THE COUNTING OF THE OMER
“You shall also
count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day when you
brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete
Sabbaths. 16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath;
then you shall present a new grain offering to the LORD.” (Lev 23:15-16)(Deut 16:9-10)
Today
(April 26, 2015) is the twenty-second day in the “counting of the omer”. Just four weeks from today, the counting of
the omer will conclude on the fiftieth day of Pentecost. Believers worship the day of the crucifixion
(Passover), remember the day of the resurrection (Firstfruits), but the day when the Spirit was given (Pentecost) seems to come and go with little notice. Pentecost does not fall on a full moon
(Passover or Sukkot), nor does Pentecost fall on a New Moon (Rosh HaShannah),
which makes it easier to lose track of the exact date of the festival. To ensure that this did not happen, God told
the nation “You shall count fifty days to
the day after the seventh Sabbath.” It
is difficult to get most Christians excited about the counting of the omer, and
that is disappointing to me.
The
counting of the omer begins on the day of the Feast of Firstfruits. The “counting of the omer” connects the
festival of Firstfruits to the festival of Pentecost. The specific Sabbath being referenced is
debated, it’s either the Sabbath on the first day of Unleavened Bread or the
weekly Sabbath after Passover. When
Passover falls on a Friday, as it did in the year of the crucifixion, the
Sabbath days are aligned and Pentecost falls on the first day of the week,
Sunday. When Passover falls on a day other
day than Friday, it is difficult to correlate the counting with the Sabbaths if
not a weekly Sabbath.
The
counting of the omer connects the salvation of the Jewish people at time of the
Exodus to the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai.
The counting reminds Jews that their redemption from slavery was not
complete until the nation received the Torah, the words of God that are capable
of sanctifying the Jewish people. In a
similar manner, salvation for the believer occurred at the cross, but it is the
death and resurrection of the Master that allows the believer to receive the
Spirit, which transforms the believer into the image of the Son. It is the Spirit that enables each believer
to “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not
carry out the desire of the flesh,” (Gal
5:16).
The idea of counting each day in anticipation of the giving of the Torah
and the Spirit reminds us that all believers are on a spiritual journey toward
greater maturity, to “know Him and the power
of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings,” (Phil 3:10). (To “know”
in Hebrew comes from the word “yada”, which means to “experience”, as in “Adam knew Eve” (Gen 4:1, ESV), and “knowing
good and evil” (Gen 3:5), and as
the evil men of Sodom wanted to “know”
(Gen 19:5), the angels who came to
Lot’s house.) When we “Count the Omer”
we perform the same act Jesus would have performed 2000 years ago. The more we connect ourselves by act to Jesus, the
more we become like Jesus. To paraphrase
Ray Vanderlann, Jesus did not come to make admirers, but to make imitators.
Around
thirty minutes after sunset, at the beginning of each day, Jews recite the
traditional blessing, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who
has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to count the Omer.” The counting of the omer takes place over
fifty days to remind us that life is not a race to pass the other person; life
is a journey to transform ourselves.
The
days of the counting of the omer may have been the time when Ruth gleaned in
the fields of Boaz. Ruth first returned
with Naomi to Bethlehem “at the beginning
of the barley harvest” (Ruth 1:22),
which is associated with the Festivals of Passover and Firstfruits. Scripture then tells us that Ruth “stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order
to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest,” (Ruth 2:23). We come to understand from scripture that
Ruth’s redemption began around Passover, but it was not complete until Boaz
redeemed her around the time of Pentecost.
With each passing day after Passover, Ruth drew closer to Boaz until he
redeemed her before the elders at the city gate. In the same way, each day is an opportunity to draw closer to the Master.
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