[330 words]
Have you ever embraced a shadow? As a kid, did you ever chase your shadow? Did you catch it? I had much rather shake hands with a real person than to try to embrace a shadow. Still, there are many religious people attempting to embrace the shadow.
You may be familiar with the Old Testament religious calendar. When God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave Israel more than the Ten Commandments, He also gave them a religious calendar. Every year, at a set time, they were to observe Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, fifty days later the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and other feasts at their set times (Exodus 34:1-28). This religious calendar was not given to any other nation; but it had a special meaning to the Jewish nation (Psalm 147:19, 20; Deuteronomy 5:1-3).
This religious calendar given by God to Moses for the children of Israel was just a shadow. The apostle Paul wrote: “So then, let no one judge you in food or drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon, or sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16, 17). Jesus is the real thing and Old Testament festivals are the shadow. The shadow has been overtaken by the man Jesus. For example, Passover remembered deliverance from Egyptian bondage (Exodus 12); but Jesus is our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7). The Jews sacrificed a lamb which could never take away sins; but Jesus’ blood cleanses us from all sin (Hebrews 10:11, 12). And in taking the Lord’s Supper, Christians remember their deliverance from sin by the blood of Jesus (Matthew 26:26-28).
Paul was concerned because some were “observing days and months and seasons and years” (Galatians 4:10, 11) and following the Jewish calendar would cause them to fall from grace (Galatians 5:4). Embracing the shadow misses the person.
Embrace Jesus, not the shadow.
Alton Norman
Owingsville church of Christ
Owingsville, KY