Dayenu! Mazel tov! Latkes! Any of those words sounds familiar? Well, most of the words previously mentioned are common words to know? even if you have not been exposed to the Jewish culture.
Because of my location that I have grown up in, few people outside my synagogue know that ethnic Jews and Gentiles believing in a Jewish Jesus live in my area. I sometimes think that there’s little knowledge of the small little Jewish communities that exist in my area of the country.
When I try to begin explaining my religious beliefs to many/most Christians a typical response is, “Jews cannot be Christians” or “That’s not biblical; Jesus abolished the law so it does no good to follow it.” Something such as that will/has been said.
For some reason the only holiday I can convince skeptics about Messianic Judaism is Passover. Dozens of people who claim the name of Christ, say that Passover is a holiday to at least go to a service because Jesus celebrated it. This does not make one bit of sense to me because even though in America Jesus is pictured as having blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, he IS Jewish, not Norwegian, as Americans tend to portray him. As a Jew, he would have celebrated all of the biblical holidays as a part of the culture. I don’t know about you, but anything that Yeshua did, I want to do, too. Isn’t that enough? As much as I want to write about reasons to observe Jewish holidays this isn’t this weeks topic.
Too often when I invite someone to a holiday or a regular Shabbat service I get a response of, “I went to one of those services one time. I don’t need to go again; I’ve already experienced it.” Or “My Church {Insert denomination} did a Passover Seder once, I’m an expert. I don’t want to go: I already know everything.” These comments deeply bother me because those who say things similar to this when I invite them to synagogue it becomes obvious that they don’t want to expand their knowledge of Christ because He was Jewish. Then culture that one grows up plays a huge role in their worldview and how they view life.
How weird would it be if you celebrated your birthday just one time? Do you set up a Christmas tree just one time in your life? Do you attend church one time after being saved and call yourself connected with the beliefs and people in the church? No, mostly likely you observe these things yearly or weekly. If you celebrate holidays such as Halloween, making and distributing Valentine’s cards, and other non-biblical holidays, how do you justify these holidays over God’s appointed ones?
The Bible commands us to observe the Jewish holidays until the end of time on this earth untill everything that God said will be done, is done. Not once in your lifetime but every appropriate time according to the moons. Did you just skip over that in your Bible study? Or did you simply interpret this as this portion only being for the Jewish people? Make sure to read Romans 11 about that. 🙂
I challenge you to take Old Testament holidays equally as serious as the New Testament.
Shalom Y’all!
lamaleah.com 