9.19.26 – 3 Words to Focus On, Part 1
Malchuyot (The King), Zichronot (Remember), Shofarot (Shofar)!
The High Holy Days are here (Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles). It is an exciting time, but many do not know much about them. Yom Teruah (the Day of Trumpets) is also known as the Day of Judgment. Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is also known as the Day of Repentance and the Day of Coverings. Chag Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) celebrates a wedding and much more.
And though Trumpets is officially over, let us focus again on Trumpets to carry us to our covering and wedding feast! If we read through medieval poetry, we hear about angels trembling, God sifting through all of our deeds from the past year, and inscribing us in one of two books. Scary times!
Trumpets, culminating on the Day of Atonement, is a Yom HaDin (Day of Judgment)—but where does that idea come from? Scripture does not come right out and say it, so why is it called Yom HaDin? Is it just Jewish tradition, or is there something more to this idea? The Mishnah states, and is reiterated by Yeshua and Paul, that every individual will pass under the rod of the shepherd at this time to give an account of their life (Matt. 16:27; 2 Cor. 5:10).
Many Christians have never been taught to celebrate the fall feasts of the Lord (Lev. 23), but for those who do, it is a day of prayer and celebration. First, let us talk about prayer. If you were going to write prayers for this day of "judgment," what would you "pen"? If it were me, I would start by bargaining for my life! "Dear God, I promise that I will do... if You will spare my life!" I want so many things in life: health, happiness, good living, a soul mate—I want all these things and more. So, if You will grant me these, I will be really good. I will not gossip (Lashon Hara) from 7–8:00 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month (lol)... it is my New Year's resolution.
I would add a lawyering section of repentance if the first prayers do not work, hoping He would show mercy! But in actuality, none of the Rosh Hashanah prayers speak of bargaining or lawyering—not even repentance or forgiveness. So why call it a day of judgment? Yom Kippur has these themes, but why at Yom Teruah? Now, before you start judging my humor, stop and consider how often we do this silly behavior toward our Creator :-).
Let us go back to Scripture to get our answers! How does the Bible characterize this day? We have one example given to us in Nehemiah 8.
The setting: Judah is coming back to the land after a seventy-year exile imposed on them by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia. Seventy years before this, the Temple had been destroyed, but now a few of the first pioneers are coming back to the land of Israel with Ezra and Nehemiah in an attempt to build the Second Temple.
Grab your Bible or Tanakh and turn to Nehemiah 8:1, where it describes the first day of the seventh month, commonly known as Tishrei.
The people all came together as one man...
to the street...
that was in front of the Water Gate (not President Nixon!).
The Torah scroll was brought to Ezra and read publicly from dawn till noon.
Then the people began to cry, because they recognized that they had not kept God's instructions/Torah well at all.
That sounds great—the people are remorseful! How did Ezra and Nehemiah respond? Not as I would expect.
"Today is a holy day! Do not cry! Go home. Make yourself delicious food (milkshakes, sweet drinks), send gifts to friends, celebrate. It is a holy day to God! Do not be sad! It is a day of delight, where the joy of the Lord is your strength!" Huh? Does that not sound like a dreaded day of judgment, does it?
With a thorough job of Scripture study, which we will not do here, there are three themes associated with Yom Teruah/Rosh Hashanah/Day of Trumpets: Malchiyot (God's Kingship—crowning the King); Zichronot (the day of remembrance); and Shofarot (referencing the shofar).
How are these themes related to a day of judgment? As always, go back to your foundation—the first five books.
In Leviticus 23:24, we have a description of remembering the shofar (zichron teruah), remembering the cry of the shofar. What does this mean? Remembering the cry of the shofar? If it is a day of judgment, just tell me—but zichron teruah? What event prior to Yom Teruah reminds us of the shofar blast?
Ahh yes—it was at Mount Sinai, when God revealed Himself in a cloud of glory to His holy nation, to speak with them. From the heavens He made His voice heard, and He revealed Himself in the thick, dark clouds, and the whole world trembled before Him when You, the King, were revealed on Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:14–24, note v. 19).
Why is remembering the shofar so important on Yom Teruah?
There is an oxymoron in this passage. How can God reveal Himself in a thick, dark cloud? Later in Deuteronomy, we have the same description. In a dark, thick cloud, you cannot see anything! Why was it cloudy and dark?
BTW: For further discussion, this is the fifth biblical holiday, connected to the fifth day of creation, which is chiastically connected to day three on the Menorah, the church of Sardis, the hidden day that no man knows in Yeshua's Matthew 24 speech, and Paul's statement regarding the gathering of His people at the second coming (1 Thess. 4:14–5:6)... now back to our regularly scheduled program :-)
At Sinai, Moses reminds them that they did not see anything. There was no vision. There was no picture—only God's voice of the shofar that grew louder and louder.
Eventually that voice coalesced into words, and you heard the Ten Words, also known as the Ten Commandments—but before that, it was the voice of the shofar getting louder and louder (Ex. 19:19).
Why would God not allow our medium of sight to take in His presence (2 Cor. 5:7; Rom. 10:17)? You see, sight is a sense by which human beings directly encounter something; when you see X, you perceive X directly. Fragile human beings cannot have that direct experience with the Almighty in this world—they do not last. As God reminded Moses, men cannot see Me and live! They can only hear My voice.
When you hear something that comes from X, you do not perceive X directly—you hear an emanation from X—but hearing is still a genuine encounter.
There is something about a voice that stirs up old memories. When you hear a song from childhood that you have not heard in thirty years, does it not transport you back to those earlier moments in your life? It feels like you are back there. When an old friend you have not seen in thirty years unexpectedly comes back into your life, and even before you see him calls out to you, the words do not even matter—the voice, you recognize the voice.
And if we want to trace His voice even further back, we can go all the way back to the garden, when God's voice was strolling through the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8).
Picture the scene. If you were Adam and his ezer kenegdo, you have just sinned, you are hiding, you are scared—and then you heard God from afar, and it seemed like the voice was getting louder because He was coming closer, so you hid.
But now go to Sinai—it seems like it is the same scene somehow. It is no longer a garden, it is a mountain, and the people were afraid and standing from afar. But it was a good kind of fear; it was awe in the face of the Almighty. And here they were, hearing the voice once again.
In the words of Genesis 3:8: kol ha'shofar holech v'chazeik—the voice was holech, as if it was strolling, as if it was walking. It was going, and it was getting louder and louder, just as it once did in Eden.
Our collective memories were awakened that day, and now every year we have Yom Zichron Teruah—a day of remembering the voice. When we hear the shofar, it takes us back; it stirs something in our collective human souls. We know that voice. It was the moment we made contact. It is the moment that changed everything for us. After that moment, we could never be the same.
How is your listening? Are you hearing? Remembering? Moving forward with His presence?
Shabbat Shalom!
Alan
9:00 a.m. EST WhatsApp Shabbat conference call (816-772-2183)
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