Our Scripture Readings for this Sunday are Leviticus 23:23-25 and Matthew 21:1-11.
This Sunday we are looking at the Feast of Trumpets as we celebrate Palm Sunday and also Profession of Faith and Baptism. It’s going to be an exciting service.
The Feast of Trumpets was a solemn day. It was celebrated on the first day of the seventh month and on that day the priests would continuously sound trumpets. It was a day meant to remind them of God’s presence among them – God’s presence that they witnessed at Mt. Sinai when all of God’s people trembled as they heard Him speak the Ten Commandments. The trumpets reminded them of that day, of God’s giving of the law, of the sights and the sounds of God’s presence, and of their failure to measure up to God’s law.
As we look at this feast on Palm Sunday, we do so also remembering the sounds of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. On that day the city was filled with joyous sounds. The King, the Messiah, had arrived and the people rejoiced and celebrated. When we think of the Feast of Trumpets and how the trumpet sound reminded God’s people of His presence with them, we look to Palm Sunday and then Easter to give us a clearer picture of what God’s presence sounds (and looks) like.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. In Him we see the fullness of God and experience the fullness of God’s presence. More than a trumpet echo, we see a Saviour enter Jerusalem and make his way to the cross. We see a Saviour who bore our suffering for us, crying out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
We see Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, the One who takes our place so that when we stand before Lord on the last day, when the trumpet sounds and Jesus returns, we will stand with confidence because we stand on His righteousness and not our own.