May 17, Reading 1 – Numbers 29

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

These three festivals form a whole package covering three weeks. They are prophetic of Christ’s ministry – His birth, death and return! Trumpets – proclamation of God’s wonderful promise of salvation (through Moses and through Jesus the Prophet Moses said would come in Moses’ stead), the Day of Atonement – the death of the first-born of Egypt/Red Sea and the death of the First-born Son/the Empty Cross and Tomb, the Feast of Tabernacles – the Marriage Supper of the Lamb! Footprints in Time large enough for the blind to fall into!

SJA Notes

* God of Light and Love, not to us but to Your Name give glory, for the sake of Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness!

“You shall not do any ordinary work.”

Here we have again the order and instruction for worship.

Ordinary work.

We see at the times of offering, the feast, that there is the prescription of not doing any _ordinary work_.

Back in Numbers 15 we read of a man being stoned by the congregation for gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.

Gathering sticks was obviously considered ordinary work (within the different reasons people would have had for a task such as gathering sticks).

In Mark 2 and Matthew 12 Jesus gives rebuke to the Pharisees and says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

In Luke 13 Jesus gives one of the synagogue rulers a hard word, showing that they didn’t really understand the law of Moses regarding the Sabbath and work, “You hypocrites!”

Whether we consider that there is a prescription against ordinary work (and whatever that is interpreted as) on the Sabbath or not, it seems like a wise starting point to make sure we are keeping our Sunday (the new Sabbath, the Lord’s Day, when our Saviour rose from the dead) as different, setting ourselves apart to draw closer to the Almighty.

Less us.

More Jesus.

* Dear God,

Thank You for the love we see at the cross, You the Son bearing Your just wrath so that we don’t have to.

Please help us to know You better today from Your word.

Amen.

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