Yet the restoration of Israel was inevitable, not in human terms, but only from the perspective of the Hebrew prophets, starting with Moses himself:

Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there the LORD your God will gather you, from there He will fetch you. And the LORD your God will bring you to the land that your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your fathers. (Deut. 28:4-5, NJPS)

When we celebrate Israel's founding, we declare that God is at work in our own day, and we remind ourselves not to take his activities for granted. In a similar way, we celebrated the liberation from Egyptian bondage last month at Pesach (Passover), and we'll celebrate the arrival at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, shortly at Shavuot (Pentecost). These events may seem inevitable now, but they were miraculous, the outcome of divine intervention in the course of human affairs. Thus, the Torah instructs us to count the days from Pesach to Shavuot:

And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering-the day after the sabbath-you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week-fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the LORD. (Lev. 23:15-16, NJPS)

Why do we need to keep this count through seven weeks? Torah assigns all of the other festivals a specific month and day, so why not Shavuot? The annual count, which is going on right now, reminds us not to take Shavuot for granted. It was not inevitable that, once we were freed from Egypt, we would be given the gift of God's Word at Mount Sinai. Rather, this was another sign of divine intervention in human affairs.

Furthermore, we count the days to prepare ourselves for a new encounter with the God who liberated us from bondage. As followers of Messiah, we can re-enact these events with special zeal, remembering the connection between Yeshua's resurrection at Pesach and the outpouring of the Spirit at Shavuot 49 days later.

This is also why we've developed the tradition in the UMJC of joining in concerted prayer through these seven weeks. Just as we don't take for granted the modern restoration of Jewish sovereignty over the ancient homeland, so we don't take for granted the restoration of a movement for Yeshua among the Jewish people, both in Israel and around the world. Instead, we pray that this two-fold restoration will reach its completion, even in our days.

This leads to a final comparison. The promise of restoration in Deuteronomy quoted above is part of a call to Israel to return to the Lord. In the same way, the modern rebirth of the state of Israel is part of a larger process of restoration that will only be fulfilled through Yeshua the Messiah. Likewise, the rebirth of a Messianic community within the house of Israel is still in process. God will accomplish it all, but we can't take it for granted. Our prayers are essential, so please add yours to the cause!

In Yeshua,

 

 

Russ Resnik
Executive Director

It's not too late to join in this year's Prayer Campaign. Details are available right here [click to view the online daily prayer list ]. And it's not too early to contribute to the Shavuot offering of "Two Loaves-One Lineage." Half the offering goes to advance the work of the UMJC and half goes directly to the Messianic Jewish community in Israel. Click here to contribute.