This is the last of three special teachings on the Fall Festivals of the Bible that will all come out this week before they air on the radio because it’s important to understand the festivals before they happen so that we can celebrate them. Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, was the biggest party of the year in the Bible. The hard work of the harvest was all done and they could rest for the winter, knowing that they had enough food to eat. So why did God tell them to go camping? And what does any of this have to do with Jesus?
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel. Parents, most scripture this week will be from the Miss Tyler Version (the MTV) which is the Christian Standard Bible reworded a bit to make it easier for kids to understand the meaning.
What would you say if God told you to go camping for a week, with absolutely everyone? Would that sound good to you? Or would you be like, “Um, ick, I hate bugs and the last time we went camping, it rained all week and we never came out of our tents.”? What if you knew that the camping trip was supposed to be full of singing, dancing, and eating the best food you have eaten all year? Does it sound better now? You betcha! Well, that’s exactly what God commanded His people when they were in the wilderness after being freed from slavery in Egypt. They were living in tents, called Sukkot. A tent is a Sukkah and more than one tent is Sukkot, tents! Let’s see what the Miss Tyler Version of the Bible has to say about this big camping trip for everyone:
The Lord said to Moses: “Tell the Israelites: The Festival of Sukkot (the festival of tents), to the Lord begins on the fifteenth day of this seventh month (that’s five days after Yom Kippur, which we talked about last week) and keeps on going for seven days. Everyone has to gather together on the first day; and you can’t do your normal jobs, at all (except you can cook, it says that in another place). The priests need to present animal offerings to the Lord for seven days. On the eighth day, after the festival of tents has ended, you will all gather together again and present another animal offering to the Lord. It is a very special gathering (called a high holy day, just like the first day of the festival of tents); you can’t do your normal jobs…
…“You will celebrate the Lord’s festival (his big yearly party) on the fifteenth day of the seventh month for seven days after you have gathered the produce of the land (the harvest is over and all their hard work is done, yay!). There will be complete rest (from working) on the first day and complete rest on the eighth day. On the first day you are to take the branches of majestic trees—palm fronds, branches of leafy trees, and the willows that grow around the rivers—and celebrate before the Lord your God for seven days. You need to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord seven days every single year. This is a forever commandment for you and for everyone who comes after you; celebrate it in the seventh month (which means, don’t move it around). You are to live in tents for seven days. All the native-born of Israel must live in shelters, so that your children and their children forever will know that I made the Israelites live in tents (out in the wilderness) when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” (Lev 23:33-36, 39-43, MTV)
Wow, a week-long party! But what does this all mean, anyway? How do we do it now when there is no Tabernacle or Temple to go to so that we can “celebrate before the Lord?” Celebrating before the Lord, in the Bible, meant to go to where His presence was and to worship Him there and have a party in His honor together. That meant traveling to where the Tabernacle was, once they weren’t all gathered around it in the camp in the wilderness anymore, or to Jerusalem, when the Temple was there. And did you know that God told them that they could just leave their houses and no one would come to steal anything while they were gone? Pretty cool, eh? Well, there is no place that we can travel now to celebrate in the Presence of God—if you have listened to the last two programs, you know that the Presence of God lives with us now. The Holy Spirit is in every believer, making us a living Temple—because that’s what a Temple was, the place where the spirit of a god lived. All of us together make up the Temple of God now. And so anytime we are together, we are in the presence of God but also, even when we are alone. When the native-born Israelites celebrated the Festival of Sukkot, they went to where God’s Presence was and they lived there in tents for eight days and had the biggest party of the whole year. But what do we do when we are not native-born Israelites? Is the party for us too or just for them?
Well, I can tell you that it is for us too because now, according to the Gospel of John, we have an even better reason for celebrating the Festival of tents. John said, “The Word (that’s Jesus, God’s final word to us) became a human and tented (lived) among us. We saw how glorious He was, the glory that He has because He is the one and only Son of God, the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) Great googly moogly! Even though you can’t see it in English translations of the Bible, the Greek words say that he lived with us in a tent—a tent of human skin—the body of Jesus. Why do you think John said that? I think John was saying that because the Festival of Tents was when Jesus was born! I believe that the angel Gabriel visited his mother Mary around the time of Hannukah, which happens close to when Christmas is celebrated, and that he was born during the festival nine months later. I mean, we know that He couldn’t really have been born in December because it was way too cold for the shepherds to be out with their sheep at night that time of year, but during the Festival of tents, it was perfectly fine outside and people would actually be dancing and singing all night long.
So, my family, although you might do something different because the Bible isn’t really specific about when He was born because in the ancient world, they would tell you when a person died but not then they were born and the Bible is no different. My family celebrates Jesus’s birthday all week long! We can’t live in tents here because we get winds that week that are often 60 miles per hour and anything left out in the yard gets blown far, far away. One year while we were celebrating, we heard a huge boom. It was our next-door neighbor’s trampoline coming down in our yard, over the six-foot fence. And they were on vacation in California so we had to leave it there until they came back because it would have just blown over again. It was pretty funny and after that, they chained the trampoline to the big willow tree in their backyard. We call trampolines “Idaho Kites”. And those big yard umbrellas too.
Now, we can’t do this anymore, but did you know that all the nations in the world were represented at the Festival of Sukkot (you know it means tents now so I will stop reminding you)? They offered seventy bulls to the Lord as whole burnt offerings! That means that the whole city of Jerusalem smelled like one huge barbeque for a whole week. They sacrificed thirteen bulls on the first day, twelve on the second day, and each day there was one less until the last day of the Festival when they burned seven bulls—and it all added up to seventy bulls. Now, it doesn’t say this in the Bible, although the Bible talks about the seventy nations that came from Noah and his sons, but the Rabbis think that those might have been offerings for everyone who wasn’t Jewish, so that we could worship God too, even if we didn’t know it. Pretty cool, eh? But we can’t do this now, and we shouldn’t because no one is allowed to sacrifice anywhere except in Jerusalem in the place where God told them was the only place they were allowed to. In fact, God told them that if they sacrificed animals anywhere else they would be giving those animals to goat demons. Not sure about you, but I try to avoid that.
But what do the bulls for the seventy nations have to do with Jesus? Did you know that one of the last things He told His disciples was that they were supposed to go preach to all the nations of the world? “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. So go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am always with you, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:18-20) Do you think that God was showing us in this Festival that, in the future, all the nations would be gathered around God’s presence? I sure think so.
And they did other amazing things too! Like parading around with leafy branches and singing—and you can do that! They do a ceremony called the water pouring festival again now and it is very interesting. It would happen every night during the Festival of Sukkot. The priests would go down from the Temple to the Gihon Spring in the old City of David (which is way smaller that Jerusalem is now, I mean teenie tiny). They would take a silver flask, which looks like a very fancy vase made for pouring water, and the priest would fill it with water from the spring and the priests would blow their silver trumpets and people would blow on the shofar, the animal horns we talked about two weeks ago that they blew a hundred times for the festival of the blowing of the trumpets. And they prayed and played music and they sang songs as they paraded the water all the way up to the Temple while waving their palm fronds. The priest held the water up above his head so that everyone could see it and follow him. When they got to the Temple, one priest went to the altar with the water and another priest went with wine, and they would blow the trumpets and pray and then, at the same time, the priests would pour the water and wine out, together, into two beautiful silver cups until the liquid ran over the sides. Then there were more prayers and singing and celebrations all night long. And this happened every night. I actually have a YouTube video in the transcript so you can see some of the ceremony, it’s about an 11 minute video but in real life it would have taken much longer and there were about a thousand people in the parade.
But what do water and wine being poured out have to do with Jesus? I am so glad you asked and we are going back to the Gospel of John for this, This time, I have two verses for you because it is important twice, for the same reason! “On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and shouted, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within them.” (John 7:37-38) Wow! Did He say this while the priests were pouring out the water and the wine? I sure think so. He was telling them that no matter how excited and happy they were about ordinary water and wine being poured out, that if they were really thirsty then they would only be satisfied by the Holy Spirit who would come to them through Jesus! The streams of living water can’t be gotten out of a spring that comes out of the ground but from trust in Jesus that He is who He says He is and that He is speaking the truth about God!
But that’s not all John had to say. After Jesus was dead, the soldiers came around to break everyone’s legs so they would die more quickly, but when they saw that Jesus was already dead, the soldier wanted to make sure He wasn’t faking it and so “…one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.” (John 19:35). If you remember when we studied the Passover with Jesus, He said that the wine they were drinking at dinner was His blood of the New Covenant, a better covenant because Jeremiah said that God’s commandments would be written on our hearts and not just in the Bible. So, when the soldier cut Him with a spear, it was like God was performing the water pouring ceremony Himself. Whenever the priests had been doing that for hundreds of years, God was showing them about Jesus being the living water and the blood poured out on God’s altar. Jesus was even crucified in an old stone quarry, the same kind of stone that the altar in the Temple was built out of. Jesus wasn’t a sacrifice though, He was just like a sacrifice. No sacrifice at the Temple or Tabernacle could save us from our sins, only Jesus could do that by dying to make it so that Satan isn’t the boss of anyone who loves Jesus, and we can’t stay dead because we are flowing with living water forever.
That’s why it is so important that we know about the festivals and celebrate them because they all tell us about Jesus. Passover tells us about when He died. The day of Firstfruits tells us about Him being the first to rise from the dead with a perfect glorified body that can never get sick or die ever again. Pentecost (Shavuot) tells us about the Holy Spirit of God filling up the believers in Jesus. Yom Teruah or Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Trumpets and the beginning of the new agricultural year, tells us to celebrate Jesus as our King because God has given Him rulership over everything in heaven and on earth. Yom Kippur teaches us that we need to carefully guard God’s reputation and His presence in our lives through how we represent the teachings of Jesus as the living stones of His worldwide Temple. And Sukkot, the Festival of Tabernacles (or tents), teaches us that Jesus came to live among us like a man in a tent when He left the right Hand of God and became human for us. It also teaches us that Jesus would gather all of the nations of the world to God! And finally, that Jesus is the living water and wine of God’s covenant with all of us. He went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the festival ceremonies would make it obvious, but only after it all happened, that Jesus is God’s one unique Son, the Messiah, our Savior and King. What better reason for a party???
I love to cook and this is the day I really cook all our favorite foods. Pastrami brisket that has been soaking in salt water for two weeks and has to cook for fourteen hours. I already have blueberry pies in the freezer, and I will make my mom’s famous Swedish Tea Ring that is SO YUMMY. And we will have so much fruit and grape juice and my husband and kids will drink wine because they are grownups now. And their girlfriends will be with us, sharing in the meal, and we will have something special every single day. Oh, and birthday cake—I am pretty sure that Jesus loves coconut so there will be a coconut cake for sure. I will put my favorite radio station on first thing in the morning and just listen to music about God all day long. And when I don’t have knives in my hands, I will dance but otherwise I will sing when I know the words of the songs. And I will make a huge platter of turkey sandwiches on croissants or maybe sourdough bread, and mine will have extra pickles and so much mustard. Lots of extra pickles. When people look at my sandwiches, they are like, “Do you want some sandwich to go with your pickles and mustard?” I will set the table with my fancy tablecloth and silver candlesticks and we will have the spices and the grape juice and wine on the table and I will light the candles and pray and my husband Mark will say the prayers over the challah bread and wine and he will pray for our sons and their girlfriends who we love very much. It will be a wonderful celebration and it is very different now than when they were kids.
We were only ever in a Sukkah outside one year—when we lived in Missouri and we built a fort in the woods on our property, with branches on top for a roof so that we could see the sky. And we would go out and eat in it and enjoy ourselves. When they were smaller, we almost always lived somewhere really cold and so we would build blanket and pillow forts in the basement if we didn’t have enough room, or a tent if we did have room. It was lots of fun and they would eat their meals in there and really enjoyed it and sometimes we weren’t able to take it down for a month because they enjoyed it so much. You don’t have to go to Jerusalem or have anything fancy to celebrate Jesus becoming a human and tabernacling with us, whatever you do, just remind yourself that it is a picture of Jesus as well as a picture of the Israelites out in the wilderness after God freed them from slavery. Jesus freed us from slavery too because Satan was holding us as captives and we served him because we were sinning and didn’t have the power to stop.
So, that’s God’s camping holiday. And if you are really lucky, you might live somewhere where people from all over get together to camp and have fun all week, but most people don’t. That’s okay, because you are people too and you can do it at home. A good thing to always remember is that we can’t really keep the Feasts the way it tells us to in the Bible because there is no Temple, but that’s okay. What’s important is that we understand them so that we can understand better about how they all point right at Jesus, our King of kings and Lord of lords. Whether He was born during Sukkot or some other time of the year, it is still a wonderful time to celebrate that He tented here with us so that He could show us exactly what God looks like in everything that He ever said and did. We do that by giving gifts to the poor so that they can have nice meals too—just like He fed the five thousand and four thousand with loaves and fishes in the wilderness and filled the nets of the disciples with fishes on the Sea of Galilee. We can visit the people we know who are lonely and sick, because Jesus went around helping the poor and healing the sick.
If this is your first time knowing about all these holidays, it’s okay to just do something small. God loves it when we worship Him in big and small ways and in new ways and in old ways. So, if this is new to you, you can have fun with it and try new things. I personally believe that God made coffee tables, couches and blankets so that we could turn them into indoor forts. Maybe it’s time to do some crafts and color, or make cookies together, or cut up fruit into a salad, or spend the day singing and dancing. I will have lots of links for ideas in my transcript. Maybe you have favorite movies that you enjoy. I love watching The Prince of Egypt, Joseph King of Dreams, and all the old Bible movies and even Veggie Tales—I still love Larry Boy and I even have a shirt with him on it and I can still sing the Cheeseburger song and the Belly Button song. It’s an amazing time of year! Oh, and I need to teach you some Hebrew, so you can know how to say happy holidays! During Sukkot, we say Chag Sameach! (haahg sa-may-ahh-ck) It actually does mean “Happy holiday!” If you want to learn more, I have some very very old videos on my Context for Kids YouTube channel too when I had longer hair and fewer wrinkles and much smaller glasses.
Now really quick, let me tell you about the very last day of the Fall festivals, and it happens the day after Sukkot so some people call it the eighth day of the festival, or Shemini Atzeret. Everyone who had gone to Jerusalem for Sukkot would gather together at the Temple for one final service. Now why is this important? Weren’t they just all saying goodbye before going home? Although they would all do that, and say goodbye to extended family that they wouldn’t see again until the spring for Passover week, setting apart this day as a special and holy day is very important to the story of Jesus. You see, Jesus died on the Passover, and He was still in the grave on the Sabbath, which is the seventh day, but the day He rose from the grave with His glorified and immortal body that would never get sick or die (and could even go through walls) was the very next day, which we could call either the first day of the week or the eighth day. I call it the eighth day, Shemini Atzeret, because it was on that day that the whole world changed! It wasn’t only the beginning of a new week, but also the beginning of the New Creation, God’s Kingdom of Heaven on earth where we can live changed lives because Jesus is our King and the Holy Spirit guides and helps us to be more and more like Him.
I love you, I am praying for you, and Chag Sameach! Happy Holiday!
Fun links!
https://pjlibrary.org/beyond-books/pjblog/september-2017/build-a-sukkah-with-your-family
https://www.jewishboston.com/read/sukkot-crafts-roundup/
https://pjlibrary.org/beyond-books/pjblog/september-2013/kid-friendly-snacks-for-the-sukkah