Exodus 23.14-17

“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord GOD.”

Each feast had a particular focus. Unleavened Bread remembered the redemption of Israel from Egypt, as Easter does for Christians today. Harvest and Ingathering celebrated the blessings of God’s provision, which were according to the promise of His covenant. These two are roughly equal to Pentecost and America’s Thanksgiving, with the former infinitely more important than the latter.

Christians do not celebrate Pentecost as exuberantly as they do Thanksgiving. I wonder why that is? Could it be that we have too low regard for the greater gifts of God and His Spirit, and too high regard for the more temporal and transient ones?

This series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.MyParuchia.com and click on our Book Store.