Brother Paul
Advanced Member
Member # 7959
|
posted
Why a first Day Holy Convocation and Rest
One of the practices that appears to have set the Church of Messiah apart from it’s roots has been the adoption of the 1st day of the week as the day we gather for worship, as opposed to the 7th day Sabbath. A misnomer among many modern Christians is that Sunday is the new or “Christian“ Sabbath, and the misnomer for many Jewish people is that the consecration of the 1st day, which is an 8th day following the 7th day Sabbath, as a day of Holy Convocation and a day of rest (shabbat), is an entirely Christian, which for them means, “gentile”, invention. Neither of these assumptions are accurate. In fact, for the followers of Y’shua, Messiah Himself is our shabbat (sabbath), not a day of the week, and the idea of the consecration of the 1st/8th day for a day of Holy Convocation and a day of rest (Shabbat), comes right out of the Torah. So let us examine this second notion in parts, and determine the reasoning for such a practice, in more depth.
The Bible opens with a description of something new and unique, the creation of the heavens and the earth! Within “Bereshith“, the Hebrew word translated “In the beginning“, is the promise and unfolding of a new order of life. In fact, the entire drama of human History, including God’s plan of redemption, starts right here, “Bereshith"! Following this thesis like statement made in Genesis 1:1, throughout Genesis 2 we have a description of the formative liberation of the various unfolding aspects of this new creation, from it’s ideational state in the Eternal, into the formative state of our temporal reality. When God creates the heavens and the earth, the earth is void and without form, but later in the chapter He gives form to it. Likewise in Genesis 2:4,5 some understand this to mean that God created the plants and herbs, but they hadn't yet grown, because it hadn't yet rained upon the earth. Some have conjectured the same to be true of mankind! In other words, God first creates mankind, male and female, in His image, but then later, in chapter 2, He gives form to this eternal ideation, forming the male first, and then making the female from the male, and bringing them into the temporal reality one after another. In creation, they are simultaneous and echad (one), and in formation, first proceeding and then echad (one). Together this represents the 1st day of man. Many ancient Rabbis attributed the first day of mankind, an entirely new order of being, temporally liberated from it’s potentia within the Eternal, as Rosh Ha’Shannah, or the first day of all years for mankind! In other words, Rosh Ha’ Shannah is not just another “Happy New Year“ as we would count the years on our modern calendar, but instead it is reminiscent, as an everlasting memorial (zachor), of the first day that could be counted by mankind, and so it is a celebration and a Holy Convocation.
But God’s 1st Day is the day, in this stage after stage liberation process, where He speaks and brings forth “Light“, and He then separates the light from the darkness. It is said of this, that the light He called day, and the darkness He called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. Thus, the 1st day is a movement out of a condition of darkness and chaos and into the light and subsequent order. When this first Light comes, it dispels the darkness.
Then, the 1st day contains another first as well! It elicits the first of all blessings in this order of creation. Therefore part of the memorial regarding this event called the 1st day, is that God blessed the 1st day before He blessed anything else. All other days, with all their potential developments and blessings, were contained therein. Without this first day, with it's subsequent first blessing, there is no further creation of, development of, or life in, the universe for humankind. Our entire existence, as well as our being and our relationship with God therefore, depends on there having been a “first day“! Then, as our loving Creator unfolds His plan, He makes time to be measured for man in days, and in cycles of days, the 1st day being the prototype of all subsequent days.
The first cycle, is a series of movements from darkness into light, from ideation into formation, which has continued perpetually since the beginning (bereshith). It is a type of the pattern for man in his becoming and his returning as we move forward in development toward being conformed into the image of Christ. In the word it says, and the evening and the morning were the first day. This first of those many cycles is the cycle of the first day, evening and morning, perpetuated forever. The next cycle, comprised of this God orsained cycle having repeated itself, is a series of seven days, and God blesses and memorializes the seventh day, or the last day of the cycle as well as He does the first of all days. Then following the first 7th day, there is the eight day, which is also a new first day of the next 7 day cycle of days. After this first cycle of seven days, the cycle of the seventh day followed as it were by an eighth day which is also a new first day, has continued up until this present time! Now I hope I haven’t confused you, as you will see this becomes more significant as this story unfolds.
Brother Paul
This subject will be presented in 7 short parts...but only a couple at a time...feel free to critique and comment and discuss
Posts: 235 | From: Cambridge, MA | Registered: Dec 2009
| IP: Logged | 
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
