Remarkable aspects of Firstfruits

Tuesday, 29. April 2008 by Renee Ellison

The other day was the waving of the firstfruits barley harvest celebration.  It always falls INSIDE the eight days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  (Note: the Hebrew word that we read as Feast isn’t referring to food and drink, but to divine appointments with His people on Earth.)

What is so fantastic about this feast day, first, is the timing.  Some Biblical scholars think that ON this day of Firstfuits, three historic events are layered.  It was the exact date that Noah’s ark was finally delivered out of the flood (came to rest), the Israelites finally were delivered (came up on the far side of the Red Sea), and the actual date when the Messiah ascended briefly to the Father (then He returned to earth for 40 days of proof and ministry of His resurrection; John 20:17).  All three events, that are tied to that day (Noah’s Ark resting on Ararat, the People coming up out of the Red Sea, and the Ascension) involve going Up!  AMAZING!

When we take our first history (His-story) class in the Millennium, I daresay the room will be filled with gasps of joy when we find out the uncanny PRECISION of all that the Creator did during this earth-walk.  [Gretchen, a friend of mine wrote me that other events, in addition to these three, that occurred on the day of First Fruits include: Hebrews entered Egypt 430 years before Moshe/Moses delivered them (Exodus 12:40-41); Israel entered the Promised Land and ate the fruits thereof (Joshua 5:10-12); the walls of Jericho fell (Joshua 5:13); Hezekiah cleansed the Temple 800 years (the number 8 is significant representing “new beginnings) after entering the Promised Land (2 Chronicles 29:1-28); and Queen Esther saved the Hebrews from elimination (Esther 3:12; 5:1).  She added, “The odds of all these events happening on the same day fo the Hebrew year are one in 783,864,876,960,000,000 - YES, 783 quadrillion!  Do you think the Heavenly Father’s appointed times just might be important?!?”]

And secondly, we find that the Feast of Unleavened Bread becomes the supreme object lesson on righteousness...trying to get the leaven out of the house (sin out of our lives).  We get the big obvious things out of our lives on the first day, no problem, we easily get rid of the packages of yeast, bread, etc., but much to our surprise we CONTINUE to find other products with leaven in them, hidden things progressively THROUGH the week, sometimes even throwing out a wee bit of leaven, crumb,  on the LAST day, the eighth day.  This year, we think we found leavening agent in our toothpaste on the last day!  After YEARS of doing this feast day we have never found it all (gotten it all out) YET.  This divine extrication, surgery, rooting out of sin, becomes a FEAST DAY, a cause of celebration, because we find that we agree with the surgery and love the results.  Oh, bring on perfection of the soul!!!  We do hunger and thirst for righteousness. . . HIS!!!  His parties are the best!

Another neat point: the historical events that are tied to the day of FirstFruits have as a common characteristic that they were deliverances through the agency of another...passive events for us, but grand initiations from the Father.  The only thing the people had to do was BE there.  They didn’t have to orchestrate any of their deliverance in all three cases.
Wow, it is so fun to just try to plumb a little bit of the depths of YHWH’s great acts, practices, happenings, feasts, appointments, statutes.  Whew!  We’ll marvel at them for all eternity.