{"id":59265,"date":"2015-10-27T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=59265"},"modified":"2016-09-12T04:02:52","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T11:02:52","slug":"remembering-the-jewish-feasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/10\/27\/remembering-the-jewish-feasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the Jewish Feasts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Weird\"Sometimes I forget I’m a bit weird…<\/p>\n

Do you have habits\u00a0which have been part of you for years?\u00a0Do you have personal traditions which you’ve been following for so long that you forget that they’re not universally shared\u00a0by the rest of the world?<\/p>\n

Well, last month I was chatting with a friend online and he highlighted for me one of my personal eccentricities. Our discussion prompted me to write this post so as to share my weirdness with the world, and in the faint hope of discovering others out there who\u00a0have similar quirks…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I will make a new covenant…”<\/h2>\n

Before we start talking about any of the particular ways in which I’m weird, perhaps we should first\u00a0do a little theology…<\/p>\n

When the Lord took on flesh in the womb of Mary,\u00a0we entered a new phase of salvation history. God’s rescue plan for mankind had been in progress long before the Incarnation, but the coming of Christ ushered in a new economy of salvation. Through the events of the Upper Room and Calvary, the Jesus\u00a0welcomed us into a\u00a0New Covenant.<\/p>\n

All that had come before the Incarnation had been a preparation for the coming of Christ.\u00a0The Early Church Fathers were fond of\u00a0demonstrating in their writing the typology at work in Scripture, how the events of the\u00a0Old Covenant foreshadowed the good things which came with Christ:<\/p>\n

For at one time the sacrifice to the sheep was valuable, but now it is without value because of the life of the Lord… The temple here below once was valuable, but now it is without value because of the Christ from above.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

– Melito of Sardis, On the Passover<\/span><\/p>\n

I’d love to do a more detailed post on this subject but it is enough to note that, as Melito explains, with the institution of the New<\/strong> Covenant, the things of the\u00a0Old<\/strong> Covenant passed away which is why Christians are not\u00a0required to keep the full weight of the Mosaic Law. Part and parcel of this were all the ritual observances of the Jewish feasts (Leviticus 32:1-44<\/a>) and we see in the Early Church the development of a\u00a0new liturgical year\u00a0which was distinct from the Jewish calendar.<\/p>\n

Now we come to the subject of my eccentricity…<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, one of my friends commented on the fact that I often post on Facebook wishing people a happy\u00a0Rosh Hashana<\/em>,\u00a0Yom Kippur<\/em> etc.\u00a0I explained to my friend that I typically tried to keep track of the Jewish Holy Days\u00a0and celebrate them in my own way. As a child of the New Covenant, I’m in no way bound to celebrate any of them, but something within me finds it appealing to mark the feasts\u00a0of Old Covenant which were celebrated by my forefathers in the Faith…<\/p>\n