I find the ways the Messianic Jews and the Christian Church order their calendar years to be interesting. In the Church, we always celebrated the “biggies” – Easter and Christmas. Those who only attended those services during the year were kind of known as the CEO’s (Christmas and Easter Only). In more liturgical churches we included Advent, Lent, Holy Week, and Pentecost Sunday. Some churches also include Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Independence Day. While the first set of holidays clearly have some connection to the life of Christ, obviously the last three do not. I’ve never been a fan of including Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Independence Day as part of the special church Sundays. (It’s not that I’m against celebrating any of those holidays, they are just really awkward in church probably because they don’t have anything to do with the life of Christ.)
With regard to the Messianic Calendar, do you realize how many Christian holidays actually line up with Messianic/Jewish holidays; or holy-days (the word holiday actually comes from “holy-day”). My guess is that there are a number of us (those who grew up in the church) who have probably never seen the connection. I’m not afraid to show my ignorance here in that I have always seen these feasts as being very Jewish in nature and not really pertaining too much to the church – although I had an inkling that Passover had something in common with Easter. Perhaps you have found yourself in the same position?
The feasts have not changed over time, however, from a Messianic perspective the addition of seeing the fulfillment of the feast now found in the life of Yeshua Ha-mashiach (Jesus the Messiah or Anointed One) is pretty amazing. Here is a very basic list I’ve begun to show some of the similarities between Christian and Messianic Jewish holy-days. It is certainly very simplistic, but should give you a basic idea from which you may want to do some further study on:
Passover (Pesach) | Good Friday:
*Passover Lamb Sacrifice Offered – sacrifice of the lamb of God (Yeshua)
*Salvation through Yeshua
*Death of Jesus for our salvation
Feast of First Fruits (Reshit Katzir) | Easter Sunday:
*Christ is the first fruits of those raised from the dead (1 Cor 15:20-23)
*Resurrection of Christ
Pentecost (Shavu’ot) | Pentecost Sunday:
*Original Pentecost celebrated the giving of 10 Commandments (God’s word)
*The offering of two loaves of bread that represent the Jew and Gentile
*Giving of Spirit to the Church (God’s word now in our heart)
Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teru’ah) | Some similarities to the season of Advent
*The blowing of the trumpets is a call to pay attention to what is to come
*A call to repentance
*Coming of the King to judge
*Looking toward the 2nd coming of Christ and the final judgement
10 days of Awe | Some similarities to the season of Lent
*a focus on repentance
Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) | Some similarities to Good Friday
*Atonement – a life given for a life
*Represents Christ sacrifice of His life on the cross (Hebrews 9:14))
Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot or Sukkoth) | Some similarities to Christmas
*Remembrance of God dwelling with man in the wilderness
*celebration of God dwelling in the person of Jesus Christ