CHRISTIANITY'S JEWISH ROOTS
Pitching Tents in the Holy
City
By Nena Benigno
CBN Correspondent
CBN.com
-- Every year, despite bomb threats and the tense political atmosphere,
thousands of evangelical Christians from more than100 nations come to Israel
to celebrate “Sukkot,” or the Feast of Tabernacles. This biblical
holiday, also called the “Feast of Booths” is still observed in
Israel thousands of years since God commanded Moses and the Jews to “Live
in booths for seven days…so your descendants will know that I had the
Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord
your God” (Leviticus 23: 42, 43). Sukkot is also a harvest festival
called the “Feast of the Ingathering,” a time to rejoice before
God and give thanks for the freshly gathered Autumn harvest. Traditionally,
it is also a time to pray for rain.
During the Sukkot, the
Jews build “booths” or “sukkas,” also called “tabernacles”
or dwellings, in their private balconies, front lawns, parks, restaurants,
and public plazas. These are makeshift tents with roofs made of palm fronds
and leafy tree branches, with walls made of bamboo matting, straw, cloth,
and other flimsy material. They are meant to look like the collapsible tents
the Israelites lived in when they encamped in the wilderness on the way to
the Promised Land. Inside, sukkas are hung with pomegranates, pears, ears
of corn, and other fruits of the harvest.
Both secular and religious Jews eat meals and sleep occasionally in the sukkah.
Within this tabernacle, there are no distinctions between the rich and the
poor, the prominent and the ordinary. Jews, whatever their status in life,
remember that their forefathers were once wanderers in the desert, redeemed
from slavery, completely dependent on God for food, water, and safe passage
into Israel. Here Jews also thank God for blessing their farms and crops and
the labors of their hands.
For evangelical Christians, who believe in God’s Kingdom to come, it
is a vivid reminder that life on earth is impermanent, a journey to the ultimate
Promised Land. There, God will once again “tabernacle,” or dwell,
among men as Immanuel, "God with us."
“It’s a reminder not to accumulate too many possessions in this
life, to travel light. We don’t really belong here. We’re headed
for a better place,” remarks German pilgrim Erika Loeffler, who has
come to Israel for the Feast of Tabernacles more than seven times in past
years.
Christians also consider their participation in the Sukkot a prophetic gesture,
a time to pray and stand with God’s purposes for Israel, the Jews, and
the nations at the end of the age.
“I come here not just for the past, but for the future,” explains
Lucy Peralta from the Philippines, who has been bringing groups of 15 or more
Filipinos to the Feast for the past 18 years.
Lucy was one of the first Filipinos to hold up the Philippine flag in the
yearly “Jerusalem March,” where Christians from all over the world
don their native costumes and parade around Jerusalem, holding up banners
that quote God’s promises for Israel in the Scriptures.
“The Bible says, ‘Comfort, yes, comfort my people!' says your
God. 'Speak comfort to Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 40: 1, 2). We’re here
to pray and comfort the Jews in the midst of all the problems and conflicts
in their land, and to assure them that they, and the nation of Israel, have
a glorious future awaiting them,” she adds.
Christians here believe that the Jewish feasts in the Old Testament have
all been fulfilled in the New Testament age with the coming of Jesus Christ,
except for one: the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of the Passover is fulfilled
in Christ, the Passover Lamb, who brought deliverance from the slavery of
sin. The sacrifice of His life on Calvary to redeem men fulfills Yom Kippur,
the Day of Atonement. The Feast of Pentecost, or "Shavuot," was
fulfilled when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples at Pentecost
(Acts 2).
It was on the “last and greatest day” of the Feast of Tabernacles
that Jesus Christ cried out, saying: “ 'If anyone thirsts, let him come
to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of
his heart will flow rivers of living water.' But this He spoke concerning
the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive” (John 7: 37-39).
According to the book of Ezekiel, the Feast of Tabernacles will still be
celebrated and truly fulfilled at a future time. The prophet Ezekiel describes
a last great war, with all the nations fighting against Jerusalem. Then the
Messiah, the God of Israel, will return to Jerusalem. He will defend the city,
judge the nations, and establish peace. Ezekiel says, “The Lord will
be King over the whole earth.” Then “the survivors from all the
nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship
the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles”
(Zechariah 14: 9, 16).
Christians here say that is why the Feast of Tabernacles is also the Feast
of the Ingathering because it foreshadows the final harvest, the last ingathering
of people from every tribe and nation who will come and dwell with God in
this ultimate “Promised Land.”
“We’re here as first fruits of this harvest," says Peralta,
"and to pray that Jesus Christ will come soon to Jerusalem to tabernacle
with us as Immanuel, God with us. Then there will be world peace because He
will take world government upon His shoulders as the Prince of Peace. It will
happen here in Israel and nowhere else.”
In the face of Intifada, suicide bombings, and wrangling over the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip, the “wall” or “security fence,”
in this land of conflict and bloodshed, Christians here pray and hold on to
the shining hope of Israel.
It is best understood in the words of Isaiah:
“Now it will come about in the last days, the mountain of the house
of the Lord will be established as chief among the mountains, and it will
be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. And many peoples
will come and say, ‘Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to
the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways, and
that we may walk in his paths. For the law will go forth from Zion, and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, and
will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords
into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift
up sword against nation. And never again will they learn war" (Isaiah
2: 2-4).
More Christianity's Jewish Roots
Inside Israel from CBN News
More Spiritual Life
Nena Benigno is the head writer of the Christian Broadcasting Network Asia
and scriptwriter of The 700 Club Asia.
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