Over three thousand years ago, God vividly bequeathed Torah with the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Acts 2 explains that 1500 years later in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit showed up while Jews celebrated their ancient festival of Shavuot. Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, His promises to Jewish believers manifested in another kind of harvest!
Shavuot solemnizes the written law blended with the Holy Spirit to inaugurate the geographic spread of the greatest event in world history. Annually Jewish people from the ancient known world attended Passover then remained for the fifty-day count to Shavuot, also called bikkurim (first fruits).
Historian Josephus’ estimated that more than two million Jews filled Jerusalem for various ancient Passovers. Acts 2:9-11 mentions some of the countries which are now modern nations: Arabia, Crete, Italy, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. During the one-of-a-kind Passover where Jesus was arrested, crucified, entombed, resurrected, and ascended forty days later, it indicates a crowd of witnesses both for Passover and Shavuot where many Jews stayed until Shavuot’s fifty-day countdown.
Whether experienced in person or by miraculous news spreading like wildfire throughout Jerusalem and its environs, after that Shavuot, diaspora Jews returned to their countries of residence. This marks the first wave in the geographic spread of the gospel through pilgrims returning home as witnesses. It is a noteworthy fact to recognize that the disciples and other Jewish believers including the apostle Paul composed the early “church.” Jews planted the Good News which originated in the Holy Land, Israel and opened the doors to Gentiles, not the other way around.
With a salute to historian Josephus for his estimates about Passover crowds, it shows how the three major festivals once pulled much of the ancient Jewish world into Jerusalem. Two thousand years later Israel, in its customary way over the centuries, has tied itself to its festivals no matter where they were or what was happening.
That includes the war surrounding the establishment of the modern Jewish state on May 14, 1948, until now 78 years later. The 1948 story about Shavuot is not well known. However, it is yet another illustration of how Israelis have kept the God-sanctioned traditions with weekly shabbats and the pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Succot. Bolstering Jewish strength, these were more than ordinary parties. Each shabbat, each festival, and each year conceived endurance nurtured for thousands of years against all odds, except for God’s unbreakable odds.
The ancient Shavuot pilgrimage became a modern act of defiance as around 600,000 Jewish citizens proclaimed their ancestral homeland on May 14. In 1948 just weeks after Independence Day-in a war they did not begin- Israelis kept Shavuot on June 12, the first festival celebrated once again on their eternal soil. The circumstantial facts are a layered collection of daunting disadvantages. Already mobilized, five Arab armies went into action hours after Israel’s first Prime Minister Ben Gurion read the Declaration of Independence. The industrialized Nazi genocide had ended in 1945, starvation was rampant in Jerusalem, and the Israel Defense Forces did not yet exist. Aerial bombardments and enemies on the ground meant danger at every turn along with inconsistent electricity, food rationing, and sparse weapons which dictated the realities of Israel’s defensive war.
Israelis questioned whether they could even celebrate Shavuot. Would anyone be alive? Kibbutz Ein Harod for example, described the final decision of its cultural committee. “It felt impossible to abandon this holiday. It is so deeply woven into our lives.” One fighter, Moshe Erem, from Kibbutz Beit Alfa near the Syrian border wrote this extraordinary note in his diary, “After night patrol, we danced the hora at dawn. The Syrians shelled the valley, but we danced anyway. This is our answer.” A gramophone played music for the dancers. At Kibbutz Yifat near Nazareth children carried baskets to their fathers and brothers standing guard. The basket might contain a piece of bread or an egg. A local newsletter in Nazareth described a six-year-old girl who whispered, “We brought fruit and bullets.”
In his diary David Ben-Gurion wrote, “Shavuot. The Cabinet met. We must ensure that the people celebrate, even as war rages.” Golda Meir, later a Prime Minister, wrote to American supporters declaring, “We had no milk or cheese, but we read the book of Ruth, a story of loyalty, like our soldiers.” (Reading the book of Ruth is customary on Shavuot.
In her Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948 Zippy Porath, an underground fighter, wrote in her diary, “A small convoy of jeeps bearing blessed arms, ammunition, and food came via the hills.” She added, “They’ve broken the siege and lifted our moral high.”
Wars and hatred targeting Israel and the Jewish community worldwide have not subsided. Christians must humbly admit that we do not understand Father God’s timetable. However, Zechariah proclaims. “For this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye.” In ancient Hebrew, the pupil (ishon ayin) is the most vulnerable and fiercely protected part of a person. The vivid idiom reflects that God defends Israel with instinctive protection; that it is akin to a strike against God’s own eye.
Let us purpose to honor God and stand with Israel in meaningful ways as they remain determined to be who they are to enact Shabbat and their festivals.
