Sukkot
Oct 1
began the Feast of Tabernacles. This
joyful fall celebration of seven days is commanded in scriptures as one of the
“appointments” God wants to have with His children every year. It is the time to remember how the Israelis
lived in temporary “booths” for 40 years after fleeing Egypt. It has come to be a time to celebrate with
family by eating and even camping outside in a temporary structure built with a
roof covered with natural branches so one can see through them into the sky and
view the stars at night. Sukkot is also
called the Feast of Ingathering, a time to celebrate the harvest and remember
all the blessings God has reigned down on us over the past year.
Sukkot is
also marked by great joy. We are
commanded to be joyful in the succah!
Joy usually is an emotional response to something good or something we
like. But in this case we choose to be
joyful in obedience to God’s instructions.
We can command our emotions to be thankful, joyful.
The final
day of Sukkot is the most joyful day of the
year—Simchat Torah. This is the day when Jews finishing reading through the
Torah for the year and begin reading Genesis 1 for the coming year. It is a joyful celebration of God’s gift of
His Word to us marked by huge celebrations of music, dancing with the Torah,
food, etc. There are many other layers of meaning and symbolism that surround the Succah. It is a picture of our bodies being a temporary dwelling for our spirits while we sojourn on this earth, but our real home is the eternal body we will receive when we step into eternity.
I believe
we ought to join with our Jewish Cousins in celebrating joyfully God’s great
gift of the Word. The Bible is the
greatest source of wisdom and life to us and is God’s love letter to every
Believer. But we ought to take this
celebration to new heights by celebrating the Word made Flesh, Yeshua, Messiah.
Here is the greatest reason for joy.
Here is truly our harvest of the heart.
May you be
joyful this Sukkot!
