Hello John and Doves,
Well, another Ascension Day has
passed...or has it??
For many years the Church has just
accepted that Ascension Day was 40 days after the
Resurrection.
When I read Acts 1:3 we are told that
Jesus "appeared to them over a span of forty days and
spoke about the kingdom of God." It does not say '40
days from when' so we do not actually know when that 40
day count started. But it was at least 40 days after
the Resurrection.
I have recently come across studies
where Ascension Day is believed to be Shavuot. Shavuot is
Feast of Harvest or Feast of Weeks. Could it
also be the day of Christ's Ascension?
This makes a lot of sense to me, because
BIG things happened on "the Lord's appointed Feasts" and
Jesus' Ascension was a BIG deal. Just like His
death, His lying in the tomb, His Resurrection. So
why wasn't Jesus's Ascension on a "Lord's appointed
Feast"?
In Leviticus 23:4 we are told about "the
Lord's appointed feasts, the sacred assemblies
you are to proclaim at their appointed times."
Note that these are not Israel's feasts - these are the
Lord's (Yahweh's) Feasts (days He would fulfill at the
appointed times in the future). In Colossians 2:17
these days are called "a shadow of things to
come" - so they are prophecies, they are prophetic.
I always thought it odd that Ascension
Day was basically on a 'nothing' day, i.e. not on one of
the Lord's Feasts. One would think that something as
important as the day the Son of God ascends into Heaven to
be seated with His Father would have been on God's
'prophetic day' list - one of His appointed times.
But it wasn't. Or was it? Did someone just
start counting 40 days after His resurrection using the
Omer count to 40 - to maybe prevent people years later
from knowing that the Son of God ascended to Heaven on one
of the Lord's appointed Feasts? Didn't the Pharisees
change the times to confuse the Followers?
We all know Jesus fulfilled the first 3
appointed prophetic times of the Lord - Passover, Feast of
Unleavened Bread, and Feast of Firstfruits in quick
succession. The next one to be fulfilled is the
Feast of Weeks or Feast of Harvest; this is also called
Shavuot. On this feast day the bread of the
firstfruits (wheat) is to be presented as a wave offering
to the Lord and is to be baked with leaven; leaven
represents sin. This day is a sacred
assembly where no regular work is to be done.
"This is to be a permanent statute wherever you live for
the generations to come." Leviticus 23:21
This Feast of Harvest/Shavuot is in
celebration of the first fruits of the wheat harvest which
are presented to the Lord as two baked loaves. Shavuot celebrates the end of the barley
harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest.
(Passover involves the harvesting of the barley, with the
first fruits of the barley presented to the Lord as sheafs
of barley on Feast of Firstfruits.)
Feast of Harvest/Feast of Weeks/Shavuot
is a harvest feast: "Also you shall observe the
Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors
from what you sow in the field." Exodus 23:16
"Also on the day of the first fruits, when you present a
new grain offering to the Lord in your Feast of Weeks, you
shall have a holy convocation: you shall do no laborious
work." Numbers 28:26 "You shall celebrate the
Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat
harvest..." Exodus 34:22
To the Jews this holiday is "also known
as the "Festival of Reaping" or "Feast of Harvest".
"The holiday was also the first day on which individuals
could bring the Bikkurim (first fruits) to the Temple in
Jerusalem, giving it the name "Day of First Fruits" ("Yom
HBikkurim" in Hebrew)."
What
is Shavuot? Everything you need to know!
Is Ascension Day on a Feast of
the Lord?
Recently I
began wondering if Ascension Day
was on a Feast of the Lord, I needed to see if there
were any clues in the scripture. I knew that Jesus' followers
were told to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy
Spirit. So I looked for the location of
His ascension. In Luke 24:50-51 "When he had led
them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his
hands and blessed them. While he blessed them, He
left them and was carried up into heaven."
Then I looked up Bethany - it's a
village new Jerusalem and located on the Mount of
Olives. In Acts 1:12 "Then they returned to
Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.."
What really caught my eye was the next
part of this verse..."which is near the city
(Jerusalem), a Sabbath's day's journey away."
This was what I was looking for to tell me if Ascension
Day was on a Feast of the Lord - and Luke, the
author of Acts, is letting the readers know that they were
following the rules of Sabbath. They people were not
working on this day.
"A "Sabbath's day's
journey" is a unit of distance, equal to about 2000
cubits or 1000 yards. The Jewish leaders limited
people to this distance on the Sabbath, deeming
journeying any further to be "work". And they did
not want the people to transgress the law. No one
cared about how far they walked on a non-Sabbath/Holy
day.
So this BIG clue of
being a "Sabbath's day's journey away"...tells us this day
was either a weekly Sabbath or a Feast of the Lord.
I strongly doubt Ascension Day was on a Sabbath as through
out the Gospels Sabbath days are noted many, many times
and nowhere is a comment made about "a Sabbath's day's
journey traveled" on a Sabbath except Acts 1. And
Luke said nothing about the Lord's Ascension being a
Sabbath day. If you read through Acts you can see
that he makes numerous references to various Sabbath
days: Acts 13:42, Acts 13:44, Acts 16:13, Acts 17:2,
Acts 18:4, Acts 20:7 as some examples.
If this day
was a weekly Sabbath, Luke would have told us. So, I think we can safely say that this day was
NOT on a weekly Sabbath...that only leaves the
possibility of a Feast of the Lord..and the next one to
be fulfilled by Jesus was....Feast of Harvest or
Shavuot!
And if Ascension Day was
indeed on Feast of Harvest, Jesus was again the "first
fruits". The firstfruits of wheat this time. Jesus would
be the firsfruits of the living and dead if this day was
also the day of the Rapture. Parallel to
firstfruits of barley and Feast of Firstfruits.
If this is correct, then this would mean
that Ascension Day has not passed this year. Shavuot
on the chabad calendar is 6/7 Sivan or June 5/6. But
it is later on the Essene calendar.
The Essenes before, during and
after Jesus' time shunned the Pharisees. "The Essenes
taught that God gave us the perfect calendar." Their
calendar was a solar calendar that they said was "observed
unbroken from the time of Adam to Moses and down to the
time of David." Quoted from the book, "The Ancient
Dead Sea Scroll Calendar and the Prophecies It Reveals" by
Ken Johnson.
The Essenes taught that Shavuot
was on the 15th of the month of Sivan, the 15th day of
the third month. On the chabad calendar the 15th
of the third month is June 13/14.
Years ago it was decided that 6 Sivan
would be the Hebrew day for the celebration of
Shavuot. That's the 'chosen' date of man, not
God.
On the youtube channel "We AreThe
Overcomers", there is a video "Rapture of the Body of
Christ on Feast of Harvest (Shavuot) 2022" where the
harvests of Israel are explained. The harvests occur
in three parts: the firstfruits - the first of the
barley, wheat, grapes, etc. are taken to the priest to be
presented to God. At the start of the barley
harvest, the firstfuits of the barley are presented as a
sheaf to the priest who then waves it before the Lord - to
be accepted by the Lord. At the start of the wheat
harvest, the firstfruits of the wheat are made into two
loaves baked with leaven - these are waved before the Lord
to be accepted by the Lord. Jesus was the
firstfruits of the barley and wheat and He went to be with
His Father - presented to the Lord on both days - Feast of
Firstfruits and Feast of Harvest. In this video
Ascension Day is presented as Shavuot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_obg9fozNHE&t=1632s
run time 32:44
The author believes that "God
really does want you to know when He is coming to take
His Barley Bride to be with Him."
run time 1:18:05
Dr.
Awe does an amazing job explaining his understanding
of the Lord's Feasts and Ascension Day as Shavuot on
the 15th day of Sivan.
Based on the above information,
I think from now through mid-June is a high Rapture
watch.
So the 15th follows fifteen
days later....June 14/15.
It is interesting that on the
night of Shavuot the Jews read the book of Esther - where
a Jewish bridegroom takes a Gentile bride. This
would make for a good reference for Christ coming for the
Church on Ascension Day/Shavuot.
Several here have written letters
about Shavuot and the dates of this...I think they
probably all fall before mid-June, 2022.
With Luke's telling us that the
people who witnessed the Ascension were a Sabbath's
Days Journey from Jerusalem, that's a pretty
big hint that this day was indeed a Feast of the Lord -
specifically, Feast of Harvest/Shavuot.
Keep looking up~
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
Maranatha!
Chance
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