Lessons from Sukkot: What does it mean to be ‘in Christ’?

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What does it mean to be “in Christ,” and what does it mean to have “Christ in you”? We go into the Creator’s presence by way of the Messiah. The Creator’s presence goes into us by way of the Messiah.

Among the biblical symbols of Sukkot (festival of Tabernacles, or Booths) is the tent, the temporary dwelling. It reminds us of who we are, where we’ve been and where we’re going. The sukkah is also a visual representation of how to have “Messiah in us” and to be “in Messiah” at the same time.

Most of us have times when we wish we could hit the reset button before the Creator of Heaven and Earth. The biblical fall appointments with Him — Yom Teruah (Trumpets), Yom Kippur (Atonement), Sukkot (Tabernacles) and Shemeni Atzeret (Eighth Day) — are memorials of how the Holy One is resetting the people of God collectively and individually. We go into the Creator’s presence by way of the Messiah. The Creator’s presence goes into us by way of the Messiah.

“Of [this assembly] I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” (Col. 1:25-28 NASB)

The world claims to desire “hard facts” but we live on a whole lot of faith. When we enter into a skyscraper and use the elevator without thought, we are acting in faith. We did not see the construction of the building, there’s no guarantee whatsoever. Someone else designed and built it and we have faith it won’t fall down when he walk up the stairs. When we buy a bag of chips and simply break into it and start nibbling, we are acting on faith that the food company who made it isn’t trying to kill us.

This idea that God is an absentee landlord who simply made us and sent us on our merry way to fumble around on our own is not backed up by evidence, yet many people believe that fable, too.

Lessons from the sukkah

God told the people He wanted to live with them in a tent, just as they were living in tents around it. It was His house with very specific invitations on entry, even the High Priest only entered once a year, symbolically covered in blood and literally covered in the smoke of incense, where the smoke of the incense mingled with the heavenly cloud. That is an excellent picture of being in Christ.

This is why we can enter in with confidence but not with arrogance. There is a way into the land of rest, but you might not want to enter in. You can be confident of its existence but you have to desire to go in and to go in the right way. If we forsake the offering of Christ, there is no other way into the presence of God.

Among the biblical symbols of Sukkot is the tent, the temporary dwelling. It reminds us of who we are, where we’ve been and where we’re going.

“‘You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’”(Leviticus 23:42–43 NASB)

God is their deliverer. They were called to live in booths to remind themselves of God’s protection. They were in transit between Egypt and the Promised Land, the house of bondage and the land of rest. This picture of the sukkah is a picture of being in transition, a temporary situation, not a place where you live for all time.

Hundreds of years later and after becoming puffed up with what was thought to be permanent residence, the kingdoms of Israel and Yehudah got a heavenly deflation with the exiles. The split of the two kingdoms was one of the symptoms of their arrogance and inflated sense of entitlement. The return from exile was Heaven’s message to remember your “first love.”

“They found written in the law how the LORD had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast of the seventh month. … The entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them. The sons of Israel had indeed not done so from the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day. And there was great rejoicing.” (Nehemiah 8:14, 17 NASB)

Wow! They had forgotten themselves so quickly that they had even forgotten about Joshua and their entry into the Land. This message of forgetting and returning to one’s first love is echoed in one of the messages to the churches in the book of Revelation.

“But I have this against you [assembly of Ephesus], that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lamp-stand out of its place — unless you repent.” (Revelation 2:4–5 NASB)

The Ephesians had lost their first love in the process of defending the integrity of the message. They had lost their connection to the One who gave them the message. They had become a mere courier of the message rather than an embodiment. It’s not enough to carry or transmit the word without a connection to the Word of God Himself. The message will go out, but what about you?

Both Nehemiah and Revelation show us that carrying a message and performing good works without putting one’s heart into it is empty.

“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.” (1John 4:16–19 NASB)

Judgment (memorialized in Yom Teruah, the Day of Blowing Trumpets) has been entrusted to the Son, but the Covering for sins, transgressions and iniquities (memorialized in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement) has also been entrusted to the Son. The Son is the Advocate as well as the Judge. He blocks the wrath of God on the rebellion of creation (memorialized in the Pesakh, the Passover lamb).

We talked earlier during this season about the meaning of the symbols of the four species of plants of Sukkot. We have to ask ourselves how our trees are fairing. Are we producing the right balance of leaves and fruits? Or do we have too much fruit but not enough foliage? Or do we have too many leaves and few pieces of fruit?

Do we teach ourselves the Law of God, or just repeat the words? Do we internalize the words coming out of our mouths? It’s a valid questions we all should ask ourselves.

Apostle Paul riffed on the symbol of the tent in teaching where we need to be putting our focus on things that are permanent.

“For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.” (2Cor. 5:1-5 NASB)

There’s a lot to unpack just in this one text. Genesis 3 and the Feast of Sukkot are written all over this text. We live in a temporary situation and life is a challenge while we are here. The groaning is not “woe is me” but it is about how we long to be present with the Lord in the world to come. The world we are in is not the way it will always be. There is a vision of a world made new that we look forward to seeing and experiencing for ourselves.

Just as Israel dwelled in tents between Egypt and the Promised land for a short time, our time between life and death, is a temporary path. What we are looking forward to is not a little bit of plastic surgery but a permanent change.

Psalms 90–91: Moshe on the creation of the world and Israel

It is customary to read through these two psalms during the morning service of Shabbat and festival days. Theywill be a bridge to what we will discuss on Shemeni Atzeret, the convocation of the Eighth Day.

“Moses, the man of God” (Psalms 90:0 NASB)

“[‘Man of God’] appears 76 times in the OT, most often referring to Moses (Deut 33:1; Josh 14:6; 1 Chr 23:14; 2 Chr 30:16; Ezra 3:2) and other prophets, including Elijah and Elisha (2 Kgs 1:9; 4:16). Moses is the only person the Pentateuch refers to as a ‘man of God.’”

The Apostle Paul, who was instructed in the Torah by the great sage Gamaliel, wrote that all in the Body of Mashiakh should strive to be called “man of God.” He calls upon Timothy and all believers to earn the title “Man of God.”

“But flee from these things [1Timothy 6:3–10], you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.” (1Timothy 6:11 NASB)

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2Timothy 3:16–17 NASB)

When Moses tells us that there would be a prophet after Moses, Moses is the template for that prophet. We can see how Messiah Yeshua also possessed righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness in perfect measure. We also know that Messiah Yeshua’s teachings perfectly reflected Moses’ teachings and character.

“Lord, You have been our dwelling place” (Psalms 90:1 NASB)

dwelling place = מָעוֹן māʿôn (H4583): refuge, hence habitation (Brown Driver Briggs lexicon)

This gets to the grievous iniquity of not entering HaShem’s “rest” (Psalm 95:11; Hebrews 3–4).

Most cultures go through a phase of not knowing who they are and where they are going. They have no mission statement, no goal and their aimlessness destroys them.

Our eyes should be on our permanent home at all times. We have been blessed with all kinds of things but we don’t stuff our U-Haul’s behind our hearse on the way out. What we have that truly lasts is our relationship with HaShem.

Isaiah 45:18–20: Israel created to be something special, not a wasteland

Just as HaShem didn’t create the heavens and Earth to remain tohu v’bohu, so too, HaShem didn’t call out Abram to create Israel to have her die from dissipation.

What was Israel supposed to be? It wasn’t created merely to exist. Israel was created with a purpose. They were to be on fire with HaShem’s words and proclaim them to the world and to bring the Gentiles to God’s feet, but they didn’t do so. We have been given Christ’s message not only to be a courier service to but to live in relationship with Him and share that relationship with anyone who will hear us out.

The Messiah is the one who goes into the presence of the Lord for us. What will happen when we go in the world but we are not of the world? What happens to us? What is the hope of glory we carry to the world and how do they hear it? The message we bring is not just the words of the Lord but the heart behind those words and our transformation in that process.

Summary: Tammy

Banner image: Inside of a sukkah during Sukkot on Sept. 25, 2018, in Sonoma County. (HALLEL FELLOWSHIP PHOTO)