3794 AM (34 CE) – Shavuot: The New Covenant Written on Their Hearts
Peter met with the others. Again. It wasn’t all bad. Peter led the small group in prayer and fellowship. With great relish, they would reminisce about the events from the last three years of Yeshua’s ministry. Peter thought Yeshua would stay with them until Shavuot, the fiftieth day after the Feast of First Fruits. But Yeshua left them a week early. It was all just so strange to Peter.
But today was the big day, the feast of Shavuot, the day that Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai. As was tradition, they had stayed up all night in preparation for the Law of Moses, the very words of Hashem. They studied. They prayed. They kept each other from falling asleep. It was really a marvelous time.
But then what? The comforter? What did Yeshua mean by that? The Spirit of Hashem, the Ruach Hakadosh? Like the power given to Moses to judge? And the power given to Samson to lift the gates of the city walls? And the power Yeshua had used to raise the dead and heal even a man born blind? The very power of creation itself.
Peter thought more about it and then shook the thought out of his mind. He had to focus. This was Shavuot. They were about to say their concluding blessing. Peter was tired. It had been a long day. He raised his hands and closed his eyes. But to his astonishment, there was a massive wind, like a million birds flocking through the room. Oil lamps flickered and went out, and there was something like long tongues of fire that enveloped them. It was warm, but it did not burn. And just as suddenly, it was gone.
But everything was different.
Peter looked out of eyes that saw everything radically different. The sky was bluer, and the grass was greener. His mind was flooded with understanding and ideas and truths.
Peter blushed. His mind was also filled with the knowledge of every selfish act he ever did, every violation of Torah. But he could also understand the commands of Torah, quite possibly better than even Solomon could.
“What is this?” one of the others asked.
Peter looked at everyone, “Hashem has kept his word, as was written in Jeremiah.”
Suddenly, and most involuntarily, Peter began reciting the Haftorah, from the Ketuvim, the writings specifically of Jeremiah:
“The days are coming, declares Hashem, when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares Hashem. But this is the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares Hashem. And I will forgive all their rebellion, and I will remember it no more.”
Suddenly Peter fell silent, and once again looked about, “Don’t you feel it? In your heart, in your bones? The new covenant, cut with the wounds of Yeshua, has been given to the Jews. We must tell the world. This is good news!”
“The world?” another present asked.
“Yes. To the Jews first, naturally, but then to the nations. Remember what the Messengers of Hashem told us? Just as Yeshua left, he will return. But not before we tell this good news, this Besorah, to all the nations. And that means Jerusalem, Babylon, Greece and even to the ends of all of Rome.”
“What good news?” someone else asked.
“That the Messiah has come and will come again. That the power of Hashem is free to those who choose to follow Yeshua and the ways he demonstrated for all to live, so that Tikkun O’lam, the restoration of the world, can happen. His kingdom is here today, if only we open our eyes and see and open our ears and obey. Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that we may teach the nations his ways, so that they may walk in his paths. For out of Zion we will take his law written on our hearts, along with the words of Hashem with us from Jerusalem.”
Used with permission by the author. Find the author’s complete works online: Complete Works of Mack Samuels
