‘That I Might Dwell with Them’
Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Season of Our Joy, is known as the time in all of Israel. That’s huge! But it makes perfect sense, really. This is, after all, the festival that anticipates and expects in joyous excitement the biggest royal banquet, the greatest wedding feast in the history of mankind to come.
But before we get to that, let’s start with a brief recap of where we are at the moment and where the festival of Sukkot fits into the picture.
Sukkot on the Prophetic Calendar
Let’s start with the logistics. Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles is the seventh of the seven biblical feasts, the seven feasts of the Lord He gave Moses in Leviticus 23, starting with Pesach or Passover, then Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks, Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement and then finally, as the glorious culmination, the icing on the cake, Sukkot.
As we know, these seven festivals aren’t just God giving us seven legitimate reasons to host seven epic parties. God’s appointed biblical feasts have a deeper significance than simply having a good time. There are so many awesome layers of significance and meaning to the feasts, but tonight I want us to focus on one: Jesus.
Right there, woven into the cycle of seven interrelated annual feasts, we see a shadow, a picture of the Messiah, a prophecy of God’s plan for the salvation of humankind through Jesus, with each feast building on the preceding one and each next one providing the next piece of the puzzle. Each of the seven festivals gives us one aspect of what Jesus already did for us and and what He will still do for us. Which makes the feasts like a blueprint, a roadmap on God’s prophetic calendar for salvation.
So let’s take a look at the parts of the picture we can see so far, at the events on the prophetic calendar that have already been fulfilled—and the ones we are still looking forward to, and then where Sukkot fits in.
The seven Biblical festivals—Passover or Pesach, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks, Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement and then finally Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles are divided into two categories: the spring festivals and the fall festivals. The reason is obvious. The first four—Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Shavuot—take place during the spring and the second three—Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles—during the fall.
Jesus already fulfilled the first four, the spring festivals—Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Shavuot—during His first coming. But what exactly did Jesus do to fulfill them? Which puzzle pieces of salvation already fell into place?
On the first Passover, Israel was delivered from slavery in Egypt and the redemption of a people was obtained through the blood of the Passover lamb. Thousands of years later, Jesus was crucified on Passover to become our perfect, spotless Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). And once again, the redemption of a people was obtained through blood. But this time it was the redemption of all the people of the earth, the deliverance was from slavery to sin and death and destruction, and the blood was that of Jesus. So Passover is synonymous with the death of Jesus as our Passover Lamb for our redemption through His blood.
For three of the seven days of the festival of Unleavened Bread, Jesus was in the grave. Leaven represents sin, death and decay. On the opposite side of the spectrum we have Jesus, Who is holy, pure and sinless. His life, and also His sacrifice, was untouched by the curse of sin. Yes, Jesus died the death we were supposed to die and carried the punishment we were supposed to carry—on our behalf and in our stead. But He also lived the perfect life we were supposed to live—on our behalf and in our stead. A sacrifice and a life life untouched by sin, untouched by death and decay, untouched by the leaven that corrupts and destroys. So Unleavened Bread is synonymous with the burial of Jesus and His sinless victory over death and decay in His burial.
The festival of Firstfruits celebrates bringing the first batch of the harvest to the Temple as an investment, a sign, a promise of the full, abundant harvest to come. And on the feast of Firstfruits, Jesus was raised from the dead as that first batch of the harvest, as the firstborn in God’s family, as an investment, a sign, a promise of the full, abundant harvest of the sons and daughters of God to come. So Firstfruits is synonymous with the resurrection of Jesus as the first fruit and we are the full harvest of sons and daughters of God to come.
Then, fifty days after Passover, there is Shavuot. The first Shavuot commemorates God giving His instructions—the Torah (Gen.–Deut.)—to Israel at Mount Sinai, a day Israel celebrates as the birthday of Judaism, the day on which God entered into a marriage covenant with Israel and Israel became His bride. And then, thousands of years later, and 50 days after Jesus died on the cross, the disciples of Jesus were gathered in the upper room when the Holy Spirit was poured out to write God’s instructions on our hearts, a day we celebrate as the birthday of the Church, the day on which Jesus entered into a marriage with the Church and we became His bride. So Shavuot is synonymous with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit who came to write His law on our hearts and help us, the Bride, prepare for the return of the Bridegroom.
That covers the first four feasts. The four spring festivals fulfilled through Jesus’ death on Passover, burial during Unleavened Bread and resurrection on Firstfruits, followed by the outpouring of His Spirit on Shavuot. What we have is four major consecutive events in God’s plan for the salvation of mankind, each taking place on one of the feasts of the Lord in consecutive order.
But it also leaves us with the remaining three fall festivals, which we believe will be fulfilled when Jesus returns. Prophecy tells us that a number of things are still to come in God’s plan for the salvation of mankind, including Jesus, the Son of Man, returning in His glory, His coming announced by the sound of a piercing ram’s horn; all nations gathered before the Son of Man for judgment; and finally, the Bridegroom, Jesus, dwelling or “tabernacling” with us forever.
And if the first four major episodes or the first four major events of God’s plan for salvation—that is Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit—took place on and in fulfilment of the first four feasts of the Lord, I think we can safely say that the next major episodes or major events of God’s plan for salvation—which is the Son of Man returning in His glory, His coming announced by the sound of a piercing ram’s horn, all nations gathered before Him for judgment, and Jesus, the Bridegroom, dwelling or “tabernacling” with us forever—will take place on and in fulfilment of the final three feasts of the Lord, starting, of course, with Yom Teruah, then Yom Kippur and then finally, Sukkot.
But what will that fulfilment likely look like?
On Yom Teruah—the “memorial of blowing of trumpets”—as the sound of millions of shofars echo through the land and into the atmosphere, we coronate God once again as Lord and King over our lives, over ourselves. And we look forward with reverence and joyful expectation to the Son of Man returning, His coming announced by the sound of a piercing ram’s horn, although we do not know the exact day or hour of His return.
Which brings us to Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement, which is synonymous with the Son of Man seated on the throne of His glory and all the peoples of the earth being gathered before Him for judgment as He separates them one from another as a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats (Matt. 25:31–32). Yom Kippur is synonymous with standing before His throne of judgment trembling, knowing full well what we deserve—a resounding guilty verdict, the crushing wrath of God, banishment from His presence, to be cast out in the deepest darkness for our sin and rebellion. But Yom Kippur is also about standing before His throne of judgment rejoicing, knowing full well what I get—full pardon, being welcomed in His presence as a beloved son or daughter, an eternity spent in His presence. All because our High Priest, Jesus, entered the holy of holies in the perfect tabernacle not made with hands as a forerunner for us (Heb. 6:20). He entered the very presence of God as our High Priest—once for all—not with the blood of a young bull and two male goats and a ram as a burnt offering, but with His own blood, to obtain eternal redemption for us (Heb. 9:11–15). And therefore, when we stand before His throne of judgment one day, we do not stand alone. We stand with our High Priest, wrapped in His righteousness.
Which brings us to the glorious culmination, the seventh of the seven biblical feasts of the Lord, the icing on the cake: Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Season of Our Joy, the time known as the happiest in all of Israel and the time for us to look forward to the fulfilment of the one thing we live for and the culmination of the joy set before us.
Sukkot
Sukkot is celebrated for seven happy days from the 15th to the 22nd of the biblical month of Tishri, starting on Monday, October 6 at dusk and ending on Monday, October 13 when the sun goes down.
We read about Sukkot for the first time in Leviticus 23, where God gives Moses the instructions for celebrating the seven feasts. But the rest of the Bible is also filled with references to the Feast of Tabernacles.
Solomon dedicated the First Temple to God during Sukkot. Nehemiah dedicated the rebuilt walls of Jerusalem to God during Sukkot. The prophet Joel (2:23–24) promised the early and latter rains during Sukkot. Debts were to be cancelled every seven years during Sukkot (Deut. 31:10–13). And during Sukkot, Jesus stood up in the Temple and boldly declared, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” It was also during Sukkot that He gave His precious promise: “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
Agriculturaly, Sukkot occurs once the harvest has been completed and the full crop has been brought in. There is thus an element of celebrating the ingathering, of the work being done and rejoicing in what God has done to provide for his people. The laborers can rest after their hard work and enjoy the sweet fruit of their labors.
Seven Days under the Stars
The name Sukkot is plural for sukkah, the Hebrew word for hut or booth. And the feast commemorates the 40 years a fledgling nation of former slaves wandered the desert en route to the Promised Land living in temporary huts or sukkot—with nothing but the faithfulness of God to provide for their daily necessities like safety, shelter and sustenance in a barren wilderness.
And today, more than three millennia later, the descendents of those who spent the 40 years wandering the desert sustained by God, celebrate Sukkot according to His commend, “You shall dwell in booths for seven days…that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt…” (Lev. 23:42–43).
The days leading up the holiday pass in a flurry of activity as Israelis become makeshift carpenters to construct temporary shelters outside their homes, in backyards, on balconies, sidewalks and every other conceivable open space. The temporary dwellings—often made from a frame of wood or metal, covered with sheets, rugs or blankets as “walls” and branches or leaves as the roof—becomes “home” for seven days. For the week of Sukkot, Israelis spend their free time in the sukkah, enjoying their meals, visiting with loved ones and even sleeping under the stars—much like their ancestors did in the wilderness.
Reason for Rejoicing
If you are like me, you could argue that forsaking the comfort of your home for seven days of roughing it in a flimsy hut hardly constitutes a reason for merriment. So why is the holiday called “The Season of Our Rejoicing”?
God Himself draws the correlation between Sukkot and joy when He instructs Israel to spend the feast in delight and jubilation before Him (Lev. 23:40). Which means that joy is a decision based on God’s instruction, rather than an emotion that may or may not be present.
Moreover, on Sukkot Israel remembers and affirms that true happiness is not found in the earthly things that money can buy, in a bank balance, a title or a position. On Sukkot, Israel celebrates God as the one true source of joy, love, security, provision and protection. The God who met every need of their ancestors as they wandered exposed in the wilderness for 40 years with no way to fend for themselves is the same God who continues to care for Israel in the Promised Land. That is certainly reason for rejoicing.
For Us
Now that’s all well and good and lovely. But what does that mean for us? There’s a lot in Israel’s celebration of Sukkot that holds true for us.
For one thing, on Sukkot, we remember and affirm that true happiness is not found in the earthly things that money can buy, in a hefty bank balance, a fancy title or a lofty position. On Sukkot, we celebrate God as the one true source of joy, love, security, provision and protection. The God who met every need of ancient Israel as they wandered exposed in the wilderness for 40 years with no way to fend for themselves is the same God who continues to care for you as you wander exposed in the wilderness of a collapsed economy, as you survey the wreckage of a failing business, the looming possibility of retrenchment or the uncertainty of life as a volunteer.
On Sukkot, we also remember and affirm the temporary nature of us and basically everything in our lives. Our days are numbered, our lives are like the proverbial sands through the hourglass, man is but a puff of smoke, like the grass that whithers. That sounds like a pretty bleak outlook. But it isn’t. Because we have the Everlasting, the Rock, the One Who Never Changes, the One Who was, Who is and Who will forever be. He is anything but temporary. And He gives us a promise in 2 Corinthians 5:1: “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” Us, our lives here on earth are but a sukkah, but we have an eternal house in heaven waiting for us where we will spend eternity with the Eternal One.
His Great Desire to Tabernacle with Us
Again, that’s all well and good. Wonderful even. But we’ve seen that each of the earlier feasts found their fulfilment in Jesus Christ. So how will Jesus fulfill Sukkot? To answer this question, we need to travel back 6,000 years to creation where we first encounter a precious desire of God’s heart: a desire to dwell or tabernacle with us, His creation, His people. In fact, we see this desire of His heart running like a golden threat through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And it is this desire that is at the heart of the feast of Sukkot—and its fulfillment in Jesus.
In the first chapters of Genesis (3:8), we read how God dwelt with man as He walked with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the day. Although man’s sin and the fall interrupted the fellowship, it didn’t dim God’s desire to dwell or tabernacle with us. One book later in Exodus (25:8), we see God instruct Moses that Israel was to build Him a sanctuary or a tabernacle because He desired to dwell among them. This desire continued with the construction of the first and second Temples where God’s manifest presence dwelt. And then, the God who walked with Adam and Eve before the fall, who “tabernacled” with the Israelites in the desert in a temporary structure and who dwelt with the Israelites in the first and second Temple partly fulfilled His desire by becoming Emmanuel—God with us—the God Who actually dwells with and within us. John 1:14 teaches, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt [or tabernacle] among us.” And still, although it is marvelous, amazing, earth shattering even, it is not the ultimate fulfilment.
The Fulfilment of that Desire
In Jewish thought, there’s nothing happier, nothing more joyous than a wedding. And in Jewish tradition, a wedding is not a one-day event that starts with a ceremony and ends with a reception. Instead, a wedding is celebrated for seven days of rejoicing and delight. And that brings us back to Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the seventh of the seven biblical feasts of the Lord, the glorious culmination, the icing on the cake, the Season of Our Joy, the time known as the happiest in all of Israel and the time for us to look forward to the fulfilment of the one thing we live for and the culmination of the joy set before us. How, you may ask? Well, the desire of God’s heart to tabernacle with man will ultimately be fulfilled in a wedding, the wedding feast of the Lamb, fulfilled in the seven Sukkot days of rejoicing and delight.
Jesus of Nazareth who was slain as our Passover Lamb on Pesach, who laid buried during Unleavened Bread, who was raised on Firstfruits, whose Spirit was poured out on Shavuot, is returning, His coming announced with the sound of a piercing trumpet in fulfilment of the Feast of Trumpets. Then, every knee will bow before Him and every tongue confess that He is Lord as He is seated on the throne of His glory and all the peoples of the earth are gathered before Him for judgment in fulfilment of the Day of Atonement. And that Jesus is returning as the Bridegroom. He is returning for His bride. He is returning for a wedding feast—a wedding feast in fulfillment of Sukkot, in the Bridegroom dwelling with us, tabernacling with us forever.
And what a time that will be! Can you imagine? He promises that He will wipe away every tear. He will heal every disease. He will comfort every hurt and pain. He will make all things new, right every wrong, straighten everything that is crooked and bent and broken and return all the loved ones we lost to us. But more than that! Can you imagine seeing Jesus face-to-face, spending eternity spellbound by His glory and might, in blissful adoration of all He is? In His presense. Fullness of joy! Can you imagine infinite joy, epic gladness? All that is coming. That is His promise! More than that. That is His desire. In the Kingdom age to come, the King’s desire of tabernacling with His people will be fulfilled. To our great delight, the King will be with His people!
It started in Genesis with God dwelling with His people in the garden. It was interrupted by the fall. God’s presence dwelt among ancient Israel in the tabernacle in the wilderness and then in the two temples. Then the Word became flesh to tabernacle with us. What was lost in the garden, Jesus regained through God’s plan for salvation with His death, burial, resurrection, pouring out of His Spirit, His return and judgment as He walked out Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits and Shavuot and will still fulfill the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. Why? Why did He do all this? For Sukkot. For the wedding feast of the Lamb. So that ultimately, the King, the Bridegroom, can fulfil His desire of dwelling, of tabernacling with us.
There’s one more thing. Throughout the Bible, we see God’s desire to offer a covering for His people. There’s the cleft of the rock, His wings, His feathers and His pavilion to name but a few. And for Sukkot, He invites us to spend the seven days of the wedding feast under possibly one of the most special coverings of them all. In Jewish weddings, the bride and groom meet under a special covering called the chuppa or the wedding canopy to exchange their vows. Now construction wise, the chuppa is actually nothing more than a flimsy, temporary dwelling symbolizing the bridegroom’s permanent home into which he will now take his bride to dwell with him. And for Sukkot, our Bridegroom invites us to come underneath His chuppa, His wedding canopy, the flimsy, temporary sukkah symbolizing our Bridegroom’s permanent home into which He will one day take us as His bride to dwell with Him according to His promise in John 14:3, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
As you feast with your Bridegroom on Sukkot, as you feast in anticipation and expectation of the great wedding feast to come, know that for Sukkot, He brought you into His banqueting hall, and His banner over you is love (Song of Solomon 2:4).
In Matthew 22, Jesus speaks about a great wedding feast hosted by a king to celebrate the marriage of his son. And then, in Revelation 19:7–8, John draws back the curtain of eternity to give us a glimpse of what we are waiting for, for the Season of Our Joy, for the best and greatest wedding feast humanity has ever experienced: “Let us rejoice and shout for joy [exulting and triumphant]! Let us celebrate and ascribe to Him glory and honor, for the marriage of the Lamb [at least] has come, and His bride has prepared herself. She has been permitted to dress in fine (radient) linen, dazzling and white…”
The foretaste continues in Revelation 21:3–4 with a Sukkot promise: “And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’”
Sukkot will be fulfilled once the harvest of God’s people has been completed and the full crop of sons and daughters for the Father has been brought in. We’ll sit together at that great wedding feast celebrating the ingathering and shouting for joy at what God has done in providing for his people. The laborers who labored so tirelessly for Him here on earth to gather the harvest can rest after their hard work and marvel at the sweet fruit of their labors.
I want to close with this jaw-dropping picture of the wedding feast to come given to us by the prophet Isaiah, and as I read, I want you to close your eyes and imagine yourself there. Precious child of Abba Father. This is the glorious culmination to come, the breathtaking final, the seventh of the seven biblical feasts of the Lord fulfilled, the icing on the cake, Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Season of Our Joy, the time known as the happiest in all of Israel and the time for us to look forward to as the fulfillment of the one thing we live for and the culmination of the joy set before us.
“On this mountain [Zion] the Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples [to welcome His reign on earth], a banquet of aged wines—choice pieces [flavored] with marrow, of refined, aged wines. And on this mountain He will destroy the covering that is [cast] over all peoples, and the veil [of death] that is woven and spread over all the nations. He will swallow up death [and abolish it] for all time. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and He will take away the disgrace of His people from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken. It will be said in that day, ‘Indeed, this is our God for whom we have waited that He would save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us shout for joy and rejoice in His salvation.’”
The fulfillment of Sukkot is coming. The Bridegroom is coming. For His bride. For a wedding feast. And what a wedding feast it will be! This is what we have to look forward to. Which is why we feast and celebrate and rejoice in anticipation of the greatest wedding feast humanity has ever seen, where you will be joined with your Bridegroom and He will tabernacle with us. For ever.