According to the Creator’s Calender, today is the 20th day of the Month of Aviv. Today then is the Day of Firstfruits and the 1st Day of the Counting of the Omer.
10 Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When ye come into the land that I give unto you, and ye reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest. 11 And he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you; on the next day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it…it is an everlasting statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 15 And ye shall count from the morning after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering, seven weeks; they shall be complete; 16 even unto the morning after the seventh sabbath shall ye count fifty days; and ye shall present a new oblation to Jehovah…20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first-fruits as a wave-offering before Jehovah, with the two he-lambs; they shall be holy to Jehovah, for the priest. 21 And ye shall make proclamation on that same day — a holy convocation shall it be unto you: no manner of servile work shall ye do: it is an everlasting statute in all your dwellings throughout your generations. 22 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not in thy harvest entirely reap the corners of thy field, and the gleaning of thy harvest shalt thou not gather: thou shalt leave them unto the poor and to the stranger: I am Jehovah your God. (Lev 23:10-22 DBY) [cf. Exo. 23:16).
The celebration of the First Fruits is an integral part of the Passover week celebration:
- Directives from the Almighty that believers should be familiar with and
- Prophetic shadow picture that is painted by this little known and little discussed day on the sacred calendar is something that few on this planet comprehend and fully understand. fulfilled between late Saturday afternoon before sundown on May 1, 28 CE and early Sunday morning on the 18th day of the 1st month, in the year 4028 FC. This fulfillment was recorded in Matthew 27:52b-53, Mark 16:9, and John 20:11-18. These passages read as follows:
After His resurrection, the bodies of many saints who slept arose, and came out of the graves, and went into the Holy City, and appeared to many…(Matt. 27:52b Rood Translation) Now after Yeshua had risen, early the first day of the week he first appeared to Miriam of Migdal. (This is the Miriam out of whom he had cast seven demons.) (Mark 16:9 Rood Translation) Miriam stood outside the sepulcher weeping. As she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulcher, and saw two angels in white sitting–one at the head and the other at the feet–where the body of Yeshua had lain. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my master, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had spoken, she turned around and saw Yeshua standing there, but did not know that it was Him. Yeshua said to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Whom do you seek?” She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to Hiim, “Sir, if you have taken Him from here, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take Him away.” Yeshua said to her, “Miriam!” She cried out, “Rabboni!” Yeshua said to her, “Do not touch me! I have not yet ascended to my Father. Go to my brothers and tell them that I will now ascend to my Father and their Father, and to my Elohim and their Elohim!” (John 20:11-18 Rood Translation)
While the world, for the most part, celebrates and observes Easter Sunday today, which the Church has assigned to a pagan holiday the celebration of the resurrection of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, the true Believer of Messiah is seeking to obey Yehovah’s commandment to rehearse HaBikkurim, First Fruits.
A centuries old question has always been, whatever happened to those risen saints? But we, the redeemed of the Most High, His chosen, His obedient children, have been blessed with the knowledge and understanding of His Feasts. The precise proximity of the Day of First Fruits to Passover and First Fruits special requirements as it relates to the offering of the sheafs to Yehovah by the Cohen Godal (i.e., the High Priest) in the Temple, provides us-true believers of Yehovah, a clear understanding as to what happened to those risen saints on that Sunday morning in 28 CE. We know that Yeshua instructed Miriam when she met Him in the garden cemetery, “Do not touch me! I have not yet ascended to my Father.” (John 20:17 Rood Translation) Here, Yeshua mentioned to Miriam that He had to remain pure and untouched until such time that He ascended to His Father in heaven. This event took place early in the morning on the Day of First Fruits, just before the cohen gadol would offer the wave sheaf offering before Yehovah in the Temple. In a dramatic portrait of this commanded yearly event, we see clearly that the risen Lord, Yeshua HaMoshiach, the Cohen Gadol forever, was about to ascend to the Temple of the Most High in heaven, and in similitude to the happenings in the Jerusalem temple, he would approach the throne of the Most High and offer the first fruit or wave sheaf offering. Would He offer an actual omer of barely to the Creator? No. He would this one time an offering of souls who had just risen out of their graves and had gone in to Jerusalem to await their ascension in to heaven, led by the Lamb of Yehovah, to be the first of many in the future to become just as they had become.-reference: Hebrews 2:10–For in bringing many sons to glory, it was only fitting that God, the Creator and Preserver of everything, should bring the initiator of their deliverance to the goal through sufferings. (CJB translation) Indeed, there are people in heaven, right now, who have already realized the ultimate potential that the Father had in mind for mankind from the very beginning when He created Adam. Adam, however, lost the opportunity for all of mankind to realize this awesome potential when He sinned in the garden. It wasn’t until the atoning sacrifice of Yeshua, our Savior, that these precious few saints, opened the door for the rest of us to follow and become just like Yeshua and to reign with Him for eternity. This my friends is the grand purpose of HaBikkurim, the Day of First Fruits. This is a day of not just sewing seed for our future blessing, but a day to contemplate and celebrate our futures as translated kings and priests of the Most High in the world to come.
Reference: The Chronological Gospels-The Life and Seventy Week Ministry of the Messiah by Michael Rood, Aviv Moon Publishing, 2013.
Thank you so much for your comment Crystle. Your comment was inspiring and uplifting to us. We will keep on keeping on. May you and your family be most blessed.