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None of us would want to experience on purpose what ancient Israel did in the 40 years of wilderness travel between Egypt. For those of us living 4,000 years later, we can’t presume we would have acted better than they did. Considering how spoiled and comfortable we are with modern conveniences and dwellings, we probably would have complained even more about God’s “inadequate” hospitality in the wilderness.
Human nature doesn’t change. Only God can change human nature.
That’s where the annual celebration of Sukkot (Tabernacles or Booths) comes in. Each sukkah (booth) looks different, even if the same person builds it. Taken as a personal lesson, each our sukkot (plural) has a different calling, a different reason for being. Let’s explore further these lessons from the words of God and the Word Who tabernacled with us (John 1:14).
Every one of the LORD’s appointed times recorded in the Torah has special traditions, some of them recorded directly in the Torah and some that were brought in later.
For example, during Pesach, the explicitly commanded traditions include telling the story of the Exodus, eating matzah, bitter herbs and lamb. We also have the later tradition of the four glasses of wine, charoset (sticky mix of dried fruits and nuts to symbolize mortar) and salt water for dipping the herbs.
Sukkot also has its own unique characteristics, some of which are directly commanded in Torah while some were added later, either in the writings of the Prophets or even later in the times of the Sages.
What is the primarily theme of Nehemiah’s record of Sukkot in Nehemiah 8:9–18? First they were sorrowful and repentant for not keeping the festival of Sukkot. Then they went out and built their sukkah as commanded by Moses, so they were keeping the ceremonial components of the feast, but there’s no discussion of the sacrificial part of Sukkot.
There’s a Sukkot celebration that occurred much earlier, in the lifetime of King Solomon that emphasized the sacrificial part of the feast rather than the ceremonial part. We read about it in 1Kings 8:1-12, 62-66 as well as 2Chronicles 7:8-11. There’s no discussion of the booths, the fruits, branches, trees, etc.
The book of Numbers 29:12-38 has a different emphasis for Sukkot than what we read in Lev. 23:33-44.
One of the parts of the celebration of Sukkot that God particularly emphasized is that the children of Israel was to dwell in booths. Why? He says it’s to recall the 40 years in the wilderness when the children of Israel had to live in tents and temporary structures for seven days.
We can go camping and think nothing at all about the Exodus. But a sukkah is not a normal tent. Dwelling in a booth is not the same thing as dwelling in a tent.
Our camping tents that we buy at REI are meant to be at least somewhat comfortable, the booth that God tells us to build and live in during Sukkot are not meant to be comfortable. Don’t forget that the children of Israel lived in these type of booths for 40 years.
Even though building and living in a sukkah is not particularly comfortable, God still commands us to celebrate. How do we move ourselves from a miserable state to a happy state? One way we do this is through songs and music.
Another way we change our mood to make a miserable experience more pleasant is to drink “strong drink” (Num. 28:7; Deut. 14:26).
Most of the holy festivals don’t have a command to recreate the event that started it off. At Pesach, we don’t sacrifice a lamb, put its blood on our doors and leave on foot at midnight. During Shavuot, we don’t abstain from sexual relations and bath for three days in a row as part of the commemoration. But during Sukkot, God tells us to recall the suffering and inconvenience our forefathers experienced during their 40 years in the wilderness.
When we read the story of the Exodus, we read about their complaints, about the manna, the quail, the plagues, the snake bites, etc.
When we see how that generation had to live in sukkahs, it gives us a little more sympathy for their experience.
One of the requirements for Sukkot is for us to cut off parts of living things, such as trees, bushes, etc., to create something else. The willow branch was attached to a living tree one minute and then a man comes along with a knife, cuts you off the tree and makes that branch.
We walking into this booth that is made of dead things that used to be alive.
Think of the frequent Bible metaphor of a potter and the clay (Isa. 29:16; 41:25; 45:9; 64:8; Jer. 18:4, 6; Dan. 2:41; Rom. 9:21). The clay has no discernment of the potter. It doesn’t’ understand what the potter is doing to it or what it will be used for when the potter is done.
A plant can’t make itself into a sukkah. It can’t kill itself and make itself into something useful to human beings.
It’s the same with God. God can take our bodies and make us useful to Him. We don’t comprehend the process and the process brings death to us, just as cutting off a branch from a tree brings death to the plant. This superior being is makes us useful to Him. The idea that God can live inside us is utterly incomprehensible.
If we only acknowledge these feasts on an intellectual level, we lose a level of understanding. If we only celebrate these feasts on a physical level, we also lose a level of understanding.
God created us with the ability to understand allegory and parable. Our understanding expands when we have to put something we read about into practice in the real world (1Corinthians 3:5–17).
“Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.” (1Corinthians 3:5–17 NASB)
Notice all these allegories where Paul compares us to plants. One person plants, one person waters but it is God who brings the increase.
God is the one who knows who has the strong foundation and well built structure and which one had a weak foundation and a flimsy structure.
We all will be tested in some fashion, and we will not all suffer the same kinds of tests.
Let’s go to 1Cor. 15:35-50.
We don’t look like today what we will look like at the resurrection. We don’t look the same today as we looked 10, 20, or 30 years ago.
When you plant a seed, you are not raising seeds, but plants. When the seed goes into the ground, it becomes a plant and the seed is no longer recognizable.
We were designed to go through this experience. We were designed to live and then die, just a tree was design to start from a seed, become a tree. A tree is also meant to be pruned periodically. It can either be pruned methodically by a superior intellect or it can prune itself. The same is true with us.
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (Romans 12:1–5 NASB)
We should do what we are commanded to do. If you are an apple tree, don’t worry that you aren’t producing figs. Our fruit, what we present to God is what God made us, watered in us and God is the one who gives the increase.
We shouldn’t concern ourselves about what others are doing. No matter how hard we try, we can’t look like someone else. Can a pinky be upset with the thumb? No. They perform the role they are called to do (1Corinthians 12).
We are called to commemorate the experiences of a people we have never met, to experience what they went through and why they complained. We presume we would not have complained like they did. Are we really sure about that? Do you want God to test that theory?
Summary: Tammy