The Jewish month of Tishri is a busy one. Three major festivals occur during this month, including the festival holy of holies itself, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement(s).

Why so many in one month? Why does it have to be so busy? Now, in the midst of Sukkot, Tabernacles, I can tell you, I’m tired.

At Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets, we hear the call of return, beautifully articulated, “Return to Me, and I will return to you” (Mal. 3:7). Then, the Lord gives us ten days to “consider our ways” (Hag. 1:7). It is a time to look, metaphorically, at the condition of our garments. How will we appear before the King in soiled garments? Then on Yom Kippur, not only are we cleansed, but we are wrapped anew in gleaming white garments (Rev. 7:9). Having been forgiven, we begin again.

Yet, we are not allowed to go off too far. The Lord calls us to put all that we experienced and learned at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur into practice at Sukkot, the final feast of ingathering, just five days after the Day of Atonement. Sukkot is a joyful banquet of the King of kings, or in messianic hope, the Marriage Feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).

Here, we leave our homes, and build temporary shelters out in the midst of our extended family, friends, and neighbors, those we are likely to have had disputes with in the past. Renewed in heart and spirit, will we put the forgiveness we have received into practice?

The message is twofold. First, we put faith into action, not hiding it away hoping that it will go undamaged by life, but walking with our faith in the Lord in the midst of life and its complexities. Second, we walk faith out in active life remembering, from the experience of the three feasts in Tishri, that we are called to a life of holiness. Authors note: holiness, not haughtiness.

Adorned in our gleaming white garments, as we walk in life, we are bound to see dust, dirt, and assorted filth diminishing the shine. Yet, in Messiah we have a blessed hope. We need not wait until the next Yom Kippur to go to the spiritual dry cleaners, as John writes:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:8-9).

Forgiveness allows us to enter, once again, the flow of spiritual and communal life. We are not attired in the garments of our shame, but His righteousness. Dispute should not be our practice, but when disputes arise, we have an eternal way of restoration and return that He expects we will put into immediate practice, not a protected closet.

Rather than the “King is in the field” as we pray Rosh Hashanah, at Sukkot, the King is in the midst of us and our joy (Ps. 16:11). It is, after all, the time of our rejoicing.

But why so busy? Because we are to be about our Fathers business.

Be well. Shalom.

Sukkot is the final feast of ingathering. It is a prophetic picture of our eternal joy – z’man simchateinu. It follows just five days after Yom Kippur, the day when we approach the Lord in response to the sound of the Shofar, the Trumpet, in a posture of repentance set for the renewal in Messiah Yeshua/Jesus as our atoning sacrifice, our atonement. By His substitutionary sacrifice, we are hidden away in Him, protected until the day of the calling up of the saints of God, at the final Shofar.

As part of the celebration of Sukkot, Tabernacles, we gather a bouquet of four species as recorded in Leviticus 23:40: fruit of the lovely tree, palm branches, leafy branches and willows of the brook: the Lulav, estrog, hadassim and aravot. With them together: “ … and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.”

This bouquet, brought together is a symbol of the Bride of Messiah, the fruit of the harvest present in this final Feast of In-Gathering, a picture of the final harvest.

The root of Sukkot – סָכַךְ – means to entwine, to fence, to join together or hedge in. It is a representation of Revelation 7:9, “After this I looked and saw a great crowd which no one was able to count, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, and palm branches in their hands.”

This is all Sukkot imagery. We find in this final feast of in-gathering, not only a remembrance of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness; but also, a celebration of what is to come: the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, the Lamb joined to His Bride.

The rabbis teach that in the shadow of the Sukkah you are in the manifest presence of God. Why? In Song of Songs (Solomon) 2:3 we read, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, So is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight, And his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

It is widely understood that this is an allegory describing the love of the Lord for His people, and the lover says, “I sat down in His shade/shadow with great delight.” A shadow is produced by something blocking light; but for the shadow to be there, the what or who producing it must also be there.

Sometimes you only know something is there by its shadow; and the anxious lover waits in the shade of the Lord. This the rabbis find in the Sukkah, or the shadow made by it.

The essence of the Sukkah, or Tabernacle, is its shade, or shadow. A sukkah cannot have more sun than shadow. It must be open enough to allow the light of the stars through, while still blocking the light of the sun. If the sukkah has more sun than shadow, it is said that you are sitting in the unblinking eye of the sun, which denies the existence of the shadow, and the One creating it.

The sun then scorches us, burning up our faith, hope, and ultimately, love; which is why part of the promise of Revelation 7:16 was given, “They shall never again go hungry, nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat.”

The sun will get hot, but not by natural means. The times during the great tribulation will become so desperate that Messiah says of faith, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Lk. 18:8).

In the unblinking eye of the sun, relentless in its scorching heat, those denying the shadow, refusing to “sit down in His shadow,” will deny Who and what they cannot see: no shadow, no One to create it.

When sitting in the Sukkah, the rabbis say that we are sitting in the “shadow of faith.” Faith is like a shadow, it’s the knowledge of somethings existence that we cannot see with the eye, as the author of Hebrews writes, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). As I have said several times before, hope takes hold and faith holds on.

Paul writes, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (II Cor. 5:7); but he also encourages us in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

In Revelation 7:9, the saints of God, the Bride of Messiah harvested out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, rejoice before the Lord and the Lamb, “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them and guide them to springs of living water, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:17).

Under the scorching, relentless heat of disbelief and denial of Yeshua our Bridegroom surrounding us, we will rest, because “the One seated on the Throne will shelter them,” He will become the Sukkah, and the sun will be no more (Rev. 21:23), “as the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

Then, as Paul writes, we will see Him “face to face,” פָּנִים אֶל-פָּנִים “panim el panim.” No more shadow, as we will be in His everlasting embrace. This is now but not yet joy of Tabernacles.

Be well. Shalom.