Numbers: 28-30

What’s Happening?

The old generation is gone. The new generation has been counted, and talk of how to divide the Promised Land has already begun. And in the middle of all this counting of tribes and measuring of territory, Numbers suddenly turns to a long discourse about what sacrifices to offer on what days, at which festivals, and during each season of the year. Why here? Why now?

At the beginning of Numbers—right after the first generation was counted—God arranged Israel around himself spatially (Num 2:2). God’s tent was in the center, with the Levites and tribes encircling him. Their entire camp was ordered around holy space.

But once each tribe receives its own land in Canaan, the old spatial ordering will no longer be possible. They won’t all live around the tabernacle anymore. So how will Israel continue to orient themselves around God once they spread out across the Promised Land?

The answer is no longer holy space, but holy time.

Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly sacrifices and festivals will now shape Israel’s life with God. Their entire calendar is to be carved by remembrance—day by day, season by season—so that time itself becomes a sanctuary. The hope is that by continually remembering God’s saving work in the past, they will remain faithful in the present and not repeat their parents’ rebellion.

This long section about holy time concludes with a short word about vows (Num 30:2). Just like sacrifices, vows mark moments in time as holy. And the command is simple: vows made to God are sacred, and they must not be broken.

Where Is the Gospel?

All of Israel’s festivals, sacrifices, and vows were God’s way of teaching his people to inhabit holy time. The rhythms of their days and years were meant to orbit around what God had done for them. But as Paul says in Colossians, all these sacred times were “a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col 2:17). Holy days are good—but they are not the point. They point.

And when Jesus came, the substance finally arrived. His life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension became the new center of sacred time. Jesus himself is now the calendar around which the people of God are meant to revolve.

Every Christian practice becomes a doorway into this new holy time. When we come to the Lord’s Table, we step into the night he gave himself for us and anticipate the banquet he will host when he returns. When we gather weekly for worship, we rehearse the resurrection that happened on the first day of the week. When we observe a Sabbath, we live inside the rest he has already secured. When we pray, fast, or follow the seasons of the church year—Advent, Lent, Eastertide—we immerse our days and seasons in the story of Jesus.

Israel once looked backward to Passover, Sinai, and the wilderness to remember who they were. But we look to Jesus—the one event that fulfills every shadow, completes every festival, and centers every vow. He is the meaning behind all our remembering, the presence behind all our practices, and the reality we return to day after day.

In Jesus, time itself has become holy again. Every morning becomes an invitation to remember his mercy. Every week becomes a rehearsal of his victory. Every season becomes a chance to be shaped by his story. Jesus is our holy time—the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being.

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit gives you eyes to see the God who orders our lives not just in space but in time. And I pray you see Jesus as the substance behind every sacred rhythm—the one whose story reshapes our days, seasons, and years into holy time with him.