Festivals

The LORD said to Moses, “These are the festivals of the LORD which you shall celebrate at their proper time with a sacred assembly. The Passover of the LORD falls on the fourteenth day of the first month, at the evening twilight. The fifteenth day of this month is the LORD’s feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first of these days you shall hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work. On each of the seven days you shall offer an oblation to the LORD. Then on the seventh day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work.”

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the children of Israel and tell them: When you come into the land which I am giving you, and reap your harvest, you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest, who shall wave the sheaf before the LORD that it may be acceptable for you. On the day after the sabbath the priest shall do this. “Beginning with the day after the sabbath, the day on which you bring the wave-offering sheaf, you shall count seven full weeks, and then on the day after the seventh week, the fiftieth day, you shall present the new cereal offering to the LORD. “The tenth of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement, when you shall hold a sacred assembly and mortify yourselves and offer an oblation to the LORD. “

The fifteenth day of this seventh month is the LORD’s feast of Booths, which shall continue for seven days. On the first day there shall be a sacred assembly, and you shall do no sort of work. For seven days you shall offer an oblation to the LORD, and on the eighth day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and offer an oblation to the LORD. On that solemn closing you shall do no sort of work.

“These, therefore, are the festivals of the LORD on which you shall proclaim a sacred assembly and offer as an oblation to the LORD burnt offerings and cereal offerings, sacrifices and libations, as prescribed for each day.” (Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34-37)

According to Michael Goulder, Mark, Matthew, and Luke were designed to be lectionary books.  For example, the first five teaching blocks in Matthew were related to the five great celebratory festivals in Jewish liturgical year.  Those festivals were Pentecost (Shavuot), New Year (Rosh Hashanah), Tabernacles (Sukkot), Dedication (Hanukkah), and Passover.   These lectionary books were designed to be read continuously in public worship week by week.   

The way in which the Gospels were constructed through Jewish eyes is more than a little fascinating and worthy of our close examination.  Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong in his 1996 book Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible through Jewish Eyes, requires Catholics to be open-minded and patient with his findings because he claims they are “thoroughly Jewish texts.”  This will unsettle many Catholics.  According one review, “He offers convincing evidence that the Gospels are a collection of Jewish midrashic stories written to convey the significance of Jesus.”  

Spong stated: “Because his first disciples were Jews, inevitably they reinterpreted their familiar liturgical festivals so that this Jesus became the content of those celebrations.  They saw Jesus as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah, and Elisha, and yet he was in their minds greater than any or all of these heroes put together.  There is enormous reality in these experiences, if not literalness in the content.”

Spong’s understanding of the Gospels is attractive, and his book is eye-opening.  His interpretations and arguments are compelling.

Deacon David Pierce