Sifrat Haomer is better known to us as First Fruits, and in Israel as Yom HaBikkurim. It's not exactly a well-known feast; there are a few good reasons for this. It comes during the Passover/Unleavened holy days. Those seem to be the focus (particularly Passover) for most people. It is also not well known since it is tied in with agriculture. And of course, most of us don't, as we say in East Texas, bust ground. Most of us city folk are barely acquainted with the finer points of farming.
But Sifrat Haomer is a wonderful feast that God gave Israel, and for those of us who know Yeshua the Messiah, it should be a day of great celebration. Let's take a look at this little-known moed, or appointed time.
Passover arrives, and we celebrate the ultimate meaning of Passover, that of the blood of Yeshua delivering us from the bondage of sin and slavery to the world's system. It is the blood of Yeshua that fulfills Leviticus 17:11: "Life is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul." (NKJV) Unleavened Bread follows immediately after Passover, reminding us to live holy lives, not living in sin while claiming salvation. As Sha'ul wrote to the Corinthians, "[we] cannot eat at the table of the Lord and of demons." These two feasts together present a powerful picture to us believers about who we are in Messiah: kedoshim--holy people.
But what of the sin nature that is still within us? or of the desire to do things that we know are sin? How can we reconcile the fact that God has made us holy, yet we struggle with keeping the leaven of sin out of our lives? Try as we may to live sin-free lives, we find ourselves weak and prone to fall (sometimes run?) into sin. And though we ask our merciful Father for forgiveness, sometimes we find it extremely hard to forgive ourselves. It becomes very difficult to think of ourselves as holy men of God. But praise be to Abba! It's not what we think of ourselves that matters! It's what God says about us!
So what does this have to do with Sifrat Haomer, or First Fruits? I'm glad you asked. First Fruits is found in Leviticus 23, the chapter of the Feasts. God tells Moses to instruct Israel to bring the first (best) fruits of their early harvest. This is the harvest of barley. The barley, having been brought in as an offering, was given to the priest, stalk and all. This was before the grain was separated from the hard outer husk known as chaff. Does this sound familiar? The whole stalk was given to the priest. He waved it before the Lord, who accepted the offering on behalf of the one who offered it. It was a joyous time for them in the middle of the Unleavened season. The counting of the Omer was also marked for the coming of the wheat harvest, the better of the two grains.
Here's the good part. Keep in mind that the priest took the offering from the one who gave it and waved it before the Lord, stalk and all. There had not been any separating the grain from the chaff before the offering. In other words, there was a lot of stuff on the stalk that was wrapped around the good grain, much like our mortal bodies, given over to sickness from time to time and once to death, have within them the Spirit of the living God. Such knowledge is too wonderful to comprehend. And we, who have been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, are still moving in that flesh that has within it no good thing of itself. Yet G-d still accepts us because of what is within, that pure seed of faith that He placed there. May it continue to grow deep roots in us, watered by the Living Water, grounded in God's word, to go forth and produce much fruit for the kingdom of God. Then when the great day comes, that day when the one who is the first fruits of those who are resurrected from the dead (I Cor 15:23) returns, he will separate the grain from the chaff, and these mortal bodies will put on immortality, the corruptible becomes incorruptible.
Tim Stewart
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