They are his appointed times
Leviticus 23 is a calendar, and the first thing it tells us is whose calendar it is.
“The set feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my set feasts.”
Leviticus 23:2
The Hebrew word behind “set feasts” is mo’edim, appointed times. These are not Jewish holidays that a Gentile might politely observe; they are the LORD’s appointments with his people. He heads the list with the weekly Sabbath (Leviticus 23:3): the feasts and the Sabbath belong together.
The year in Leviticus 23
Passover (Pesach). On the fourteenth day of the first month, at evening, is the LORD’s Passover (Leviticus 23:4-5). It remembers the night the lamb’s blood marked the doors and Israel walked out of Egypt (Exodus 12).
“This day shall be a memorial for you. You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD. You shall keep it as a feast throughout your generations by an ordinance forever.”
Exodus 12:14
Unleavened Bread (Chag HaMatzot). From the fifteenth day, for seven days, no leaven is eaten; the first and seventh days are holy convocations with no regular work (Leviticus 23:6-8). It, too, is “an ordinance forever” (Exodus 12:17).
Firstfruits (Yom HaBikkurim). The first sheaf of the harvest was waved before the LORD on the day after the Sabbath (Leviticus 23:10-11); Paul calls the risen Messiah “the first fruit of those who are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20).
Shavuot (Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks). Fifty days are counted from Firstfruits to a holy convocation (Leviticus 23:15-16), the day the Spirit was poured out in Acts 2.
“You shall make proclamation on the same day that there shall be a holy convocation to you. You shall do no regular work. This is a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.”
Leviticus 23:21
Yom Teruah (Trumpets). The first day of the seventh month is a solemn rest and “a memorial of blowing of trumpets” (Leviticus 23:24).
Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The tenth day of the seventh month is a day to afflict the soul and do no work of any kind (Leviticus 23:27-32); Leviticus 16 calls it, twice, a statute forever.
“It shall be a statute to you forever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no kind of work, whether native-born or a stranger who lives as a foreigner among you; for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you. You shall be clean from all your sins before the LORD. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever.”
Leviticus 16:29-31
Sukkot (Tabernacles, or Booths). From the fifteenth day of the seventh month, seven days in temporary shelters, so that every generation would know that God made Israel dwell in booths when he brought them out of Egypt (Leviticus 23:34, 42-43).
The Eighth Day (Shemini Atzeret). The day after Sukkot is a solemn assembly and holy convocation with no regular work (Leviticus 23:36, 39).
“Forever, throughout your generations”
One phrase keeps returning through the chapter. Firstfruits is “a statute forever throughout your generations” (Leviticus 23:14). So is Shavuot (Leviticus 23:21). So is Yom Kippur (Leviticus 23:31). So is Sukkot.
“You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations. You shall keep it in the seventh month.”
Leviticus 23:41
Exodus says it of Passover and Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:14, 17). If “forever” and “throughout your generations” meant “until the first century”, the words would have nothing left to mean. Because believers from the nations are grafted into Israel (Romans 11:17-18; Ephesians 2:11-19), these generations are ours.
Each feast calls for offerings by the Levitical priesthood, and there is no temple or functioning priesthood today. So we keep the appointed times as memorials, days of rest and assembly, without inventing substitutes for what belongs to the altar (Deuteronomy 12:32; see Question 8 and Question 15). None of it earns anything; salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-10). We keep the feasts because he invited us.
Not the way of the nations
Alongside telling Israel what to keep, God told them what not to borrow.
“When the LORD your God cuts off the nations from before you where you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you not inquire after their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.” You shall not do so to the LORD your God; for every abomination to the LORD, which he hates, they have done to their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.”
Deuteronomy 12:29-32
The concern is not only idols but worshiping the true God in ways learned from the nations, and adding those ways to what he commanded. Jeremiah says it in three words.
“Don’t learn the way of the nations, and don’t be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax. They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move.”
Jeremiah 10:2-4
Jeremiah is describing the making of idols, and we do not claim that a decorated tree is one. The principle is the point: God’s people are not to learn their worship from the surrounding culture. Christmas and Easter, as commonly kept, are not in Scripture: no date for the Messiah’s birth, no command to mark it, no apostle doing so, and customs from later centuries. Traditions are not wrong in themselves, but they cannot replace the days God appointed. Many believers love these holidays sincerely, and we are not here to scold. We simply found a richer table already set.
Jesus and the apostles kept them
Jesus kept the feasts. He went up to Jerusalem for Sukkot and taught in the temple on “the last and greatest day of the feast” (John 7:2, 10, 37). His last supper was a Passover meal he had longed for.
“I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will no longer by any means eat of it until it is fulfilled in God’s Kingdom.”
Luke 22:15-16
At that table he lifted the cup and called it the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20). The apostles did not stop after the resurrection. The Spirit came while they were gathered for Shavuot (Acts 2:1); Paul hurried by sea to reach Jerusalem for the same feast years later (Acts 20:16); Luke marks time by “the Fast”, Yom Kippur (Acts 27:9). To a mostly Gentile congregation in Corinth, Paul wrote this.
“Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place. Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
“Let’s keep the feast” is not an instruction you give to people who have never kept it.
What about Colossians 2:16-17?
This is the passage most often raised against the feasts.
“Let no one therefore judge you in eating or drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.”
Colossians 2:16-17
Read the chapter around it. Paul warns against being robbed “through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men” (Colossians 2:8), and against ordinances like “Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch” imposed “according to the precepts and doctrines of men” (Colossians 2:20-22). The judges in Colossae were pressing man-made asceticism on believers, and Paul’s answer is that no one should judge the Colossians about how they keep feast days, new moons and Sabbaths. He is protecting believers who keep them, not telling them to stop.
Then look at the tense. Decades after the cross, the appointed times are still “a shadow of the things to come”. A shadow is thrown by a real body, and the body is the Messiah’s. Passover has shown us the Lamb; Shavuot the Spirit; Sukkot still waits for the day he dwells with us. You do not throw away a shadow while the one who casts it is still approaching.
Where this is heading
Zechariah looks past the last battle to the kingdom, and he sees the nations on the road to Jerusalem.
“It will happen that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of Armies, and to keep the feast of booths.”
Zechariah 14:16
The feasts are not behind us; they are ahead of us. Learning them now is practicing for a celebration every nation will keep. If you have never sat at a Passover table or eaten under a sukkah roof, you are welcome to keep them with us. Get in touch.