Comparingthe festival of Booths to the Sabbath and Passover

Who is Jesus? part 73

There’s no Bible passage this week, quite a bold/stupid move when I’m slowly working through a Gospel. Take your pick as to which it is. Possibly both!

What I’m looking at is the big picture. John’s Gospel chapters 5 to 10 happen across four Jewish feasts, the Sabbath, the Passover, Booths or Tabernacles and Hanukkah. The conclusion I came to for Chapter 5 was that Jesus is the Sabbath. But before I move on to talk about the festival of Booths, I would like to compare Passover to Booths.

They couldn’t be more different.

The sabbath is a celebration of creation.

Passover is a celebration of the redemption of the Israelites. Their redemption came when they crossed the Red Sea and were finally free from Egypt. It is not about celebrating the death of enemies, the first-born of the Egyptians, but of the Exodus, where slaves became a nation. The passover lamb is killed to represent the freedom of people from oppression.

Before I talk about the festival of booths, a quick note on the Day of Atonement. Here two goats are regarded as a single sacrifice. The first is God’s goat, which is sacrificed to cleanse sins. The second, the scapegoat has the sins transferred into it and it is driven out of the camp/city. The scapegoat is the only animal in the entire Jewish sacrificial system that does not die. It has no need to die, the sins laid on it have already been cleansed by the sacrifice of the first goat.

Jesus is mentioned in scripture as the ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ His sacrifice once and for all people for all time. It covers the role of all three animals. The Passover Lamb that dies for freedom, God’s goat that cleanses sins and the scapegoat that carries our sins away.

Now for the festival of Booths or Tabernacles. It is an eight day festival, from sabbath to sabbath and starts four days after the Day of Atonement, unlike the Day of Atonement, which is serious and austere, this is a time for celebration, games and having fun. It is a harvest celebration.

It is in this time of fun that chapters 7 to 10a of John’s Gospel occur.

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