On the day after the weekly sabbath that falls during the days of Unleavened Bread, after the Passover, is a SPECIAL day. It’s always on the 1st day of the week –commonly called “Sunday”. This year, and sometimes other years, it happens to coincide with Easter. But we do not keep Easter, but the days our Creator specified in Leviticus 23. We know the New Covenant brethren after the resurrection of Messiah also kept these days. In fact, the new covenant church of believers was founded on a festival holy day – the day of Pentecost, when they received God’s Holy Spirit – and the spiritual harvest of souls got underway.
The Wavesheaf Day was not a holyday, but the harvest of the barley could not begin until a ceremony was first performed. The High Priest would raise a specified amount of fine barley flour to be accepted by God “in behalf of the rest of the harvest.” I HOPE you will spend a few minutes on it. I hope pastors everywhere gave a sermon on the sabbath about the Wavesheaf Day.
For full details on this day, I recommend you hear the re-posting of my sermon on the Wavesheaf, originally given in 2014. Be sure to listen carefully especially to the last 40 minutes of that message.
The first barley Wavesheaf represented our Savior, Yeshua of Nazareth, son of God, son of man, our beloved Master. He is the ultimate firstfruit and once our Father in heaven accepted him in heaven, the rest of the spiritual harvest of human lives could begin. Remember he told Mary of Magdala that she had to let him go as he had to go to “my father and your father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). That was the Wavesheaf he was fulfilling!
The rest of the barley harvest resembled the first fruit that was waved up high. We too, must be in Him, copy him, live like him, let him be in us, and let his mind be our mind. We must come to him daily and eat of him – take him inside us, consciously – and ask him to live obediently in us the way he lived the first time on earth. He will. And with every passing day, every passing year, we are to look more and more like Jesus (Yeshua).
Yeshua gave one sign that he was the genuine Messiah. He said he would be 3 days and 3 nights in the tomb and then be resurrected (Matthew 12:39-40). Our Messiah was placed in to the earth – in a tomb – just before sundown of Passover day (John 19:41-42). Remember the “next day” always began at sundown. That next day was a “high day” – a holy day, an annual sabbath (John 19:31). Exactly 3 days and 3 nights later, to the minute they had put him in the tomb, his Father in heaven resurrected him. So by the next morning, even before sunrise, the tomb was already empty. He had risen!
But he did not go up to heaven to be accepted for our behalf until the actual ceremony by the high priest, which I believe was at 9 a.m. After that ceremony, the rest of the harvest (a work day) could proceed.
So it’s not a rest day. It’s not a sabbath or holy day. But indeed, as I cover in depth in my sermon on it – it’s a very, very special day. Let’s not forget it.
My wife and I at 9 am on Wavesheaf day will say a thankful prayer for all that the son of GOD did for us and you – and we will thank our Father for letting him live again. Without his resurrection, we would have no future (1 Cor. 15:13-17).
Don’t miss Wavesheaf day. It’s a wondrous day. This year it’s April 16, 2017. In it, the victory over sin and Satan is complete. And Father accepted Yeshua’s perfect life for all of us who believe in him.
Be sure to hear the latest sermon posted – the one about the Wavesheaf. Some good reading this time of year – perhaps even as you thank him in prayer on Wavesheaf day – would be:
1 Cor. 15:13-17
Hebrews 9:22-28
Hebrews 10: 4-12
1 Peter 1:3, 21
Praise you Abba. Praise you Yeshua. What a perfect life you lived, and a perfect job you did, that we might all also live. Thank you Father. Thank you – Son of God.
(Note: pass the word. Tell others about this day and how we glorify our God and Yeshua in this website).