Nougat 19

‭ Fire! Fire! Fire

Fire fall on me!

Like the day of Pentecost,

Fire fall on me!

In the Western Christian tradition, today is Pentecost.

Pentecost is observed 50 days after Resurrection (7 weeks and a day). Now, 50 is associated with feasts, and the Jewish Pentecost was actually a feast day. It was a feast commemorating the Law being given to Moses on Mt Sinai. Also, it marked the beginning of the wheat harvest. There were approximately 50 days between the barley harvest (round about Passover) and the wheat harvest.

Passover was marked by the feast of the unleavened bread. This first wheat harvest marked by Shavuot (i.e., first fruits), like the Feast of the Passover. was dedicated totally to God. I invite us to keep this in mind as we consider Today’s Holy Nougat

‭Acts 2:1, 4 NIV‬

[1] When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

[4] All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

First fruit: Pentecost offerings

In my readings, I realised that the _Shavuot_ offering included leavened bread (remember leaven is an agent that makes bread rise, or in other words, increases the volume of whatever hosts it). This is a contrast to the Passover festival, where no trace of yeast ought even to be in one’s home. For me, this becomes significant as we look at the two harvests – barley and wheat.

The barley harvest, it is said, is primarily about food for the animals. One commentator, Shlomo Yaffe, on chabad.org suggests that this points to our sin/fleshy nature. The wheat harvest is related to food for human consumption and thus points to our spirit nature.

Should we agree with his premise, we see that the use of unleavened bread for the Passover feast underscores our desire to put away our sin nature. And as we obediently wait, we meet God at Pentecost, where God’s Spirit is poured on all flesh. Hence the manifestations of wind and flames on that new Pentecost morn.

On that day of Pentecost, it was God Who offered up First Fruits by pouring God’s Spirit upon all who had obediently gathered. And God’s increase was evident in all who gathered to host God’s Spirit. These disciples and other believers were not only the ‘First Fruit’, but in their language and their extended witness, they exemplified the leavened bread offering. There was visible increase.

Can you hear the wind of God’s Spirit pulling the ‘human’ sheaves together?

Can you see the tongues of fire landing on the wheat harvest, sacrificially offered up to God?

Can you feel the electric anointing weighting over that Holy space?

Can you visualise the expanding process internally, as they yielded to the move of God within their souls?

This wasn’t a normal first fruit harvest. This first fruit was God’s harvest of humans for the entire world, not only the Jews. It’s as though God was dedicating a new, rather, a special Levitical order for all humanity through this Shavuot. Their mission was to ensure the good news reached everyone. To offer the Bread of life, expanded by God’s Spirit to all flesh.

Siblings, we’re living in this new dispensation, where access to God’s Spirit is readily available. The first fruit has already been dedicated to God. Can we put aside our sin nature and offer ourselves anew to God, to do with us as God desires?

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May all we seek be found in Christ