April 19th, 2026
by Deon Hairston
by Deon Hairston
The Appointed Times: Understanding God's Eternal Feasts and the Resurrection
There's something profoundly beautiful about discovering that what we've celebrated for generations runs far deeper than we ever imagined. When we think about resurrection Sunday, we often focus on the miracle itself, and rightfully so. But what if I told you that this miraculous event was scheduled on God's calendar over a thousand years before it happened? What if the resurrection wasn't just a miracle, but a divine appointment that God marked at Mount Sinai?
These Are My Feasts
The foundation of understanding God's appointed times begins with a crucial declaration in Leviticus 23:2: "Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them concerning the feast of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations. Even these are my feast."
Notice the possessive language. God doesn't say these are Israel's feasts or the Hebrew people's feasts. He declares with unmistakable clarity: "These are MY feasts." This matters profoundly because ownership determines authority. What belongs to God cannot be replaced by human decision, council votes, or cultural convenience. If they are His, then only He can say when they end, and only He dictates what happens during these sacred times.
The festivals work together to communicate that God's people preserve their spiritual heritage through commemorating deliverance while pursuing a life of holiness. These feasts are both memorial and formation, they shape our very identity as believers.
Forever Actually Means Forever
When God says "forever" in Exodus 12:14, He uses the Hebrew word "olam," which means permanent, generational, and without end. He didn't say temporary. He didn't say "until something more convenient comes along." He said forever.
Deuteronomy 16:16 adds another critical element: "They shall not appear before the Lord empty." Coming before God at the appointed times is a covenant appearance. You show up, and you bring something. Today, we bring our praise, our worship, our attention to Scripture, and our gifts to God.
Jesus and the Passover Table
When we read Luke 22:7-8, we discover something remarkable. Jesus didn't simply tell His disciples to prepare dinner. He specifically said, "Go and prepare us the Passover." He sat down at the covenant meal that God commanded in Exodus 12, the same meal the Hebrew people had been observing for 1,400 years.
Then He took the bread and cup and said, "This is about me."
Yahusha (Jesus) didn't destroy the table. He sat at it and became its very meaning. Every feast points to Christ. He took the Scripture, read it, and declared, "This is about me." Then He lived it out. The Scripture was pointing to Him all along.
Paul makes this explicit in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8: "For even Christ our Passover is sacrifice for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
The Meaning of Leaven
Paul's application is clear and convicting. Leaven represents malice, wickedness, and corruption. Unleavened bread represents sincerity and truth. The command to remove leaven from the home during the feast is simultaneously a command to examine what still corrupts our lives.
This isn't symbolic fluff. This is a house-cleaning command. God told the Hebrew people to search their homes and remove every trace of leaven before Passover. Paul says the same principle applies to the community and to our individual lives.
What is still in your house that God has told you to remove? What have you learned to live with instead of purging it out? The feast asks this question every year on purpose so that you cannot forget. It becomes part of how you live.
The Bread of Affliction and Haste
Unleavened bread holds two simultaneous truths. According to the Exodus context, it is the bread of affliction, the bread of slavery, of hard years, of suffering in Egypt. But it's also the bread of haste because the people left so quickly that the bread had no time to rise.
God doesn't erase the suffering. He uses it to move you out. The same bread that remembered the pain also marked the departure from that pain. You cannot separate them. You cannot stay in Egypt and eat unleavened bread because the bread itself is a declaration: "I am not staying. I am moving out."
The Resurrection Was Not Random
Here's where everything comes together in breathtaking clarity.
Matthew 28:1 tells us that on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. All four gospels confirm that Jesus rose on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath.
Leviticus 23:10-11 commands that First Fruits be observed "on the morrow after the Sabbath", the first day of the week. And 1 Corinthians 15:20 declares: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept."
The resurrection didn't happen on a random day. It happened on the appointed time God had placed on the covenant calendar at Sinai, over a thousand years before the resurrection occurred.
Paul doesn't say Jesus rose "like" the first fruits. He says Jesus IS the first fruits.
During the days when leaven and corruption were being removed from every Hebrew household, God removed the ultimate corruption, death itself. God scheduled the victory before the battle was finished. He put First Fruits on the calendar at Sinai, knowing exactly what He would do that day.
This is covenant architecture.
The Guarantee of the Harvest
In ancient Hebrew agriculture, the first fruits offering wasn't the entire harvest. It was the guarantee of the harvest. You bring the first sheaf before God before you know how the rest of the harvest will turn out. You're declaring, "I trust more is coming."
Jesus rose as the first sheaf of the resurrection harvest. He's not the only one. He's the first of many. First fruits don't stand alone, they guarantee what follows.
Remember: the dead in Christ shall rise first. If He got up, you will not stay in the grave. This isn't a motivational statement. It's a covenant guarantee.
Living as Feast People
The appointed times of Leviticus 23 aren't just a religious calendar you observe once a year and put away. They are covenant identity. They tell you who you are, whose you are, and where you came from.
Every time you observe Passover, you declare, "I was brought out." Every time you observe First Fruits, you declare, "More is coming." Every time you observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, you ask, "What still needs to come out of my house?"
Are you living like Egypt still owns you, or like you've been brought out?
The feasts exist so you never forget that answer. God built this reminder into the calendar. He didn't want you to have to remember on your own. He gave you appointed times, set apart moments on the calendar so that the story of your deliverance stays alive in your body, your home, your community year after year.
So this season, celebrate it all: Happy Passover. Happy First Fruits. Happy Resurrection. Say all three. Know what they mean. And live like the people they describe, brought out, first fruits guaranteed, leaven removed, walking in the freedom God purchased and Jesus secured.
These are His feasts. And we are His people.
There's something profoundly beautiful about discovering that what we've celebrated for generations runs far deeper than we ever imagined. When we think about resurrection Sunday, we often focus on the miracle itself, and rightfully so. But what if I told you that this miraculous event was scheduled on God's calendar over a thousand years before it happened? What if the resurrection wasn't just a miracle, but a divine appointment that God marked at Mount Sinai?
These Are My Feasts
The foundation of understanding God's appointed times begins with a crucial declaration in Leviticus 23:2: "Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them concerning the feast of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations. Even these are my feast."
Notice the possessive language. God doesn't say these are Israel's feasts or the Hebrew people's feasts. He declares with unmistakable clarity: "These are MY feasts." This matters profoundly because ownership determines authority. What belongs to God cannot be replaced by human decision, council votes, or cultural convenience. If they are His, then only He can say when they end, and only He dictates what happens during these sacred times.
The festivals work together to communicate that God's people preserve their spiritual heritage through commemorating deliverance while pursuing a life of holiness. These feasts are both memorial and formation, they shape our very identity as believers.
Forever Actually Means Forever
When God says "forever" in Exodus 12:14, He uses the Hebrew word "olam," which means permanent, generational, and without end. He didn't say temporary. He didn't say "until something more convenient comes along." He said forever.
Deuteronomy 16:16 adds another critical element: "They shall not appear before the Lord empty." Coming before God at the appointed times is a covenant appearance. You show up, and you bring something. Today, we bring our praise, our worship, our attention to Scripture, and our gifts to God.
Jesus and the Passover Table
When we read Luke 22:7-8, we discover something remarkable. Jesus didn't simply tell His disciples to prepare dinner. He specifically said, "Go and prepare us the Passover." He sat down at the covenant meal that God commanded in Exodus 12, the same meal the Hebrew people had been observing for 1,400 years.
Then He took the bread and cup and said, "This is about me."
Yahusha (Jesus) didn't destroy the table. He sat at it and became its very meaning. Every feast points to Christ. He took the Scripture, read it, and declared, "This is about me." Then He lived it out. The Scripture was pointing to Him all along.
Paul makes this explicit in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8: "For even Christ our Passover is sacrifice for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
The Meaning of Leaven
Paul's application is clear and convicting. Leaven represents malice, wickedness, and corruption. Unleavened bread represents sincerity and truth. The command to remove leaven from the home during the feast is simultaneously a command to examine what still corrupts our lives.
This isn't symbolic fluff. This is a house-cleaning command. God told the Hebrew people to search their homes and remove every trace of leaven before Passover. Paul says the same principle applies to the community and to our individual lives.
What is still in your house that God has told you to remove? What have you learned to live with instead of purging it out? The feast asks this question every year on purpose so that you cannot forget. It becomes part of how you live.
The Bread of Affliction and Haste
Unleavened bread holds two simultaneous truths. According to the Exodus context, it is the bread of affliction, the bread of slavery, of hard years, of suffering in Egypt. But it's also the bread of haste because the people left so quickly that the bread had no time to rise.
God doesn't erase the suffering. He uses it to move you out. The same bread that remembered the pain also marked the departure from that pain. You cannot separate them. You cannot stay in Egypt and eat unleavened bread because the bread itself is a declaration: "I am not staying. I am moving out."
The Resurrection Was Not Random
Here's where everything comes together in breathtaking clarity.
Matthew 28:1 tells us that on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. All four gospels confirm that Jesus rose on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath.
Leviticus 23:10-11 commands that First Fruits be observed "on the morrow after the Sabbath", the first day of the week. And 1 Corinthians 15:20 declares: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept."
The resurrection didn't happen on a random day. It happened on the appointed time God had placed on the covenant calendar at Sinai, over a thousand years before the resurrection occurred.
Paul doesn't say Jesus rose "like" the first fruits. He says Jesus IS the first fruits.
During the days when leaven and corruption were being removed from every Hebrew household, God removed the ultimate corruption, death itself. God scheduled the victory before the battle was finished. He put First Fruits on the calendar at Sinai, knowing exactly what He would do that day.
This is covenant architecture.
The Guarantee of the Harvest
In ancient Hebrew agriculture, the first fruits offering wasn't the entire harvest. It was the guarantee of the harvest. You bring the first sheaf before God before you know how the rest of the harvest will turn out. You're declaring, "I trust more is coming."
Jesus rose as the first sheaf of the resurrection harvest. He's not the only one. He's the first of many. First fruits don't stand alone, they guarantee what follows.
Remember: the dead in Christ shall rise first. If He got up, you will not stay in the grave. This isn't a motivational statement. It's a covenant guarantee.
Living as Feast People
The appointed times of Leviticus 23 aren't just a religious calendar you observe once a year and put away. They are covenant identity. They tell you who you are, whose you are, and where you came from.
Every time you observe Passover, you declare, "I was brought out." Every time you observe First Fruits, you declare, "More is coming." Every time you observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, you ask, "What still needs to come out of my house?"
Are you living like Egypt still owns you, or like you've been brought out?
The feasts exist so you never forget that answer. God built this reminder into the calendar. He didn't want you to have to remember on your own. He gave you appointed times, set apart moments on the calendar so that the story of your deliverance stays alive in your body, your home, your community year after year.
So this season, celebrate it all: Happy Passover. Happy First Fruits. Happy Resurrection. Say all three. Know what they mean. And live like the people they describe, brought out, first fruits guaranteed, leaven removed, walking in the freedom God purchased and Jesus secured.
These are His feasts. And we are His people.
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