Feast Of Firstfruits Series

Feast of Firstfruits

Leviticus 23

March 13, 2022

If you could go back in time and remember some of your firsts, or if you’re anticipating some firsts . . . what might they be?

Your first job - your first pay check.

Your first car - - your first home.

Your first kiss, or first kiss with your spouse.

Your first win in something.

Your first sleepover.

Your first time you were told I love you.

Your first driving alone experience

Your first time home alone.

We could go on and list a lot of firsts. Firsts, assuming they’re wanted, are great, fun, exciting and memorable. We may even sit back and smile at some of those great moments in our lives.

Today, we’re talking about the 3rd of the 7 feasts of Israel. We’ve looked at Passover and the Feast of unleavened bread. Today, we’re looking at the feast of Firstfruits. These first 3 feasts all occur at about the same time. So, let’s look at the feast of firstfruits?

We’ll look at a passage from the book of Leviticus 23 - - -

9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 And the grain offering with it shall be four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord with a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, one quart of wine. 14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

So, that’s the background to the Feast of firstfruits. As we’ve been doing, I’ll talk about what the feast day was about, it’s significance to the Jewish people and what it means for us today as it relates to Jesus.

This festival is not found in Exodus, where the first two feasts were first commanded by God. For the Jewish people as they were traveling in the dessert, looking to enter the promised land of Israel is when God ordained this feast.

That’s an important distinction because there was a sense that this was a future oriented holiday. It’s like telling kids, we’re going to have a new school holiday and it’s going to be a celebration, but we’re not going to start for another 5 years.

The command was given to them while they were in the wilderness, and could not be celebrated until they entered the land. They were told about it, understood how to celebrate it, but it wasn’t going to happen yet. Maybe there was a mix of hope and frustration.

They knew what was coming, but they had not obtained it yet. They knew their present situation, but were promised a world with more which was still to come. This Feast was a promise from God that He will bring them to where He wants them to be.

To celebrate this Feast, they were to give a sheaf of the firstfruits to the priest. In other words they got a bundle of the harvest and brought it to the priest.

In Israel, grains were planted in the fall. They germinated in the ground through the winter, shot up as soon as the weather got warm, and ripened in the spring, barley first and then wheat. The stalks were cut and stacked in sheaves for the harvesters to collect for thrashing. But harvesting or eating any of the grain was not permitted until a single sheaf was brought to the priests at sunrise on the first day of the Feast of Firstfruits.

The priest would then wave these sheafs before the Lord. This wave offering was prescribed by God as a symbol that God would ensure that the remainder of the harvest would be realized in the days that followed.

The first fruits were always the choicest, the first, the best, the preeminent of all that was to follow. They were holy to the Lord and so they were to be set aside and presented as the firstfruits to Him.

The farmer would stop after this first part of the harvest and dedicate it to the Lord. The Lord always received the first, because it was a gift from God.