God's plan of salvation for us are contained in what the feasts represent. Some have been fulfilled and others have not. There is great symbolism in each that would serve to edify us if we learned of them. And no, we don't have to kill animals, but to do so to eat them is no different than having a ham for Christmas or a turkey for Thanksgiving. Just because you didn't do the dirty work doesn't mean someone else didn't for your sake. In days past, and not so long ago, it would have been common to kill animals in our house to prepare meals: turkeys, pigs and lambs.
We're not talking about a "blood sacrifice" because all know Christ was the ultimate sacrifice once for all time. The Passover lamb needed to be killed at the prescribed time and its blood applied as it is commanded until Christ died for us. Now, it is symbolic that we have His blood covering us, as the Israelites covered the entrance to their houses, which are pictures of the temple built without hands that the Holy Spirit occupies. The natural points to the spiritual. His blood covers our house or tabernacle or body, so to speak.
In fact, as the feast of unleavened bread is representative of getting rid of leaven and sin in our physical house that points to the same effort in ridding sin in our bodies and spirits, so did Jesus cast our the moneychangers and such from His Father's house. He did so before the Passover and during the feast of unleavened bread because He knew what it represented. As it says, He has zeal for His Father's house. Zeal to cast out the leaven or sin, like those who make merchandise.
He obeyed to carry it out in the physical because He knew what it meant in the spiritual. How will we ever see the spirit of a thing if we can't carry out and obey the physical of it? Do we think we can understand something before we obey it? We will never receive it that way.
We obey God and do the things He commanded in the hope that we will see the spiritual intention within it. Call them ordinaces, sacraments or just good old religion, but they have a purpose in the spirit that we will never see if we don't do them.
Baptism is one such. There is a spiritual intention within it. Fellowship is another. It represents our physical communion with the body of believers so we can come to have a greater communion with God through felllowship with His Son; the bride to the groom. Prayers is another. Through the act of praying in the natural, the invisible things of God come to pass in our lives.
So...what about the feasts. What do they represent and what fulfillments are yet to come? What can we learn from practicing them, even as telling a story as opposed to not?
Look what Christmas has become? Look at the depression and killings that take place during this "holi" day. I would much prefer to look forward to embracing the days and feasts God desired us to "keep" in our own ways so that His spiritual and eternal intention contained within them comes to pass in real life.
Isn't that what being a Christian is about? Having God's will and ways come to life within us as Jesus Christ?
