes an opportunity to remember God’s faithfulness and anticipate his coming fullness. Jesus transforms not only where we meet God, but when—turning every breath and season into holy time.

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit would give you eyes to see the God who sanctifies not just people and places, but the very passage of time. And may you see Jesus as the one who entered history to make it holy, bringing all of humanity’s history and future under his rule and reign.