Palm Sunday: God's Appointed Time - April 17, 2011

For a more detailed presentation of the Hebrew view of time and the Biblical festivals, you may want to take a look at this separate Hebrew Roots teaching, HERE.

Jesus' first ministry words recorded in the Gospel of Mark are: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." Have you ever stopped to wonder why He said “ the time is fulfilled” ?

Biblically speaking, time began “in the beginning” when God spoke and there was light. Yet, oddly, the sun, moon and stars were not created until the fourth day of Creation when God said: “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons , and for days and years” ( Gen 1:14 ). In other words, the marking of time began on Day Four, not Day One. What is the Creation story trying to tell us?

The Hebrew word for “signs” ( ‘owth ) can be translated as “signals” or “beacons”, and the word for “seasons” ( mo'edim ) also means “appointed times” or “festivals.” In other words, God set the sun, moon and stars as signals in the sky to establish appointed times and festivals. He marked time to impart meaning to our lives. Part of this meaning consists of the seasonal agricultural cycles of the year. To this day we still depend heavily upon annual seasonal cycles of planting and harvesting.

God marked time again when he called the Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt. Exodus 12:1 tells us the first thing God did was instruct the Israelites to establish the date of their departure as their “beginning of months”, the first month of the year. In like manner, when we come to have a spiritual relationship with God through Jesus and God delivers us from the Law of Sin and Death, we too commonly recognize that our lives have begun anew! For Jews, the month of their deliverance is called “Aviv” and it occurs in the spring every year. ( Rosh Hashanah became Israel's “civil” year, beginning each fall, similar to the way we separate fiscal years from the calendar year).

Also during the Exodus God instructed Israel to celebrate a festival to Him three times a year, once in the spring, once in early summer and once in the fall. These are called the “pilgrim festivals” because on these occasions the people were to travel and gather to “appear before the Sovereign Lord” (Exodus 23:13-17). After this, the annual seasons took on spiritual meaning as well as agricultural significance. Passover (Heb. – Pesach ) marks the miraculous passing over of the angel of death at the start of Israel's Exodus from Egypt. Pentecost (Heb. – Shavuot ) commemorates the giving of the Torah and Ten Commandments at Sinai, when God spoke in the midst of fire. And the Feast of Tabernacles (Heb. – Succoth ) recounts Israel's time wandering in the wilderness by the building of rough commemorative huts in which to gather with friends and eat the fall harvest, the final harvest of the year.

Returning to Jesus, we see that He “fulfilled” two of these three Festivals with His earthly life's work. He revealed the inner meaning of Passover as the “Lamb of the world who takes away sin” (John 1:29). “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor 5:7). His blood became “the blood of the new covenant, shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt 26:28). Similarly, Jesus fulfilled the inner meaning of Pentecost by sending the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire upon the disciples in the Upper Room to imbue them with ability and supernatural power (Acts1:4-8). From that moment forward, the ordinary men and women who first followed Jesus exploded with spiritual power to bring forth faith and miracles all across the region, unleashing the greatest revival the world had ever seen. Today, some 2 billion people believe in Jesus as a result of those first believers' explosive hour of revival on Pentecost! Only the Feast of Tabernacles yet remains to be fulfilled by Jesus. The Bible tells us He will come again as a victorious King to signal the final harvest of the church age and usher in the great Millennial Kingdom.

The week prior to Passover, on the day we commemorate as Palm Sunday, Jesus rode toward Jerusalem on a donkey as the people waved palm branches and shouted “ Hosanna ” (“Save us now!”) Amazingly, the very same hour this occurred, the High Priest was also leading to the Temple a symbolic lamb “without spot or blemish”, selected for the coming week's Passover sacrifice. The lamb would be placed on display for four days in the Temple for all to examine. Tradition holds that this priestly procession of the sacrificial lamb was accompanied by singing of the great psalms of praise, one of which contains the refrain “Hosanna” (Psalm 118:25). Picture the high priest walking with the lamb, followed shortly by Jesus on a donkey. Were the people singing for the lamb, or for the miracle worker Jesus, whom they hoped would lead Israel as the Messiah King to defeat Rome and all Israel's enemies? Scripture informs us it was Jesus to whom they really cried out. When the Pharisees rebuked Him to silence His followers, Jesus replied: “ "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the very stones will cry out." (Lk 19:40)

That day and three more days Jesus would appear in the Temple, just like the lamb, to be examined by the people. Some Pharisees would query and critique Him but Scripture tells us Jesus confounded them. “Look, the world has gone after Him!” they declared (John 12:19), speaking prophetically out of frustration. Asked for a sign to justify His actions, Jesus said: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Mt 26:61). At His crucifixion, His persecutors would mock Him with the very same words (Mt 27:40), yet in the end, it was Jesus who had the final Word.

How can we, like Jesus, fulfill the time? For one, don't waste your days just racing against time. Time is part of who God is. Scripture enjoins us to “redeem the time because the days are evil” (Eph 5:16) We redeem the time when we remember that all time belongs to God! When we realize this, we embrace time as precious and not to be wasted. Pray often, and ask the Lord how HE wants you to spend your time. Your days will take on new meaning in ways you never dreamt were possible!

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