The Feast of Trumpets

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,840
Hey, can you hear the trumpets yet? They're about to start blowing as this week marks

2
00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:16,440
the biblical feast, Yom Teruah, which is also known as the Feast of Trumpets. It's got great

3
00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:22,480
meaning of the blowing of the trumpet. So what is it? Stick with me. And welcome to this

4
00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:28,120
week's Shabbat Shalom devotional. When I seek to share just a little inspiration and

5
00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:35,200
bring a little piece to the close of your very busy week. In the Bible, the first day of the

6
00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:42,760
seventh month is called Yom Teruah, the day of shouting, literally. But it means the day of a

7
00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:49,760
great noise, which can be the blowing of trumpets as well. In some verses, it's translated as

8
00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:55,880
shouting and in others, it's blowing of the trumpet. The idea is, is to be a great noise that

9
00:00:55,880 --> 00:01:02,540
you would find in a gathering of a lot of people. So over the centuries and the millennia, this

10
00:01:02,540 --> 00:01:10,080
holiday not only took on the name Feast of Trumpets, because the trumpets were blown in, but also

11
00:01:10,080 --> 00:01:17,160
as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Now, you know, celebrating a new year in the seventh

12
00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:22,080
month never made a lot of sense to me. And I really couldn't piece it all together until I

13
00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:29,040
realized that the New Year part of this celebration is not found in the Bible. It was added on in

14
00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:36,560
later generations. So today, I just want to talk about the biblical Yom Teruah and the blowing

15
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:43,440
of trumpets. So today, the Jewish community celebrates this holiday as a two day holiday.

16
00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:50,760
And it's a day of prayer in the synagogue with the blowing of shofars. And they also eat apples

17
00:01:50,760 --> 00:02:00,840
dipped in honey to signify their wish for a sweet coming year. Now, the biblical meaning of Yom Teruah,

18
00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:07,600
meaning the making a great sound, the day of a great sound or the day of a great blowing. So I want

19
00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:14,280
to take a minute to talk about the blowing of the trumpet, which is sometimes in the Bible, a

20
00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:23,000
shofar, a ram's horn, and other times it can be a silver trumpet. Shofars were blown to call the

21
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:30,680
people to attention, to call them to come meet with their God. The Hebrew prophets also said that

22
00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:39,160
the trumpet was going to sound to announce that future day of the Lord, which was a day of judgment.

23
00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:47,960
It was a day of significance. In the New Testament book of Revelation, every judgment is preceded by

24
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:56,400
a blowing of the trumpet. And the apostle Paul said that the trumpet will sound at the return of

25
00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:04,000
Jesus. So the blowing of the trumpet is a very serious event. It is somber. It's to get our

26
00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:13,160
attention. You could call it God's alarm clock. It is to get us up, wake us up, and get our attention

27
00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:22,800
back on him. So Yom Teruah is also the beginning of a ten-day process of repentance and reflection.

28
00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:29,880
It's known as the ten days of awe. And on the tense day is the day of atonement, what we call

29
00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:38,800
Yom Kippur. So to be ready for that day of atonement, this ten days of reflection and repentance is

30
00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:46,920
very necessary. And the blowing of the trumpets sets that into action. The feast of trumpets is

31
00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:55,000
calling the people to attention. God is wanting to meet with his people. And that means we need to

32
00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:02,840
repent. We need to get our lives right and be prepared to meet with God. What a beautiful tradition.

33
00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:09,160
You know that every year we would go through a period of self-reflection like that and actually go

34
00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:15,960
to our friends and our family and ask forgiveness for anyone that we may have hurt. You know,

35
00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:22,120
we Christians are supposed to do this before we take communion in church. But I always struggle

36
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:26,840
because if there's someone that I may have hurt, or that I have a broken relationship with, they're

37
00:04:26,840 --> 00:04:33,800
not there with me in church. And that means that for me to not take communion in order to go to

38
00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:41,720
them, it means a month later or the next time my church serves communion. Whereas here, every year

39
00:04:41,720 --> 00:04:49,960
you begin this process and you have ten days to get it right. And then the day of atonement begins.

40
00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:57,160
So as you take a little break this weekend, listen for the trumpet in your spirit calling you to

41
00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:06,200
attention and begin a period of taking an assessment of your life. Because one day that trumpet will

42
00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:13,720
sound for real and the whole world is going to hear it. And we need to be ready. So this is a

43
00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:23,160
wonderful opportunity to begin to prepare ourselves for that one blowing of the trumpet

44
00:05:23,160 --> 00:05:29,080
that we so look forward to. So next time I'm going to talk to you about the day of atonement. But

45
00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:45,000
until then, I wish you Shabbat Shalom.