The Rhythm of Redemption: God's Appointed Times Text: Leviticus 23:4-8
Introduction: The War for Your Calendar
We live in a culture that is desperately trying to erase the memory of God. Our secular overlords understand something that many Christians have forgotten: if you want to control a people, you must first control their calendar. You must dictate their rhythms of work and rest, of feasting and fasting. The modern calendar is a monument to meaninglessness. It is a flat, gray, uniform expanse of time, punctuated only by frantic consumerism on designated holidays that have been stripped of all transcendent significance, or by the celebration of various fashionable rebellions.
Into this drab and secular wasteland, the Word of God speaks with glorious, life-giving authority. God is the Lord of time because He created it. And because He is Lord of time, He claims the right to structure it. Leviticus 23 is not a collection of quaint suggestions for ancient Israelite theme parties. It is the divine liturgy, the sacred rhythm, that God hardwired into the life of His covenant people. It is God's calendar, and it is a declaration of war against every other calendar. It tells us that time is not empty, it is not neutral, and it is not ours to define. Time is a story, and God is its author. The feasts of the Lord are the chapter headings in the great story of redemption.
The pagan world also had its calendars, full of their own feasts and rituals. But their calendars were cyclical, tied to the seasons, celebrating the eternal return of nature. Their gods were part of that cycle, dying and rising with the crops. But the God of the Bible is the Lord of history. His calendar is not a circle, but a line, moving from promise to fulfillment. These feasts are not just remembrances of past events; they are prophetic rehearsals of future events. They are types and shadows, pointing forward to the substance, who is Jesus Christ. To neglect this divine calendar is to become tone-deaf to the music of redemption. It is to trade the symphony of salvation for the monotonous drone of the world.
The Text
‘These are the appointed times of Yahweh, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is the Passover of Yahweh. Then on the fifteenth day of the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Yahweh; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work. But for seven days you shall bring near an offering by fire to Yahweh. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.’
(Leviticus 23:4-8 LSB)
God's Appointments, Not Man's Suggestions (v. 4)
The chapter begins by establishing the absolute authority behind this calendar.
"‘These are the appointed times of Yahweh, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them." (Leviticus 23:4)
Notice the language here. These are the "appointed times of Yahweh." The Hebrew word is moedim, which means appointed times, places, or meetings. This is God's schedule. He is the one who sets the appointments. We do not get to check our availability and see if it works for us. He is the sovereign, and we are the creatures. Worship is not a spontaneous overflow of our subjective religious feelings. It is a response to a divine summons.
And what are these appointments? They are "holy convocations." A convocation is a calling together, an assembly. God calls His people out of their individual lives, out of their farms and their businesses, and gathers them to Himself as one body. And these gatherings are holy. They are set apart from all other gatherings. A town hall meeting is a gathering. A football game is a gathering. But a holy convocation is a gathering where God has promised to meet with His people in a special way. This is the foundation of corporate worship. We do not come to church because it is a helpful religious habit. We come because God has summoned us. He has set an appointment.
The priests were to "proclaim" them at the appointed times. This is a public, authoritative announcement. This is not a private devotion. This is the public, corporate life of the people of God, ordered and structured by the Word of God. This is the antithesis of the modern, privatized, "spiritual but not religious" mindset. Biblical faith is corporate, liturgical, and calendrical from the very beginning.
The Bloody Foundation: Passover (v. 5)
The liturgical year begins not with a celebration of creation or the new year, but with a bloody sacrifice.
"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is the Passover of Yahweh." (Leviticus 23:5 LSB)
Everything starts here. The entire relationship between God and His redeemed people is founded upon this event. The Passover is the gospel in a single meal. It occurs "at twilight," between the two evenings, as the day is dying. This is a time of judgment. The angel of death is passing through the land of Egypt. There is no negotiation, no appeal to human merit. There are only two kinds of houses: those under judgment and those under the blood.
A perfect, spotless lamb had to be slain. Its blood, a visible sign of a life violently taken, had to be painted on the doorposts of the house. When the angel of judgment saw the blood, he would "pass over" that house, and the firstborn within would be spared. This is substitutionary atonement in bright, bloody color. The lamb dies so that the son might live. Innocence is slain for the guilty. This is not a pretty story for a children's flannelgraph. This is about wrath, blood, and deliverance. It is a stark reminder that the only way for a holy God to dwell with sinful people is through the death of a substitute.
And of course, this is a prophetic rehearsal for the central event in all of human history. John the Baptist saw Jesus and declared, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). The apostle Paul tells us plainly, "For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). The Passover is not just a memorial of the Exodus from Egypt; it is a preview of the cross of Christ. His blood is the only thing that can cause the wrath of God to pass over us. Any attempt to build a relationship with God on any other foundation is to build your house in the path of the angel of death.
The Consequence of Redemption: Unleavened Bread (v. 6-7)
Redemption is never a standalone event. It always has consequences. Immediately following the Passover is the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
"Then on the fifteenth day of the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Yahweh; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work." (Leviticus 23:6-7 LSB)
If Passover is about what God does for us (justification), the Feast of Unleavened Bread is about what God does in us (sanctification). The two are inseparable. You cannot have the one without the other. For seven days, a full week representing a complete period of time, Israel was to eat only unleavened bread. Leaven, or yeast, throughout Scripture is a symbol of sin, corruption, pride, and hypocrisy. It is small and hidden, but it works its way through the whole lump of dough, puffing it up and causing it to decay.
The command is clear: if you have been saved by the blood of the lamb, you must now get the leaven out. You cannot claim to be covered by the blood of the Passover while simultaneously cultivating the leaven of malice and wickedness in your heart. This is a call to holiness, to a life of purity that corresponds to the purity of the Lamb who was sacrificed for you. Paul makes this application explicit: "Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).
Notice that this feast begins with another "holy convocation" and a command to do no "laborious work." This is crucial. This life of holiness is not something we achieve through our own striving, our own slavish work. It is a gift of grace, entered into by faith. It is a rest. We cease from the laborious work of trying to save ourselves, and we rest in the finished work of Christ. And from that position of rest, we live out our new identity as the unleavened people of God.
A Week of Consecrated Living (v. 8)
The feast concludes by emphasizing the sustained nature of this new life.
"But for seven days you shall bring near an offering by fire to Yahweh. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.’" (Genesis 1:8 LSB)
For seven days, a full week, they were to bring an offering by fire to Yahweh. This is a picture of a life of continual consecration. The Christian life is not a single decision, but a daily, weekly, lifelong presentation of ourselves as living sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1). Our worship is not confined to the holy convocation on the first day; it extends throughout the entire week. Every meal we eat, every task we perform, is to be an offering to God.
The feast is bookended by rest. It begins with a holy convocation and no laborious work, and it ends on the seventh day with another holy convocation and no laborious work. This is the rhythm of the Christian life: we begin in the rest of Christ's finished work, we live out our lives in consecrated service to Him, and we look forward to the final, eternal rest of the new heavens and the new earth. The entire structure of our lives is to be framed by worship and rest in God.
Keeping the Feast Today
So what does this mean for us? Do we need to clear out our pantries and eat matzah for a week every spring? No, because the reality has come. We do not celebrate the shadow when the substance is here. But we absolutely must keep the feast. We are commanded to keep the feast.
Christ is our Passover Lamb. His sacrifice is the foundation of our lives. We keep the feast, first and foremost, by trusting in His shed blood alone for our salvation. We do not trust in our works, our sincerity, or our religious performance. We trust in the blood of the Lamb.
And because we have trusted in Him, we are now a new, unleavened lump. We must therefore live like it. We keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread by aggressively and ruthlessly purging the leaven of sin from our lives, from our homes, and from our churches. We pursue holiness, not in order to be saved, but because we have been saved. We live lives of sincerity and truth.
And we do this according to God's appointed rhythm. Our central "holy convocation" is the gathering of the saints every Lord's Day. This is the day God has appointed for us to assemble, to hear His Word, to sing His praises, and to feast with Him at His table. The Lord's Supper is our Passover meal, where we feast upon the Lamb of God. And from this weekly feast, this covenant renewal ceremony, we are sent out to live for seven days as consecrated offerings to God, until He summons us to His table once again. This is the rhythm of redemption, the calendar of the new creation, and it is the only way to find true meaning, true rest, and true life in the midst of a world that has lost its way.