Zucchini Squash Introduction:
This spring and summer we will try to grow some zucchini squash in our garden plot in the Community Garden up on the hill. Now if you have ever grown zucchini, you know that if the plant is healthy, you will soon have more zucchini that what you can ever use. So what do you with the excess zucchini? You give it away, right? You use what you want first and if there is extra, you give it away to someone else. That first squash though is special and I remember bringing it home with eagerness!
This spring and summer we will try to grow some zucchini squash in our garden plot in the Community Garden up on the hill. Now if you have ever grown zucchini, you know that if the plant is healthy, you will soon have more zucchini that what you can ever use. So what do you with the excess zucchini? You give it away, right? You use what you want first and if there is extra, you give it away to someone else. That first squash though is special and I remember bringing it home with eagerness!
Tusculum Elementary School But what if we did it the other way around? What if when we grew the zucchini this summer, the very first ones we would give to the refugee families at Tusculum School. What I’m describing is the feast of firstfruits in the Old Testament. When the first of the harvest began, the people were to take the very first fruit and give it away and they were to do it in a feast or a celebration! What was God teaching his people in this feast of First Fruits? Let’s read Leviticus 23:9-14.
Jewish Feast of Firstfruits I. Let’s look first at the timing of this feast.
Exodus 23:15 indicates that this feast occurred right after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is another feast in the first month of the Hebrew calendar or our mid March. Passover is first, then the Feast of Unleavened Bread and then the Feast of Firstfruits.
God says that they are to celebrate this when they enter the land as a continual ordinance. Now let’s remember where the people are when they get these instructions. They have been rescued and told that they are God’s chosen special people. They are about 3 days out of Egypt and are a long, long way from entering into a land of their own. They have been punished already for making the golden calf and many of them have already died. They are in the middle of the desert miles from wherever it is they are going and God is telling them to celebrate a harvest festival when they get to the promised land. The purpose of telling them this now was to give them hope that they would in fact someday enter into this promised land. God will give them the land and they will have a bountiful harvest. God is showing them vividly that there is hope for the future.
Exodus 23:15 indicates that this feast occurred right after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is another feast in the first month of the Hebrew calendar or our mid March. Passover is first, then the Feast of Unleavened Bread and then the Feast of Firstfruits.
God says that they are to celebrate this when they enter the land as a continual ordinance. Now let’s remember where the people are when they get these instructions. They have been rescued and told that they are God’s chosen special people. They are about 3 days out of Egypt and are a long, long way from entering into a land of their own. They have been punished already for making the golden calf and many of them have already died. They are in the middle of the desert miles from wherever it is they are going and God is telling them to celebrate a harvest festival when they get to the promised land. The purpose of telling them this now was to give them hope that they would in fact someday enter into this promised land. God will give them the land and they will have a bountiful harvest. God is showing them vividly that there is hope for the future.
Let’s not forget that there is promised hope for the future for us as well. There are times when life gets tough for us. There are times when we grow weary and wonder about the pilgrimage we are on. But hope for the future makes all the difference as we continue on. During the Second World War, an 18-year-old German named Jürgen Moltmann was drafted to serve in Hitler’s army. Assigned to an anti-aircraft battery, he experienced the horror of watching his fellow soldiers being killed in the Allied fire bombings. After surrendering to the British, he spent three years in prison camps, and saw how other German prisoners “collapsed inwardly, how they gave up all hope, sickening for the lack of it, some of them dying.”
Moltmann had not grown up as a Christian, but an American chaplain gave him an Army-issue New Testament and book of Psalms. He read the Psalms and found something he desperately needed: hope. He became convinced that God was present with him, “even behind the barbed wire.” After being transferred to a camp run by the YMCA, Moltmann learned Christian beliefs, and experienced the love and the acceptance of the local population. He said, “They treated me better than the German army.”
Jürgen Moltmann Jürgen Moltmann found new life in Christianity after seeing only death in the Second World War; the gospel was life-giving good news for him. After the war, Moltmann became a theologian and focused on the ideas that God is present with us in our suffering, and that God is leading us to a better future. Both ideas come out of the story of Jesus, and both come out of Moltmann’s personal story as well. Easter Sunday is the beginning of the “laughter of the redeemed,” he says; it is “God’s protest against death.” God intends to make all things new and so there is hope. We must remember that we too have a promised land and we will have a harvest. We will be with God for all eternity in the new heaven and new earth. The harvest we will have is the righteousness of Christ and all the benefits from him.
II. Now let’s look at the sacrifice that was required.
Verses 9-11 say that after they enter the promised land, they are to bring a sheaf of barley of the first harvest. Note that it’s a sheaf, not a just a stalk of grain or a cup or two; it’s a full sheaf! This harvest would come at the end of a potentially lean winter where the stock of food would slowly diminish. I can imagine the wife in the house looking at the store of grain and seeing it getting smaller and smaller. With the first sheaf comes the promise of more coming but that must be given away. It was an act of faith that more is coming. But it was also a recognition that they have the blessing of the upcoming harvest because of what God had done for them. The waving action was likely a ritual that displayed the gift as being given. Waving it means that it was not to be placed on the alter as the other items were. This was to be saved and not burned as an offering. This occurs on the day after the Sabbath, which most likely refers to the regular Sabbath.
Now the food offering on the altar is made more specific. Along with the sheaf of barley, they were to bring a lamb as a burnt offering. It was to be one year old lamb, perfect and without defect as with the Passover lamb. They were to bring two tenths of an ephah, or about 7 liters of fine flour. They were also to bring a hin, or about one and half liters of wine. And notice that the people could not enjoy any of the bounty of the harvest until after this feast was accomplished. God must be recognized as the giver all the bounty before they are to eat of any of it. Quite simply, God must be recognized as being first.
II. Now let’s look at the sacrifice that was required.
Verses 9-11 say that after they enter the promised land, they are to bring a sheaf of barley of the first harvest. Note that it’s a sheaf, not a just a stalk of grain or a cup or two; it’s a full sheaf! This harvest would come at the end of a potentially lean winter where the stock of food would slowly diminish. I can imagine the wife in the house looking at the store of grain and seeing it getting smaller and smaller. With the first sheaf comes the promise of more coming but that must be given away. It was an act of faith that more is coming. But it was also a recognition that they have the blessing of the upcoming harvest because of what God had done for them. The waving action was likely a ritual that displayed the gift as being given. Waving it means that it was not to be placed on the alter as the other items were. This was to be saved and not burned as an offering. This occurs on the day after the Sabbath, which most likely refers to the regular Sabbath.
Now the food offering on the altar is made more specific. Along with the sheaf of barley, they were to bring a lamb as a burnt offering. It was to be one year old lamb, perfect and without defect as with the Passover lamb. They were to bring two tenths of an ephah, or about 7 liters of fine flour. They were also to bring a hin, or about one and half liters of wine. And notice that the people could not enjoy any of the bounty of the harvest until after this feast was accomplished. God must be recognized as the giver all the bounty before they are to eat of any of it. Quite simply, God must be recognized as being first.
Here’s something for you to consider: when you go out to eat at a restaurant, how much do you tip? And why? I grew up with 15% but now it is assumed that it should be an 18-20% tip. Why is it important that we tip? We have probably seen the TV programs with the hidden camera that shows what can happen if you are perceived as a bad tipper. You want good food and you want good service and so you have to give up some of your money in order to have that.
Here’s my question: do you treat your server better than you treat God? We give to God the way that some people tip their server in a restaurant by throwing a couple of dollars on the table and think that is good enough. In this feast, God teaches that he expects us to give to him first and to give to him the best.
III. How does Christ fulfill this feast?
First let’s look at Romans 11:16 – “If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.” Here Paul says that the believing Jews are like the firstfruits in the church. They were the first believers and they promised that there would be more coming from the Gentiles and from every tribe, language and nation. Firstfruits reminds us that the people of God are still being gathered now after Jesus has come and as we await his coming again.
Another way of understanding firstfruits is seen in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23. “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” Christ is now the firstfruits of the harvest that is coming when Jesus returns. Jesus is the first to rise again and as such it is a promise that there will be more to this resurrection harvest as well.
But in both cases, take note that it is God who is bringing this offering of firstfruits. God is building his church in this world through the expansion of the kingdom. It began with the Jews as the firstfruits but now spreads through the entire world. Let’s thank God that we are part of that harvest! And God provided the firstfuits of the resurrection as well in raising Jesus from the dead.
III. How does Christ fulfill this feast?
First let’s look at Romans 11:16 – “If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.” Here Paul says that the believing Jews are like the firstfruits in the church. They were the first believers and they promised that there would be more coming from the Gentiles and from every tribe, language and nation. Firstfruits reminds us that the people of God are still being gathered now after Jesus has come and as we await his coming again.
Another way of understanding firstfruits is seen in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23. “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” Christ is now the firstfruits of the harvest that is coming when Jesus returns. Jesus is the first to rise again and as such it is a promise that there will be more to this resurrection harvest as well.
But in both cases, take note that it is God who is bringing this offering of firstfruits. God is building his church in this world through the expansion of the kingdom. It began with the Jews as the firstfruits but now spreads through the entire world. Let’s thank God that we are part of that harvest! And God provided the firstfuits of the resurrection as well in raising Jesus from the dead.
Saint Francis of Assisi by Jusepe deRibera In Nikos Kazantzakis' Tale of St. Francis, he imagines St. Francis saying to a child, “Listen, my child, each year at Easter I used to watch Christ's resurrection. All the faithful would gather around His tomb and weep, weep inconsolably, beating on the ground to make it open. And behold! In the midst of our lamentations the tombstone crumbled to pieces and Christ sprang from the earth and ascended to heaven, smiling at us and waving a white banner. There was only one year I did not see Him resurrected. That year a theologian of consequence, a graduate of the University of Bologna, came to us. He mounted the pulpit in church and began to elucidate the Resurrection for hours on end. He explained and explained until our heads began to swim; and that year the tombstone did not crumble, and, I swear to you, no one saw the Resurrection.” Christ has been raised and his are the first fruits of the resurrection that is to come!
Butterball Turkey Hotline IV. The bottom line is really an issue of trust in our lives.
In this feast we hear a reminder that we are to trust God in all of our material things. Do we believe God will provide for us or do we feel that we have to do things on our own? Now we have to be careful that we don’t go to either extreme on this. There are some who firmly believe that the saying, “God helps those who helps themselves” is in the Bible; it is not. Nor should we simply sit back and just wait for God to take care of us. Rather what we must see is that God provides for us through the work we do. The people of Israel didn’t just sit there in the land of Canaan and wait for God to send them food like he did with the manna. We read that when the people arrived in the land of Canaan the manna stopped and it was time for the people to go to work. But this feast reminds the people that ultimately it is God who provides for them and they must trust him and look to him. We must trust that God will provide for us in our material needs.
We must also trust that Christ as the firstfruits of the resurrection has indeed taken our punishment and given us forgiveness. At times when we think of our sins, it’s hard to imagine that God actually forgives them. I know the things that linger in my mind as well as the things I do in my life. You know the things you think and do that you would find it hard to forgive. We must trust that God has completely forgiven us and that he looks at us as though we had never sinned. It’s real and true; we can rely on it. Jesus, God’s one and only Son, died and rose again so that we can have that.
Finally, we must trust God enough that we are willing to give God the first and best of what we have. We have trouble with that at times, don’t we? We would rather give God the leftovers. It’s a great story and from what I could determine, it appears that this indeed did happen. A woman was cleaning out her deep freezer and she finds a butterball turkey in there that is 28 years old, according the date on its side. She calls the Butterball company to see if this thing is safe to eat. The customer service person puts her on hold to consult with the supervisors, comes back and says, “Ma’am, can you be sure that this turkey has been frozen for the entire 28 years?” The woman says, yes, frozen solid. I’ve never lost power, it’s never thawed.” The customer service person says, “Well then, we believe the turkey is safe to eat. But just so you know, we cannot guarantee the quality of the meat – it might not taste very good.” The woman pauses, thinking, then says, “Well, that’s alright. I’ll just give it to the church.”
God wants the first and best as an expression of our gratitude to him. Will we trust God enough to give him the best of what he has first given us?
In this feast we hear a reminder that we are to trust God in all of our material things. Do we believe God will provide for us or do we feel that we have to do things on our own? Now we have to be careful that we don’t go to either extreme on this. There are some who firmly believe that the saying, “God helps those who helps themselves” is in the Bible; it is not. Nor should we simply sit back and just wait for God to take care of us. Rather what we must see is that God provides for us through the work we do. The people of Israel didn’t just sit there in the land of Canaan and wait for God to send them food like he did with the manna. We read that when the people arrived in the land of Canaan the manna stopped and it was time for the people to go to work. But this feast reminds the people that ultimately it is God who provides for them and they must trust him and look to him. We must trust that God will provide for us in our material needs.
We must also trust that Christ as the firstfruits of the resurrection has indeed taken our punishment and given us forgiveness. At times when we think of our sins, it’s hard to imagine that God actually forgives them. I know the things that linger in my mind as well as the things I do in my life. You know the things you think and do that you would find it hard to forgive. We must trust that God has completely forgiven us and that he looks at us as though we had never sinned. It’s real and true; we can rely on it. Jesus, God’s one and only Son, died and rose again so that we can have that.
Finally, we must trust God enough that we are willing to give God the first and best of what we have. We have trouble with that at times, don’t we? We would rather give God the leftovers. It’s a great story and from what I could determine, it appears that this indeed did happen. A woman was cleaning out her deep freezer and she finds a butterball turkey in there that is 28 years old, according the date on its side. She calls the Butterball company to see if this thing is safe to eat. The customer service person puts her on hold to consult with the supervisors, comes back and says, “Ma’am, can you be sure that this turkey has been frozen for the entire 28 years?” The woman says, yes, frozen solid. I’ve never lost power, it’s never thawed.” The customer service person says, “Well then, we believe the turkey is safe to eat. But just so you know, we cannot guarantee the quality of the meat – it might not taste very good.” The woman pauses, thinking, then says, “Well, that’s alright. I’ll just give it to the church.”
God wants the first and best as an expression of our gratitude to him. Will we trust God enough to give him the best of what he has first given us?
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