THE ONLY NEW YEAR THAT MATTERS
THE ONE AND ONLY NEW YEAR THAT MATTERS – GOD’S NEW YEAR!
So how important is our calendar? We make appointments with friends, doctors , car mechanics, plumbers, dentists, we have invitations to celebrate birthdays anniversaries, weddings. What happens if we turn up on the wrong date – we miss it!
Right at the beginning of B’rsheet, Genesis, God says: “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to divide the day from the night, let them be for signs, seasons, days and years moedeem – appointed times.: Times that eventually God would say to the Children of Israel: This is when I want you to show up. I will be there – will you? That’s how important God’s calendar is, and just to make it clear I mean God’s calendar, not biblical, not Jewish.
The correct name is לוח השנה של אלוהים
And after sunset next Monday (8th April), about three thousand four hundred and sixty six years ago (or thereabouts) we know God clearly told Moshe and Aaron, just as the children of Israel were preparing to leave Egypt, THIS IS the first month of your year. We know that various months and years are referred to before this amazing event, but it seems clear that God had a plan to choose a nation for a specific purpose, and He seemed in no hurry.
So this first month, we remember and celebrate Pesach, First Fruits, and begin to count the Omer.
We know when Ya’acov first went down to Egypt there were just 75 of them (including Yoseph), that was hardly a nation, and their wealth was just their flocks and herds. When the Nation of Israel is ready to be “birthed” some 400 years later, expelled from Egypt, after plundering the Egyptians of some of their wealth, this really was a momentous event in the plan of the Almighty God of Israel, and when He says very clearly in Exodus 12. THIS IS THE FIRST MONTH OF YOUR YEAR, by then the 75 had become 600,000 men (not counting women children) and of course the mysterious mixed multitude - now that is the beginning of A Nation.
For me a prophetic picture of how God saw the future, The Children of Israel, the descendants of Avraham Yitz’chak and Ya’akov, through whom He chose to reveal Himself, and His Way to live, but accompanied by, we can only assume, Egyptians and others, who chose to align themselves with the only true God. And as God clearly says time and time again as He revealed The Way He wanted them to live, He said: "The same rules for you and for the gere, the gentile, the alien, who chooses to align himself with you.” Did He ever change His mind on this. I do not believe so.
We know God never named the months, just as He never named the days of the week, and so when we hear in the scriptures, after this momentous event: things like, in the 3rd month, or 5th month, or maybe in the 6th year, in the 3rd month, I believe this was God’s way of reminding the Children of Israel it is the 3rd Month, or the 5th month or, in the 6th year in the 3rd month, since what? Since He did that quite remarkable amazing, incredible thing, and brought them out of Egypt. What an event it was, and God says many times during the plagues that He did all those thing so that you will Know I am The Lord God, just as it was also to show Egypt who He was too.
There are 87 bible verses after the Exodus from Egypt when God reminds Israel that He brought them out of Egypt. He is constantly reminding them of what He did. Remember guys Who I am, and What I did. God’s perfect plans, God’s perfect timing. The Birth of Israel as a Nation, and a new God given calendar set in place to go with it, and then of course He told them the Way He wanted them to live, He gives His Torah. That is why I feel so sad, and frustrated that it seems that most of the Jewish world now celebrates Rosh HaShana on the 1st of the 7th month because some Rabbi during the Babylonian exile decided to institute a Civil Year, starting in the autumn. What a travesty!
The problem is that we are now reliant on the calculations of Rabbi Hillel II who is traditionally regarded as the creator of the modern fixed Jewish calendar, which started 385 years after Yeshua. However, a number of documents have been found that indicate that this calendar was not fully fixed in Hillel’s time. Most famously a letter found in Cairo 835 years after Yeshua, indicated that the Biblical holidays were observed on different dates from those predicted by this current calendar, and that the current calendar now used, did not reach its exact modern form until at least 922 years after Yeshua. All very confusing……yes!
But it is a fact, that the present Hebrew calendar is the product of evolution, including Babylonian influence and especially Rabbi Hallel and others, so in fact any year we could be a whole month out of sync with God’s calendar because of the occasional added extra month. Which is why I am not surprised that Yeshua said his returning in glory will be like a thief in the night – we might think we know the month it will happen, obviously not the year, but even if we knew the year he could surprise us by coming a month before or after we expect.
God refers to this first month as Aviv, meaning spring, but all other months are just numbered. There are only three months referred to by name in the Tanakh, Ziv the 2nd month, meaning light, (now called Iyar), Ethanim the 7th month (now called Tishrei) , and Bul the 8th month now called Cheshvan, all mentioned in 1 Kings. All these are believed to be Canaanite names and mentioned in connection with the building of the First Temple. Certainly NOT names given to the months by God.
In this first month, of course, we remember and celebrate Pesach. The Lord gave clear instructions what the Children of Israel needed to do before they left Egypt in the first month. You know the story well:
On the 10th of the month take a lamb into the house,
Make sure it has no defects,
Kill it on 14th day
Smear its blood on the wooden door frame
So as believers in Yeshua it’s quite important that if we call him the Pesach Lamb, that there is some connection with him and the Pesach Lamb.
On the 10th of the month take a lamb into the house. It is recorded in the gospels that the year Yeshua died in Jerusalem, on the 10th of the first month he entered into his Father’s House, The Temple.
During this time of year we start cleaning our houses, and making sure there is no Hametz, yeast, in the house, which is a symbol of sin Just as Yeshua entered his Father’s house and then cleansed it by turning over the tables of the money changers and dealers in doves and pigeons: declaring: “It is written in the Tanakh My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it into a den or robbers:”
Next command make sure the lamb has no defects: Not only do we know that Yeshua was sinless, as the Son of God, but he was symbolically tried too before his crucifixion, and not even Pilot could find any fault in him
Kill on the 14th day of the first month: It is documented that Yeshua died the same time as the Passover Lambs were being killed in the Temple - which begs the question of course how he and his disciples managed to have their “Passover meal” already when the rest of Jewry had not – but it would take too long to go into that.
Daub the blood on the wooden frames of the houses – this will be a SIGN. Again it is well documented that Yeshua was nailed to a wooden beam and obviously then his blood would have gone on that wood, but the interesting thing is that The Lord said it would be A SIGN, as written in Exodus 12:13, it says, the blood will be a SIGN, and the word in Hebrew there is OT, spelt with just two Hebrew letters , aleph tav, את the first and last letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. We are told in Rev. 1:8 that Yeshua is the Aleph and the Tav the first and the last. So just as the blood was a sign at that first Pesach coming out of Egypt, so now Yeshua is the OT, the sign of God offering the whole world freedom, redemption and rescue, and the chance of belonging.
The only slight problem we have here, as believers, is that the Passover Lamb was not a sacrifice for sin, it was JUST a SIGN for the angel of death NOT to kill the first born of the family, just the first born, which was then the last straw for Pharaoh, and he then eventually let them go.
However, I believe there is a definite connection to Yeshua and the Yom Kippur sacrifice for the sins of the nations, which happens in the 7th month (literally the middle of the year). Lev. 16 explains all that the High Priest had to do on this day, culminating in making two sacrifices, one of a bull for himself and his family and one of a goat, on behalf of all Israel. BUT there were two goats, one that was killed and one to be released.
The year Yeshua died there were two men, Yeshua, Son of God, and Barabbas (meaning Son of the father)
As written in Matthew 27:17. We read Pilate asked the people “To choose”, which one to sacrifice, to kill, and which one to release. I think this was to give us another SIGN connecting Yeshua to the sacrifice offered for the sin of the nation at Yom Kippur – so in a way Yeshua’s first coming is a foreshadowing of his second coming, which I am sure most of us believe will be when he comes to fulfil all the Fall Feasts, Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur, and Succot, and establish God’s Kingdom here on earth, and tabernacle with us forever.
The Lord repeats the command to celebrate Pesach in Lev 23:5 and Numbers 9:1, and again in Numbers 28:16, it seems pretty clear He really wanted the children of Israel to remember this remarkable event every year. It is not clear if they actually celebrated Pesach during the years of wondering in the desert, but we know from Joshua that it was on the 10th day of the first month that the children of Israel eventually entered the Promised Land, and then it is recorded that they celebrated Pesach – and I am sure with much rejoicing.
Also during this month we have the counting of the Omer. We have the command in Lev. 23:15 saying “From the day after the day of rest you start counting, seven full weeks. The problem here are the words “the day of rest”. As we know God did not name the days of the week either, and even though we call the 7th day Shabbat, that is not in fact its name. God says 6 days you shall work and the 7th day is A Shabbat - do no work. In modern Hebrew the verb לשבות leeshbot means to go on strike, stop work . So the 7th day of the week is ‘A Shabbat’ just as the first and last days of all the chageem are called Shabbats, God says clearly in Lev. That the first day of the 7th month is a Shabbat (Yom HaTeurah) and the day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is a Shabbat, these days clearly not always falling on the 7th day of the week.
So if Pesach is on a Monday or Tuesday the first and last days, days when you do no work, Shabbats, will not necessarily fall on what we call the 7th day of the week, Shabbat. Not surprisingly there are different opinions about when we start counting the Omer: Is it seven full weeks after the weekly Shabbat or the Shabbat of Pesach? The majority of Jewry start counting after the Shabbat of Seder Night, but the Karaites and some others Jews start counting after the weekly Shabbat.
Most of the references to the first month of the year in the scriptures are related to Pesach, but there are a couple of others, firstly, Ex, 40:17. On the first day of the first month of the second year the tabernacle was set up. I was thinking about this again, and realised that it does not say on the first day of Aviv, but the first day of the first month, which indicates to me, again, that the Aviv, was just God using the word for Spring as a strong indication of when the New Year should begin every year.
So the tabernacle is finished, another significant beginning here, as the Children of Israel enter the second year of their freedom from slavery, in the first month the Tabernacle was set up. The courtyard is erected around the tabernacle and the altar and the screen for the entrance to the courtyard, then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle and Moshe was unable to enter the tent of meeting. Wow, wow, wow….. can you imagine that? God came down from heaven and tabernacled with them.
In 2 Chronicles 29: 3 we read that Hizkiyahu was 25 years old when he began his reign in Jerusalem, he did what was right in the Lord’s eyes, and followed the example of everything David his ancestor had done, and in the first month of his reign he reopened the doors of the House of The Lord and repaired them.
We don’t know if that was the first month of the year, but we do read a few verses later that after he brought the Cohanim and Leva’im to consecrate the Lord’s house it is recorded: They began consecrating the house on the first day of the first month (again no name given to the month).
Then we have recorded in Ezra 6:19 how the Children of Israel, when they came out of exile under the order of Daryavesh the king, rebuilt The Lord’s House, and it was finished on the third day of the month Adar, the final month of the year. Then they installed the Cohanim and Leva’im and the people from the exile kept Pesach on the 14th day of the first month. They joyfully kept the feast of matzah for seven days, for The Lord filled them with joy.
So the first month, most importantly contains this wonderful annual reminder of the mighty outstretched arm of The Lord when He brought His People out of slavery, a New beginning for the Children of Israel.
The month that the Tabernacle was first erected, when God dwelt in their midst.
The month the children of Israel eventually entered the Promised Land, and the month the temple was reconstructed, and the temple re-built.
A month of new beginnings, of fresh starts, in fact THE FIRST MONTH OF A NEW YEAR. SHANAH TOVA!
Abba Father, thank you for your faithfulness, goodness, protection, provision, and patience. We thank you that we can look forward to celebrating Pesach this month, reminding us of the truly amazing way You brought The Children of Israel out of slavery, but also in a way that all the Egyptians were aware that You are The Only God, the God of Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya’akov.
We pray this New Tear will break the hold that darkness, lies and evil seems to have on much of Your world, and as we welcome and accept this new portion of time, this new beginning, we indeed commit ourselves into your service, and pray we may have ears to hear your Word for us, eyes to see your Kingdom here on earth as the world bombards us with false prophesies, lies and scaremongering. May we keep our feet on the solid rock of your everlasting Word and live our lives as if Yeshua died yesterday, rose today, and is coming back tomorrow.
יהי רצון מלפנין יהוה אלהינ ואלהי אבותינו שתחדש עלינו חודש טוב
באדנינו ישוע המשיח
May it be Your will Lord our God and God of our fathers, that you renew for us a good month in our Lord Yeshua the Messiah.