In the beginning, humanity walked in perfect harmony with God — clothed in His glory, at peace with His creation, and secure in His image. Adam and Eve knew who they were because they knew the One who formed them. There was no striving, no insecurity, no question of worth. Their identity flowed from unbroken fellowship with their Creator.
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As a believer and pastor in Israel for over twenty years, I’ve watched many lose their way in their walk with God—not because they didn’t love Him, but because they never truly understood where their identity lies. Many try to define themselves by their Jewishness, their work, their calling, or even their ministry position. But if we truly desire to understand who we are, that search must begin and end in the Messiah — the One through whom all things were made and for whom all things exist.
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When we read the creation account in Genesis, every day ends with the same rhythm: “And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day… the second day…” But when we come to the seventh day — the Sabbath — something extraordinary happens. The pattern breaks. There is no mention of “evening and morning.” The text simply says, “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which He had created and made.”
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In the divine rhythm of creation, God’s week of work and rest was more than a record of time — it was a prophetic calendar of redemption. The apostle Peter wrote, “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). The early Church Fathers discerned in this pattern a mystery: the six “days” of creation represented six thousand years of human labor and struggle, to be followed by a thousand-year Sabbath — the seventh “day” of rest — the Messianic reign of Christ on earth, when righteousness and peace would fill the world. This seventh millennium, they taught, would be the great Sabbath of history — the fulfillment of the rest first sanctified in Genesis.
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When the Lord appointed His feasts in Leviticus 23, He wove together a rhythm of redemption — a divine timeline that begins with Firstfruits (Bikkurim) and blossoms into Pentecost (Shavuot). God commanded Israel to count seven full weeks from the day of the wave sheaf offering — forty-nine days — and then to celebrate the Feast of Weeks on the fiftieth day. What began as a single sheaf lifted before the Lord became a countdown to the greater harvest — a shadow of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the global gathering of souls that would follow.
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On the Feast of Bikkurim (Firstfruits), the priest would lift the first sheaf of the barley harvest and wave it before the Lord “to be accepted on your behalf” (Leviticus 23:11). It was a sacred act — a declaration that the first belonged to God and that the rest of the harvest would be blessed because of it.
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In the divine calendar of God’s appointed times, Bikkurim (Firstfruits) holds a mystery that stretches from the fields of Israel to the empty tomb in Jerusalem. This feast was celebrated “on the day after the Sabbath” following Passover (Leviticus 23:11) — what we now see as the eighth day, the day of new creation. While the nation of Israel brought their first sheaf of barley to the priest to be lifted before the Lord, giving thanks for the beginning of the harvest, something eternal was taking place beyond the veil of time: Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah rose from the grave.
Don’t stop now – more truth and grace await.