The political climate in our country has so many people wondering can things get any worse. For those of us who believe in God and the Bible we know in fact things can and will get worse.
Those familiar with the Jewish prophets and the book of Revelation, know that things will get much worse. But both the Older and Newer Covenants teach us that it’s all unfolding according to God’s will.
God gave Israel Holy Days to be reminded at those appointed times, that God’s sovereign hand is over His creation. He is Lord and His will, will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
This evening we are considering the feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot which is the last of the seven annual appointed times that God gave Israel. It was a Biblically mandated day of thanksgiving and remembrance for God’s Chosen People.
God knows that His children need times for revival; to take our eyes off what is around us and to bring His joy and peace in the midst of sorrow and trials, To give us wisdom to understand the times. Tabernacles was given to do just that.
Sukkot was the last of the three pilgrim feasts. Everyone left their homes throughout the land of Israel and came to Jerusalem. It was a time of great joy because they were rejoicing in the harvest.
We get a glimpse the joy associated with that in Luke 2:41 ff. Luke 2:41–52 describes Mary and Joseph taking twelve-year-old Jesus to Jerusalem for the annual Feast of Passover.
Going up to Jerusalem for the pilgrim feasts was a joyful occasion of worship and fellowship, as reflected in the words, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD” (Psalm 122:1). Families traveled in companies of relatives and acquaintances, providing companionship and a measure of safety along the journey. This helps explain why Mary and Joseph could travel a day before realizing Jesus was missing:
Luke specifically says they supposed He was among their traveling company and began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances.
Their assumption reflects the trust they had traveling together. When they couldn’t find Him, they returned anxiously to Jerusalem, where they discovered Him in the temple, listening to the teachers and asking questions.
This evening let’s consider three aspects of Tabernacles. One from Torah and two from the New Covenant. Here we learn how God can give us peace when we fix our eyes on Him despite our circumstances.
I. The building of Booths
In Lev. 23:42 we read that Israel was to dwell in booths. The Talmud teaches that a booth must have at least three walls and a roof of branches. Today, bamboo coverings are often used.
The roof must provide shade while allowing some light through. These booths were to be their dwelling places during the 8 days of sukkot. If you go through Jewish neighborhoods in Rogers Park you might see some on terraces or on front lawns.
V. 43 tells us why we were to dwell in these booths. that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
- In a Sukkah we leave a secure permanent dwelling for a less than stable one.
It was to help God’s people remember their start as a nation in the wilderness. To remember that our fathers were exposed to elements beyond their control: serpents, unpredictable weather, unreliable water and food.
Those Tabernacles were the classroom of faith – wheres trust in God is built. Paul likely had the Sukkah in mind when he likened our bodies to a tent to remind us that our lives are in temporary dwellings.
2 Cor. 5:1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
- Another lesson while dwelling in a Sukkah is to speak to the rich and powerful: “don’t rely on your wealth and influence it is transitory.”
It can leave you more quickly than it came. Even in a mansion you are no more secure than in a Sukkah. God is the one who protects and judges. Who defends and removes defenses.
If you’re safe, it’s because God shelters you as our fathers were sheltered in the wilderness. The sky we see by day and the stars by night are to help us remember that our lives need to be built on the sure foundation of Faith in God and His Word.
- To the Poor and Downtrodden the Sukkah says “Are you more helpless than our fathers in the wilderness?
Are you without a reliable source of food, water, or permanent shelter? What sustained them? Who provided for them? Who calmed their fears and worries?
Look at the walls of the sukkah and look at the sky through the roof. Let it remind you that Israel became a nation while dwelling in such mansions.
This was the palace for a nation of kings. This was the Temple for a nation of Priests. This is the kind of structure where faith and confidence in God is developed.
The Sukkah reminds us that we are pilgrims just as they were. We are strangers and exiles. This world and its ways are not ours. We are to live and abide in the King and His Kingdom. A Kingdom that is now but not yet. As we read in Scripture:
(Heb 11:8-10) By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. {9} By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; {10} for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
- The Sukkah reminds us that God Himself, dwelt in a Tabernacle with Israel.
(Num 9:15-17) Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and in the evening, it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle, until morning. {16} So it was continuously; the cloud would cover it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. {17} And whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp.
In Ex. 16:10 We are told that the cloud was the Lord and in Ex. 19:9 …”Behold I shall come to you in a thick cloud, Lev. 16:2 “I will appear in a cloud over the mercy seat.”
The Tabernacle in the wilderness was God’s Sukkah where He dwelt among His people. God was with them as they traveled to the Promised Land.
2000 years ago, God tabernacled among us in the Person of Yeshua. He invites us to come to dwell in His Sukkah by abiding in Him. There you will find God’s rest and peace for your soul in the wilderness we walk in:
Mat. 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
When we come to God in His appointed way through faith, we receive God’s Spirit which led Israel through the wilderness. We experience His Light in the Darkness and His peace in the uncertainties and instability that surround us.
As the Psalmist reminds us in Ps 3: But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill.
So dwelling in a Sukkah helps us to remember God’s peace, presence and provision on our journey to the promised land that He has prepared for us.
Now let’s consider an event that took place in the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. These aspects are important because they give us insight into events that set the stage for the most significant event in Israel’s history.
II. The Temple ceremony of water
This was a special observance that took place every morning during the eight days of the feast of Sukkot. There was a joyous procession, accompanied by music, and led by a priest bearing a golden pitcher.
This procession would make its way from the Temple courts to the Pool of Siloam. At the same time another procession went to the Kidron valley, where willow branches would be gathered. The two groups would meet at the altar where the sacrifices in the Temple were offered.
The branches from the Kidron valley would be bound over the altar and bent in such a way to form a kind of leafy canopy or tabernacle over the altar.
The priest who came from the pool of Siloam would enter through the water gate. It was from this procession that it got its name. As he walked through the water gate there would be three blasts on the shofar.
Then amid great demonstrations of excitement and joy this water was poured into a silver tube on the altar, while at the same time another priest would pour into another silver tube wine, which was the drink offering. The two combined together on the altar and done every day of the feast.
On the 8th day, the Hoshanna rabba, the great day of this feast, the excitement reached a climax. Jerusalem looked like a forest in motion. All the worshippers would be waving their lulav’s in joy.
When the Levites would sing the Hallel which consists of Psalms 113-118 the crowds would come to silence. After each verse the assembled throng would respond with a loud “Amen”.
Then the priests would lead a procession around the altar. They would circle it 7 times, a tradition that remains in an orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony.
When they came to the words of the 118th Psalm, “Baruch Ha Ba B’Shem Adonoi” Blessed be He who comes in the name of the Lord.
Those that were of the remnant, the true believers, would in their hearts greet the Messiah and King, to whom these words they knew applied.
The Talmud writes concerning that moment, “He that has not seen Simchat bet ha Sho’evah, “The joy of the pouring of the water”, has not seen joy in his life.”
The Rabbis understood this event as symbolic of two things: 1. the provision of water that God made for his children in the wilderness wanderings.
2. the promised pouring forth of God’s Spirit like waters on the earth. Once again in the Talmud we read “Why is it called Bet ha Sho’evah?
Because of the pouring of the Holy Spirit, according to what is said in Is. 12:3.: ‘With joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
Part of that prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled. For it was at that moment that the remnant, true believers in the God of Israel, would pray for the promised Messiah as water and wine were being poured.
It was then that Yeshua stood up, as quoted in the New Covenant in John 7:37 “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Yeshua stood and cried out saying, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and Drink.”
“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” Jesus was referring to the Spirit of God as we are told in John 7:39.
The Spirit of God has come to dwell in those who believe that Jesus is Messiah. Who believe He is their Kipporah, their atonement.
Today we trust and believe that Yeshua is the promised Messiah, and that He died for your sins and rose again to forever remove them, you too can experience true the joy that the Talmud described of in the days of the Temple.
A third aspect of Succoth has to do with the:
III. The Illumination of The Temple.
At the conclusion of the first day of the feast of Tabernacles, people would gather in the Temple in the court of the women. Placed in the court were 4 Giant candelabras, each containing four large bowls, filled with oil.
Ladders would rest against these giant candelabras. Four young men, of the priests, would climb these ladders and light each of those four bowls. 16 in all were lit.
So great and brilliant was the light according to the Talmud, “there was not a court in Jerusalem that was not lit up by it”. Around these great golden burning lamps, a sacred dance of praise took place.
The Chassidim, and prominent spiritual leaders with flaming torches in their hands danced and sang before the people hymns and songs of praise.
The Levites with harps, and lutes, cymbals, and trumpets, would stand on the 15 steps which led down from the Court of Israel to the women’s court.
Like the water pouring service this too had a twofold understanding to Israel. 1. to remind Israel of their past, when God’s Holy Spirit led them in the wilderness with the cloud of glory by day and a pillar of fire by night in Exodus 13:21–22.
This was this God’s Holy Spirit Who dwelt in the Temple.
2. The lighting ceremony also reminded them of the Messianic promises in the future when the light of the Lord would rise on the land and the people.
This too in part been fulfilled, for He who cried, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and Drink,” said Sukkot, in John 8:12 “I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
When we want to understand what in the world is going on, those who come to Yeshua God pours out His Spirit which brings light in the midst of the darkness. It is the indwelling Spirit of God who leads us today.
As Isaiah prohesied Isaiah 60:1 3: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples, but the Lord will rise upon you, and nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
In closing its worthwhile to consider that Sukkot is the only feast of 8 days. In Biblical typology the 8th day speaks of resurrection. Sukkot speaks of the resurrection of the world spiritually. A time spoken of in Rev. 21:3 when a great voice out of the throne of heaven shall declare:
“Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them.”
This speaks of the day when the Lord will rule and reign on the earth during the millennial kingdom. Zech. 12-14 speaks of that day.
So as we celebrate Tabernacles this week we are reminded to come to the True sukkah Yeshua, and if you will He will send His Spirit to bring His comfort bring God’s light to understand and have His peace in the times we are living in.
