The Lord Our God Is One Lord [Thanksgiving]

At the Feast of Firstfruits, the first offering is made from the earliest barley to ripen on the plain of Gennesaret. Seven Sabbaths are counted from Firstfruits, and on the fiftieth day comes Pentecost, when the offering is made from the ripened wheat. Through the forty-nine days in between, the people of Israel had to count each day, longing for God to send the northwest and southeast winds.

Barley ripens only when the cold northwest wind blows, and wheat and fruit only when the hot southeast wind comes. The one who rules over that wind and rain is the Lord alone, so counting the days was itself a confession that they would rely on God and no other. Yet the people of Israel rejected God, asking for a human king like the nations around them. Just as Samuel had warned, thunder and rain fell in the very last week of the wheat harvest, a judgment that ruined the whole year’s crop.

Thanks must be given now, while blessings are enjoyed in abundance; it is folly to realize only after they are taken away that they were God’s grace all along. Jesus, too, rose from the dead on this Feast of Firstfruits and became the firstfruits. In the place God has given them, his people must bring their offerings with a willing heart and live without forgetting his grace.