There are four seasons in a year: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Different climatic conditions characterize each season. However, since Kenya is located around the Equator, we experience slight seasonal variation. Countries located on the northern and southern hemispheres significantly experience the seasons.

The Torah in Gen 8:22 recognizes only two seasons, Summer (Heat) and Winter (Cold) but doesn’t mention Spring and Fall. From the Creator’s viewpoint, Spring and Fall are not really “seasons” but times of transition from Summer to Winter or vice versa. Plants and animals need to adapt to the extreme weather changes in Summer and Winter, hence why Spring and Fall become necessary. During Spring, the weather changes from cold and it becomes warmer, the trees grow new leaves, and animals set out for pasture. In fall, the trees shed their leaves, and animals consume large portions of food as the weather becomes mild, preparing for the cold.

Interestingly God instituted His festivals to be celebrated during Spring and Fall when the weather is most conducive for man. There are seven significant feasts: Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Rosh Hashanah, Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. The first four are the spring feasts, while the last three are the fall feasts.

We are now in springtime, the season of rejuvenation, rebirth, renewal, resurrection, and re-growth of nature. In the same manner, spiritually, it is the season that we begin to relive the cycle of the Feasts of the Holy One of Israel, blessed be He.

The spring feasts have a deep spiritual significance in our lives as revealed in the Holy Scriptures and the person of Yahshua Messiah, the King of the Jews and the world's savior. They include the Feast of Passover (Chag Pesach), the Feast of Unleavened bread (Chag Ha Matzot), the Feast of Firstfruits (Chag Ha Bikkurim), and the Feast of Weeks (Chag Ha Shavuot).

It is spring time, the season of rejuvenation, rebirth, renewal, resurrection and re-growth of nature. However, spiritually it is during such a time like this that we relive again the cycle of the Feasts of the Holy one of Israel, Blessed be He. The spring feasts have a deep spiritual significance in our lives as revealed in the Holy Scriptures and in the person of Yahshua Messiah, the King of the Jews and the savior of the world.

There are seven major feasts of Elohim which include Passover and Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Rosh Hashanah, Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. The first four are the spring feasts while the last three are the fall feasts.

The major spring feasts include Feast of Passover (Chag Pesach), the Feast of Unleavened bread (Chag Ha Matzot), the Feast of First-fruits (Chag Ha Bikkurim) and the Feast of weeks (Chag Ha Shavuot).

On Nisan 1, we welcome the Biblical New Years Day which begins the Z’man Cheruteinu which means the season of our freedom. The month of Nisan is also known as Abib which means spring (Deut 16:1). The name ‘nisan’ was given to the first month after the Babylonian exile (Esther 3:7, Neh 2:1). Elohim instituted Nisan 1 to be the “beginning of months” (Rosh Chodashim) for the Jewish people (Exodus 12:2). Nisan is the month that is used to count the festivals (mo’edim) of the Hebrew Calendar and also for reckoning the reigns of Kings in Israel. Most importantly, it is in the month of Nisan that Israel began its Exodus from Egypt when God through Moshe begun their redemption plan. Since Judaism celebrates two New Years, one on Tishrei 1 and the other one on Nisan 1, Jewish tradition believe that the natural world was created on Tishrei while the supernatural was created on Nisan.

Exodus 12:2 - “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.”

In the New Covenant, Messiah Yahshua became the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29) as John testified. It is worthy to note that John the Baptist is a Priest of Aaron through his father Zechariah, though John rejected the work of the Priesthood. So as a Priest, John inspects and approved the Lamb of God, Messiah. The Torah prescribes that a year old male lamb be chosen in its prime (Exodus 12:5), so Messiah died in the prime of his manhood (Luke 3:23). The Passover lamb was to be brought in on the 10th day of Nisan, the Messiah was presented to Israel on the same day as he rode to Jerusalem on a donkey. Many Christians celebrate the day as Palm Sunday but little do they know it is a Jewish feast. From 10th Nisan to 14th the lamb was to be inspected for any blemishes, Messiah also was examined during that time and found to be without fault (John 18:38, 19:4, 19:6, 1 Peter 1:19).

The Passover Lamb was to be killed on the 14 Nisan between the evenings (Exod 12:6). The first century Jewish historian Josephus records in his book, The Wars of the Jews, that between 12 noon and 2pm there was darkness when Messiah had been crucified. This must have been the time of Messiah’s agony (Matt 27:45). Just like the Israelites were commanded not to break the lambs legs (Exodus 12:46), so Messiah’s feet also were not broken because he is unblemished (John 19:36). Yahshua Messiah became the Passover lamb and also instituted a new way of celebrating Passover with unleavened bread and the wine of the vine on the eve of his death. We are therefore admonished by the Apostle Paul to celebrate the feast.

1 Corinthians 5:7-8 - Get rid of the old yeast, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Messiah, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.

During the Passover week, there is another feast that is celebrated known as the feast of first fruits (Lev 23:9-14). When the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, they were to present the first fruits of the Land to God. The Priest would lift up some barley in the presence of the people as part of the ritual. This event was fulfilled when Messiah died on Passover and was resurrected on the Feast of First Fruits. Messiah was lifted up by God as the first fruits of all creation. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” (John 12:32).

1 Corinthians 15:20 - But Messiah has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

On Sivan 6, is the Day of Pentecost. It was on this day that God came down to Mt Sinai and gave the Ten Commandments out of the middle of the fire to Israel. Between Passover and Pentecost, there were fifty days which the children of Israel prepared to receive the Torah, just like a bride prepares to meet her bridegroom. The Jewish sages compare the Law to a wedding contract (ketubah). Through the Law, God would be betrothed to Israel. In the New Testament, we read an account in Acts 2 how the disciples were gathered on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem as the Law of Moses had prescribed (Deut 16:16). They had been promised by Messiah that they would receive the Holy Spirit on that day. The promise was fulfilled when the Holy Spirit descended on them like fire. On that day three thousand men died to sin and believed in comparison to three thousand who died due to idolatry after the Law of Moses was given at Sinai.

One interesting ritual that took place on Shavuot was that two loaves of bread were baked with leaven to be lifted up as an offering (Lev 23:17). We know leaven to be a type of sin but in this case it represented Jew and Gentile as imperfect, and finally coming together as one New Man (Eph 2:15). Another prophetic sign of Shavuot has to do with the Book of Ruth which is read during Shavuot. Shavuot takes place around the time of the wheat harvest. Therefore the feast is linked to harvesting of souls because it is in the theme of the Book of Ruth that Ruth, a gentile, through Naomi, a Jew, met Boaz, a Jew, and from their offspring we trace the lineage of the savior of the world.

It is common as believers to assume that because the Spring Feasts have already been fulfilled by Messiah, they no longer hold a significant future prophetic implication. But this is not true. The death of Israel in 70 AD and her resurrection in 1948 is also a sort of Passover and Exodus. In the Book of Revelation Chapter 7, we read of the tribes of Israel each with a number of 12,000. Then in Rev 13 we encounter, the Messiah of Evil, a Last Days Pharaoh. In Rev 11 there are two witnesses, like Moses and Aaron who confronted the Pharaoh, so also those two witnesses will in the days to come confront the Messiah of Evil, so that he can let the people of God go.

Shavout also has a future implication because it was on it that the Holy Spirit was outpoured on believers. The Prophet Joel speaks of the former and latter rains, Yoreh and Malkosh. And because the Spirit of God is linked to water, therefore in the last days the Holy Spirit will also be poured on believers just as it is prophesied by Joel. However, this time the Malkosh or the latter rains will be greater than the one received by the Apostles.

Joel 2:23 - Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.

By Felix Wainaina