Shanah Tovah! Happy New Year 5780!
It’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year 5780.
We begin our celebration at sundown tonight by releasing the sound of the shofar and eating apples and honey.
“Shanah Tovah! May your new year be sweet and fruitful!”
My friend, Bessie Honeysucker, explained to me that if you really read the scriptures well, you will note these are God’s feasts. (Leviticus 23) They are about Him spending time His kids. Given to us as a gift, these days are set aside to remember and honor Him. They are for everyone, not just Jewish people. The Children of Israel were given the model or prototype so we would know the how and the why of His appointments with us. They are gifts of time given to anyone who calls upon His name.
God has our names written in His Day Timer, the Hebrew calendar, so maybe I should write His name in my calendar so that I won’t forget our appointment times. I try not to miss appointments to my doctor, my dentist, my hair dresser. Why would I want to miss my appointments with my Creator, my Father, my King? After all He is the one who has invited me to these appointments.
Rosh Hashanah is the day God created man, the sixth day of Creation. It begins with the sound of the trumpet at sundown on the first day of the seventh month, the Hebrew month of Tishri (September 29- October 8)
At sundown on Rosh Hashanah, we are to release the sound of the shofar. This sound awakens our spirits from our ‘everyday lives, from our sleep’ and causes us to remember the Creator and King of the Universe. This day was the beginning of all mankind, the day of our creation.
Our God knows we get in a rut and go about doing our day to day stuff. We need the awakening sound of a blast to stop! & Remember. At this sound we welcome Him into our realm of the universe, into our everyday lives in a new way.
The ten days following Rosh Hashanah are called the Ten Days of Awe. Can you imagine, a whole nation stopping for ten days to acknowledge the greatness, the majesty, the magnificence of the Creator and King of the Universe. Ten days to examine our own lives and see our smallness and His greatness; to acknowledge that He created us for relationship; to know how much He loves and relentlessly pursues us, even at the expense of His own dear son.
A common business practice is to stop and take inventory on a yearly basis. I believe it is always good to come away, take inventory of our own lives in a deep way. Have we offended anyone? Do we need to make it right? Are there habits we have developed that have hindered our walk with Him? Past mistakes? Failures? These ten days are set aside in our year to do just that, check out our lives before Him and ‘come clean.’ Ten days to take inventory of the past year, examining our own hearts in preparation for our personal appointment with Him on Yom Kippur (sundown October 8-9).
The High Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, was the day of His
A friend, Martha Jobe, sent me this statement and it sums up Rosh Hashanah, the ten days of Awe and Yom Kippur: “Oh God of second chances and new beginnings, here I am again.”
Like taking a cleansing breath, releasing the old and inhaling in the new, let’s prepare ourselves in the coming days of Awe to see Him bigger, stronger, more glorious than ever before!
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