Tuesday 15 September 2015

The Feast of Trumpets

 Revelations 4 : 1 « After these things I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, a voice as of a trumpet speaking with me, one saying, Come up…»

As we approach the 10-day period of repentance prior to Yom Kippour, consider what a Jewish scholar said : “On this day God created the world and revealed Himself as Absolute Master of the world He conceived and created.  It’s customary for kings to announce their reign with trumpets. In this way we should proclaim the reign of the Creator. Blessed be His name on this commemorative day!”  The high point of this royal feast is the sounding of the shofar.  “Sound” in Hebrew is a synonym for noise, shout, word or voice. What is the origin of this instrument which enthrones the King of Glory? It’s made from the horn of a ram, which was the animal that Abraham offered as a sacrifice in the place of his son Isaac (Gen. 22:13)  It’s the oldest instrument in the world. It sounded when the Torah was given to Moses at Sinai. It was the note with which the voices of the people harmonised when they shouted and the walls of Jericho fell.  It was the sound that warned Israel of danger and called for help,  indicating the role of the Holy Spirit. The sound of the trumpet rends our hearts, removes our faults, and diminishes the sophistication that hinders us from becoming what we are supposed to be.

Rosh Hoshanna is in this way the “birth canal” of our identity in Christ.  It’s interesting to note that even the shape of the shofar resembles that of a birth canal. It can be symbolique of a midwife who, with her shout, awakens our hearts and our conscience to go beyond their limits. The greatness of Abraham is in the fact that he did not consider what was asked of him, but instead the One who asked it, and he was ready to offer to Him the most precious thing he had : the Son of the promise.  He was not connected to what he was doing(which often gives us a sense of value) but connected to the One who called him to leave his home and walk before His Face.

In the same way Hannah, who was sterile, asked God for a son (Samuel), who she didn’t keep for herself but offered to the Lord. The ram, a shadow of Yeshua, represents every second of our life, given to us as a precious moment with which we can use to build or do something huge : we have no time to lose!

To “do teshouva” (repent) means to return to oneself, to one’s internal greatness , one’s true regenerated self.  We blow the shofar to say “Don’t waste your life; you are immense, don’t judge according to what you see; your Heavenly Father asks you do to this.  If He created you, you are important; attribute therefore significance to your life because it is divine and infinite, but it’s up to you to reveal that.”