The Gospel of Rosh Hashanah

The Gospel of Rosh Hashanah

It was hard to miss that something special was happening along my commute this week. Between Sunday and Tuesday all along Oak street individuals and families were strolling toward and entering the synagogues located along Oak street. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year (though there are three other holidays that mark special beginnings in the calendar). Rosh Hashanah is both a time of joy and solemn reflection and the start of Ten Days of Awe leading to Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement).  
The celebration finds its origins in the history recorded in Leviticus 23 when God establishes the Day of Trumpets, “In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blowing (of the shofar), a holy convocation”. The shofar is a Jewsih instrument like a trumpet made of a ram’s horn. Its sound was associated with reassurance that God provides, linked to the story of the sacrificial ram that saved Issac from death. It also signalled the arrival of an important person like a king and called people to gather and receive good news. Rapid bursts of the shofar indicated an alarm, a different rallying cry. The Rosh Hashanah trumpets sound a sobering call to repent and remember the Lord’s faithfulness, trusting in His mercy as we expectantly await the coming Messiah.  
As we approach a season of Thanksgiving it would be of benefit to remember when we feast and share our blessings that it is God who provides everything from our daily breath to our daily bread and seek forgiveness for self-made delusions and possessive grip of what He gave so we would freely give as well.