Trinity Free Church Huntingdon

Jesus likened the Kingdom of Heaven to a man finding buried treasure so precious that it changes the finder’s concept of value to the extent that he is prepared to sacrifice everything else to obtain it. When writing to the church in Philippi Paul said “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” and one of our modern worship songs echoes the same idea:
All I once held dear, built my life upon,
All this world reveres and wars to own,
All I once thought gain I have counted loss,
Spent and worthless now, compared to this –
Knowing You, Jesus!

The field where that treasure is to be found is, of course, the Bible, God’s word, and it’s so full of treasure that the more we dig the more we find. Moreover, every gem we find there has its place in what we might call God’s ‘Crown Jewels’, so that, together, they form the setting for that supreme jewel, the pearl of great price in Jesus’ parable.

Then we find there are other fields surrounding that field of treasure which also contain valuables. All these fields belong to the same owner because He is Lord of All, and they form the background to the treasure field. There is, for example the History field, the Culture field, the field of Political Regimes, the fields of Geographical Layout and Archaeology and, although rather too specialised for most of us, the field of the languages in which the Bible was originally written. God’s word contains all we need to understand His Gospel message, but, as we continue from there on our journey of discipleship, digging in these fields can often help us to a deeper appreciation of what we read in the Bible. For example we sometimes find that what Jesus said meant more to His hearers than it would to us unless we had unearthed something relevant in the language or culture. Or perhaps something we read suddenly fits into place when we see what had happened in history at that point. In this way these other fields can help us to form a background or framework to the Crown Jewels themselves with their great centre piece.

Following this sort of digging we are going to look at a short series of articles on the Jewish feasts with which Jesus would have been familiar and at some of which the Bible tells us He took part. There were eight main annual feasts starting with Passover immediately after the Spring New Year of their calendar, followed by Pentecost, Head of the Year, Atonement, Tabernacles, The Law, Dedication and ending with Purim just before the next New Year. Because the Jewish calendar was based on twelve lunar months, by the end of the year it was just over ten days out of step with the sun so every third year a thirteenth lunar month was inserted to bring it right again. This means, of course that their dates rarely coincide exactly with ours but may be timed approximately with our calendar.

Our first article will be on Passover and the rest will follow, weekly.