Celebrating Biblical Autumn Feasts

As August slips into Autumn, a bit early this year it feels, I’m starting to think and plan for September, and the three Biblical Feasts which all fall in it this year.

In the church calendar, Autumn is the ‘green, growing time’, where there are no major festivals. However, in the Bible (and the Jewish calendar) September this year (2021) is when we will mark:

1 Rosh Hashana, literally Head of the Year aka Jewish New Year (see Leviticus 23:23-25 and Numbers 29:1-2)

2 Yom Kippur, literally Day of Covering (more on this here), the Day of Atonement (see Leviticus 16)

3 Sukkot, literally thicket or booth, known as the Festival of Booths or Tabernacles (see Leviticus 23:33-43; Numbers 29:17-40; Deuteronomy 16:13-17)

We started celebrating Shabbat over 12 years ago, but only recently starting marking this Autumn feasts. However, for Jews they are some of the most significant festivals; Rosh Hashana is Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year, and Sukkot is a week long festival, and one of the pilgrimage festivals. This means it was one of the three times in the year when God’s people were told to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to ‘behold the face of God’ (Deuteronomy 16:16).

So why celebrate these festivals?

1. God gave them to His people and there hasn’t been a command to stop 🙂
2. Jesus would have celebrated them, and it gives us a way to connect with and better understand the world into which Jesus came, acted and spoke.
3. They give us a chance to align ourselves with God’s people around the world who mark these ancient festivals, acknowledging our roots and the tree into which we have been grafted.
4. They give us reason to pause and reflect, to connect with each other and with God in a spiritual and specific way
5. We get to explore the themes of each festival such as forgiveness, generosity, thanks, praise, repentance.
6. We get to fast and eat awesome food 🙂

I’ve collected together some resources put them into the Autumn Feast Resource Pack which also includes links to my YouTube playlists for each festival and links to other resources you may find helpful.

This year I’ve also created a FREE SAMPLE of the pack to give you more of an ideas what’s in it.

I hope it inspires you to explore this a little and maybe mark one of these days in a simple way this Autumn.