Shavuot: How To Do a Shavuot Service in Your Home

[Music] hi i'm pastor mark thanks for joining me in this video on how to celebrate a messianic shavuot now the most common term that we use today for shavuot is pentecost at least that's what people are most familiar with pentecost in fact we have a rich tradition within the church called pentecost sunday we'll get to that in a little while but let me just talk a little bit about the historic roots of this celebration this annual festival that god has given us to celebrate this celebration called shavuot or pentecost in the greek is the celebration when israel formally becomes am segula my chosen people if you remember god calls her out of egypt he brings her out of egypt into sinai on the way to the promised land and it's at sinai via a covenant that she enters into this relationship with god as his chosen people she's even referred to after that point and and as we go down through the historical timeline she's referred to as the kahal it's the hebrew word for congregation what does that mean well she became the congregation of the lord if you will and this word cahal when it's translated into the greek when they wrote the septuagint the greek translation of the hebrew bible for jews by jews four jews they translated the word cahal with the greek word ecclesia and ecclesia means called out ones and so this word ecclesia is a reference to god calling his people out of egypt and her becoming amsai gullah his treasured people who were also referred to as the congregation of the lord or the assembly of the lord now this is powerful in every way because we take this word ecclesia from the greek and of course we translate it with english words like assembly congregation or church so catch the connection here i want to read acts chapter 7 and verse 38 referring to moses stefan says in his testimony concerning moses this is he that was in the church in the wilderness did you catch that this is he this is moses the one that was with the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the mount sinai and with was with our fathers who received living oracles to give unto us so when you think about it the church did begin at pentecost but not the pentecost that you find in acts chapter 2 but rather the first pentecost in exodus 19 and 20 all the way back in the beginning when god called israel out under the leadership of moses and she became his chosen people amsegullah in that covenant she became the congregation of the lord the cahall of the lord the ecclesia of the lord the church of the lord now this time also marks the giving of the ten commandments as the foundation and symbol of israel's covenant with god when she became god's chosen people and the ten commandments represent the covenant itself it represents a new way of living they're no longer to live like the egyptians they're now saved and holy they're they're god's children and he's saying i want you to live according to my ways not the ways of the pharaohs not the ways of the world but my ways i am holy and therefore you shall be holy so he gives us the the ten commandments which is the very framework the foundation of all the rest of the commandments of god all the rest of the instructions the torah itself is based on these ten words that's very powerful in every way now we know that she went quickly into rebellion and that she was disobedient for generations in fact for centuries and centuries and centuries she persisted in her disobedience to finally god through the prophets divorced her you can read about that in isaiah and jeremiah he divorces israel she breaks the covenant significantly enough and consistently enough that god says i'm done and he divorces her now in the midst of that divorce he promised hers promises that he will woo her again at a later time through a new covenant in which she will again become his people she'll be restored to the former uh uh calling and and glory of being his treasured people all of that's going to be restored under a new covenant enter jesus the messiah so when jesus comes on the scene what does he do he goes about preaching the good news of the gospel of the kingdom of god he says that he comes to seek and to save the lost house of israel he comes to seek the sheep that are lost within israel think about that for a moment israel now is going to be restored through a new covenant he says i'm going to build my church i mean i've come to build the church that had fallen into apostasy and to restore her through a new covenant in fact he establishes the new covenant replete with the torah through his death and his resurrection and then 50 days later 50 days after his resurrection on that pentecost in that year he pours out the long-awaited spirit of god he pours it out on the jews who believed in him and then also empowering them to walk out the torah that was now written deep on their hearts and then soon after this the gentiles come in mass they're invited into israel they begin to participate through the new covenant along with jewish believers as the cahal as the ecclesia of the lord as the church of the lord this is the the amazing part of the inclusion of the gentiles that comes at the end of the age this is what shavuot pentecost represents israel becoming the people of god being given the torah as a way of life and then being restored after falling into apostasy being restored through a new covenant and then the gentiles being included in that group of believing jews to reconstitute if you will the people of god through a new covenant this is what this day memorializes so how do we keep it how do we do this how do we make this real for us in our generation we do that through a ceremony we do that through ritual we do that through through traditions if you will and and an extravagant party so the date this year for the celebration of shavuot of pentecost is sunday may 31st 2020 and this ceremony this service this party that we want to encourage you to do in your homes with your friends it's approximately two and a half hours you can do it all in in that time period give or take a little um and it's during this season of shavuot and pentecost that we are making available these resources so that you and your family and friends can participate and do this in your homes so during this season of shavuot you can download our omer calendar as we count our way to pentecost you can also download our shavuot pentecost service guide on our festival page on our website and that will show you and tell you and lead you on how to do this event in your homes it's so user friendly you're going to love it so let me talk about the following symbols and things that you're going to need to do this service with your family and friends these are basically traditions and symbols that we use in the telling of the story of shavuot so we're going to begin with the shofar a ram's horn and if you don't have one of these i know most people do but if you're very new and you want to get a ram's horn we just encourage you amazon.com that's one of the easiest places to go and get a shofar a ram's horn but we encourage you get a ram's horn uh and the ram's horn of course it represents the trumpet of god blasted on the mountain in exodus chapter 20. you can read about it uh this this loud blast of the shofar called to attention the people of israel called them to receive god as their king as they became the people of god and then in addition to that we're going to ask you to go and purchase 50 heads of barley you can get these at like michael's or hobby lobby and if you don't have barley you can substitute heads of wheat but you're going to need 50 of those buy two vases you know you can do whatever you want in terms of you know the vases or whatever and you're gonna put 49 on one side and you're going to put the 50th one on the other side and these represent the counting of the omer that connects passover with shavuots we'll talk about that more in just a minute then we need 10 candles so be sure to get 10 candles because these 10 candles are going to represent the 10 commandments and uh we're gonna have you know someone like those in our group as we recite the ten commandments and of course they represent the light of god the fire of god that was manifested on the mountaintop at that first pentecost and again the tongues of fire that manifested in acts chapter two at that second great pentecost and then also uh i have a ten commandment uh little plaque here that i have and it has brass and and stone and it represents the ten commandments but you can get different things uh that are depicting those ten laws i always like to include that as one of our props in the telling of the story and then finally a big extravagant meal including wine and loaves of chala i want to remind you this is a festival celebration festival is kind of code for a holy party this is not only a ritual and a ceremony it's a celebration and there's food and there's song and there's dance and there's fellowship and rejoicing and so it's a time to gather and really have a huge party in celebration of what god did in that first pentecost and in the second pentecost now we want to recommend that you invite family and friends to your event and that you want to do that a week or two in advance we encourage you to go to paperlesspost.com or to evite.com it's super easy to send out your invites with all your information it organizes it for you there's an rsvp part of that and so it's just easy to track and put together your event you can also assign what you want people to bring and so if your party's large enough you're going to want people to bring hors d'oeuvres and and drinks and different things to help out we usually just do the main meal we assign everyone else the side dishes to do and then we begin our time whether you're going to do that around the noon hour and make it around a lunch or around the dinner dinner hour say five o'clock uh but we start with 30 minutes of hors d'oeuvres and we just kind of uh fellowship and begin to eat as we wait for other people to come there's always people that come a little early some people come right on time and always there's a few that come late that 30 minutes gives you that that time to accommodate everyone that's going to come the main meal we a lot about 50 to 60 minutes to actually sit down and share a meal with each other then after the meal is over we do the service this is where you're going to need the chavo pentecost service guide and it's that guide that's going to give you the format and the flow sheet of what you're going to be doing in this service for everyone and there are places where you can assign others to help you do uh the ceremony so you're going to begin with the blowing of the ram's horn you're gonna have someone blow the ramp's horn and i'm sure in your group every group will have someone that can blow the ram's horn but let me just if you will let me just blow this i want to remind you the ram's horn is something that really should just kind of waken everyone up and get their attention it was god's way of saying israel stand to attention receive me as your king this is an important event that's taking place you're becoming my people so i'll just blow this uh for us to have a little bit of an error of what that sounds like and of course there's more to it than than that but you can learn along the way but if you notice that is a sound that's going to kind of like wake everyone up and it's much louder in person than it is on on this video but i love it it just creates the environment to really get serious and get into this part of the service then we do our liturgy and the liturgy has some prayers uh associated with that and some verses out of the word of god and what you're going to do during that time is have someone move during the liturgy and it'll it'll show you when to do that but you're going to move that final 50th head of barley over to the other vase which represents the finality of the count we're at the 50th day it's pentecost today and so that's part of the telling of the story and the imagery is what connects us with all the richness of that meaning and purpose and so uh you'll do that at that time and then we'll go into the bread and the wine ceremony you're going to need two loaves of chala bread and the two loaves can represent many different things for us it represents uh the the grace of god coming to us both to the jew first and also to the gentile that he has made both of us one new people in his messiah and so you'll have two loaves of chala bread you're gonna go ahead and break off a piece of challah you're gonna pass that around everyone else is gonna break off a piece everyone's gonna hold that together there's some liturgy that we we recite and a blessing over the bread and we'll talk about the meaning of the bread and then we partake of that together then we move to the blessing of the wine we pour some wine in a glass everyone else will pour some grape juice or wine in their cups and then we recite liturgy over the wine we talk about the meaning of the wine and we recite some prayers over the wine and then we all participate in drinking the wine together and then finally we'll come to the ten commandments which represent the covenant itself and so we'll have 10 candles here we'll have 10 readers each reader will recite one of the 10 commandments and after they recite a commandment or before it's up to you you'll have a child in the group come and light one of the candles each of the ten candles represent one of those ten commandments and the light and the fire of course represents the manifest presence of god both in the first and second pentecost and in our lives today you and i we are the light of the world and then we'll have our closing we'll close with some some dialogue where we invite everyone to participate and the question that we'll ask is what is god impressing on your heart through this shavuot this pentecost event today what is god saying what's meaningful to you in this event and it's a powerful time just to listen to each other other and share with each other what god is doing in your lives and then we'll pray and then we'll have desserts and that runs about 15 to 30 minutes where we just share uh you know our dessert together as we kind of put a final uh cap on this ceremony and then we'll dismiss everyone uh thank them for coming dismiss with the prayers so there's a graceful way to kind of give an exit to those that you know are needing to get back home or whatever and so uh you'll be able to dismiss with that so that's it for this video and thanks for joining me today and i want to encourage you don't forget to download the umer calendar and also the shavuot pentecost service guide you will need that for your service you can go to our website under our festivals or spring festivals and you can get those uh items that you need to do this event so get prayed up prep and get ready to have a life-changing pentecost service with your family and your friends and may it be filled with signs and wonders shalom [Music] you

Channel: The Harvest

Views: 4,228

Rating: 4.8536587 out of 5

Keywords: iMovie, Pentecost, Shavuot, Wave Offering, Counting of the Omer

Id: pOjtrlS0KZU

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020