The First Sheaf and the Empty Tomb

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

You know you're a blessed fellowship when the children are released and it looks like the rapture happened. I never get over that. I love seeing that. But Shabbat Shalom, everybody. There are moments in Scripture that thunder with revelation. Burning bushes, splitting seas, walls collapsing, fire descending through a cloud. These are the moments that we remember, the moments that make it into Sunday school or Shabbat school, that make it into the Passover Haggadahs.

Quiet Moments in Scripture

But then there are the quiet moments in the narrative of the Bible. The ones that are so subtle that we might read past them accidentally. The little things, the moments like a man in the garden before dawn. Moments like a stalk of barley swaying in the wind. Or moments like the first light after a very long night. Because today we're going to explore something ancient. We're going to look at something sacred and something that, if we're paying attention, has the power to reframe how we see resurrection. How we see time. And how we see ourselves as people living in between two worlds. This one and the world to come. We're talking about a holy day, a feast in the Bible. And I know many of us are familiar with Passover, of course. It's powerful. That's the big one, right? It's rich. It tells a story of liberation, of God reaching down and pulling his people out of the grip of death. And then we also have another big one, Shavuot, Pentecost, the feast of fire, of covenant and empowerment.

Between Two Festivals

But nestled in between these two monumental moments is this small, almost overlooked, holy day festival. One that doesn't get much attention because, to be honest, there's not much attention to give. There's no drama about it. There's no plagues. There's no Sinai. Just a sheaf of barley. It's called Yom HaBikrim, or the festival of first fruits. And I would argue that this humble feast holds one of the most profound theological keys that we find in the scriptures. Because it's the day that Yeshua walked out of the grave. It's the day that he declared victory over death, declared victory over shame, and every power that dehumanizes.

In his rising, he not only conquered the grave, he restored the dignity of creation itself. But what if the resurrection wasn't just proof of power? What if it was the planting of a promise? What if it wasn't just a miraculous exception to the laws of death? Not that that's not a big deal. What if there's more? What if it was a signpost, a big holy spotlight or signal, pointing us not just to where history came from, but where we're going? What if the resurrection isn't simply about escaping this world, but about renewing it?

Tracing the Pattern

Because today, that's the pattern we're going to try to trace throughout the narrative of the Bible. We're going to travel from Leviticus to Corinthians, from Genesis to John. We're going to find ourselves going from the garden to the tomb, and see how it's all held together by one single Hebrew word, a word that appears in the very first verse of the Bible. But before we get there, let's dive into the text itself that talks about the feast of firstfruits. It's in Leviticus 23, starting in verse 9, and... It says, When are you supposed to do it? The day after. We'll get to that in a minute. Funny verse.

Who thought you could have arguments over that? You ever notice... And it's so funny. This is a rabbit trail. It's so funny because we're wired to join together in companionship and alliances and support and loyalty on a much stronger level when we're against something than rather if we're for it. Someone pointed that out recently, and I haven't stopped thinking about it, and it upsets me a lot because I know it's true. Right? Politics is the go-to, low-hanging fruit. Everyone, the political leader, whoever it may be, gets up. I am against that. And everybody blindly would, yeah, we all do. Yeah, that's right.

Let's do it. I am for amazing things that are going to change the world. Yeah, but it's boring. I don't want to watch that. On the day after the Sabbath, the priests shall wave it. We can make fights about that. We'll argue about that. That's a good one. And people did, especially in the first century. But in this verse, there's no thunder or lightning here. There's nothing very dramatic, cinematic even. No sea parting, no tablets of stone being handed down. It's just this. You're harvesting your field. Before you touch any of it, take the very first sheaf of barley, the first sign of life that breaks through the soil, and you shall bring it to a priest.

You don't keep it. You don't store it. You don't eat it. You lift it up before the Lord because this one sheaf is going to represent the entire harvest. The Hebrew word here is reshit. Reshit. It means the first or the beginning, the chief, the leader. It's not just any old part of the harvest. Again, it's the first part that sanctifies the rest. And if that word sounds kind of familiar, if you're a Bible nerd, it should. It's the same root word that is in Genesis 1-1. In the beginning, God created. And you notice this word, Bereshit. It is Reshit. It's the beginning. It just has a preposition, the B sound.

The B there means in. So you have the first word of the Bible is Reshit with a preposition, in, Reshit, in the beginning. Same word. Same word. The first, the beginning, the foundational.

The Word Reshit

And it's no coincidence that the Feast of Firstfruits centers around that very same word. Because just as Bershit marks the beginning of the cosmos, Reshit in Leviticus marks the beginning of a new cycle of life. A moment when the first is set apart, not just as a symbol, but as a promise. That's how people held it with regard. And in the resurrection of Yeshua, God brings together these two beginnings. The beginning of creation and the beginning of a new creation. Now, it's a bit foreign for most of us because we don't live in an agrarian society anymore. Most of us didn't wake up this morning to check out our barley fields.

But in the biblical imagination, agriculture isn't just how you eat, it's how you live in rhythm with the Creator. It's why the entire religious calendar of the Bible is based around what? The harvest. There are three out of the seven holy days in the Bible where all of the men of Israel are commanded to travel to Jerusalem. That would have been just awesome, right guys? Yes. Can you imagine? You think it would be the men's attack? But oh, it would be great. We would get in so much trouble. I'm sure they did. All the guys. And what are they? Deuteronomy 16 lays it out. Passover, firstfruits, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

And they were there to bring their tithe, the first of their harvest throughout the year. Now, in Leviticus 23, as we read, we see the firstfruits, the very first sheaf of barley must be weighed before the Lord. Why? Because it's the one that represents the entire harvest to come. And that's the theme of this message. This one is special because it sanctifies what is about to come. It is a promise of what is about to come, and it represents the entirety of what is about to come.

Reshit as a Pattern

So when Leviticus says, bring the reshit of your harvest, it's not talking about chronology. It's tapping into a deeply embedded pattern within the scriptures. It's the first of something sacred. It's set apart. And it's telling you something about what's coming next. In the same way that Bershit sets the tone for the entire narrative, first fruit sets the tone for the harvest. And Paul draws on this directly when he says that the Messiah is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. His resurrection is the Bershit of new creation. And that's... In the New Testament, we have different authors, Peter and so, that mention that they're in the end times.

And we always struggle, what do you mean you're in the end times? Obviously you weren't, but I bet they would argue we are. Because everybody knew a resurrection was coming. Everybody, that's the Bible, Daniel. We know it's coming. So when Yeshua rose from the dead, people were rejoicing because they saw that that fulfillment, that promise had taken place, just not for everyone. It hasn't happened for everyone yet. It hasn't come in its completion, but it started. The first has come. And we find ourselves in this liminal space as the harvest people that are yet to come.

The Cosmic Ritual

So yeah, we are in the end times. Right now, it started. It started the moment the stone was rolled away. And we hold on to that promise as new creation breaks into our world even now. Firstfruits is a cosmic ritual of hope. And it's into that liturgical drama that we find Yeshua, not coincidentally, rising from the dead on the very first day of the week, which was firstfruits. Now, we can argue about anything, right? In the Second Temple Era, there was a bit of a disagreement on when this day actually fell. It says plainly, the day after the Sabbath. Well, what does that mean? Because... Lots of days can be the Sabbath.

You have the weekly Sabbath, but you also have maybe the first day of unleavened bread, which is also a Sabbath. And they fall within, they're very close. So the Pharisees, who eventually shaped rabbinic Judaism and Judaism as we have it today, they placed first fruits on the 16th of Nisan. So basically two days after Passover, the day after the first day of unleavened bread. The Sadducees, who controlled the temple during the time of Yeshua... held that it was the day after the weekly Sabbath, during the week of unleavened bread, which placed it on a Sunday. And wouldn't you know it, according to the gospel accounts, that's the day Yeshua rises.

Kind of neat. Not Saturday, not Monday, Sunday, the day after the Sabbath. The very same day when the high priest would have been walking into the temple courts holding a bundle of barley and waving it before the Lord as a symbol of the harvest to come. Paul saw this. And he couldn't help himself. In 1 Corinthians 15, he writes, He's the first.

The Firstfruits of Resurrection

He's initiated it. He's the one that shows us the promise is valid. It is still coming. In that, we have hope to continue the mission. In Greek, it's a parke, the first offering, the first portion. But Paul is saying that Yeshua's resurrection isn't just about him. It's about us as well. It's about the world. It's about all of creation. His rising is the first sheaf waved before the Father, declaring that a greater harvest is on its way. And this is where the story gets exciting. Paul doesn't call Yeshua the only one to rise. He just calls him the first. It's different. N.T. Wright, one of my favorite Christian scholars, in his book, Surprised by Hope, he says that the resurrection is not about life after death.

It's about life after life after death. It's about the final resurrection, the moment when God brings heaven and earth together, when creation is made new in its completeness. And in Jewish thought, that resurrection is something that happens at the end of the age, not to one man in the middle of history. So when Paul says Yeshua is the firstfruits, he's saying the future has broken into the present. God's new world has begun right here in the middle of this one. And the resurrection isn't just proof that Yeshua is divine, of course. It's a down payment on new creation. It's a down payment of everything that is coming.

And I want to camp out with that for a minute. Paul says, he's speaking and he says that in 2 Corinthians, he says that if you are in Christ, most translations will say you are a new creation. We're familiar with Paul's letter here. In Greek, it just says new creation. If you are in Christ, new creation. In other words, it's not specific to you and you're now a new creation. No, you have entered in. You have crossed the threshold of this interdimensional whatever is happening with God's kingdom and the world to come crashing into our world now and death being defeated and new life sprouting just as Isaiah speaks of it.

He says, if you're in Christ, you've stepped up, you're living in it. You don't see other people the same way that you did before. You don't look outside and see the same world that you saw before. You see a world that is changing. You see a world that Yeshua is vibrantly interacting with through the Holy Spirit, through everyone that would call them his own. And I love that because he speaks of it as if he's putting on glasses. He says, yeah, put on these new eyes now, these new lenses. And these people that I'm told to hate, the people the world says are my enemies, the people the world says, you know what, they said something mean to you, you should go maybe take them out, right?

Call them some names. You should write a Reddit post about them. You don't see those people anymore because the moment that you step over that threshold, you realize that you were that person. That was you, right? It's everyone else but us, right? That was you. Now you're seeing a person that's in need of a savior. You're seeing a person that is bound, that is shackled. You're seeing a person that almost doesn't even know what they're doing. And the reason why you can relate to that is because you can relate to it. That's it.

A New Creation, New Eyes

I was listening to a psychologist years back, and he made mention to something, and it struck me. I didn't like it. Never liked it. Because when someone does harm to you, you really do, I mean, you'd like to see. We call it justice, right? It's revenge. I mean, come on. We like to see. It makes us feel better when someone gets what's coming to them. But he said that how you treat someone now is based on every single interaction you've had with every single person before that, from the moment you were born. You're going to treat someone differently or respond to someone, whether they did something mean to you, not mean, whatever.

You're going to respond to someone now based on how much you were bullied in high school. That affects how you relate to people today. It's almost as if we're pre-programmed with all of the trauma or negative experiences or positive experiences we've endured with every interaction with every person. And then he said, so maybe give people a little bit of slack when they do something that's not real nice to you. Not that they shouldn't be held accountable for it, not that you deserved it, but maybe they've lived a life similar to yours where they've experienced a lot of hurt and they have a lot of defenses, a lot of armor up.

They've learned to carry a big sharp sword because they're just as scared as other people as you are. I didn't like it, but I don't disagree with it. And I think once we taste the grace and the love of Yeshua, we are living in a new type of world where we see people for who they are and we understand the level of love that we've received from Messiah and the Messiah thought we were strong enough to carry that love forward to others. It's a big responsibility, right? That's what we signed up for and it's hard for a reason but it's a beautiful world outside, isn't it?

The Gardener and the Curse Reversed

So coming back, down payment to new creation. This means what happened in the garden tomb was not simply an individual victory but it was a cosmic event. And it's no accident that John places the resurrection in a garden. John is not just reporting geographical details. He's doing something literary, something theological. You guys know John loved to be theological, right? He's the black sheep of the Gospels, right? Yeshua is the lamb that takes away the sins of the world. Not according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John, I'll fix that. He's the lamb, right? The moment that blood and water came out of his side, reference Zechariah, the blood that atones sin and the water that cleanses, not according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

John, no, we've got to get this detail. People need to know, understand the impact of this. When Yeshua blows on his disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit, and you're like, I thought that was happening in Acts, but what? Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we don't remember. It happened, it did happen in my recollection, and it was profound because it showed that a new creation had started and a new humanity is getting the breath of life, first thing of new creation. He gives the breath of life to his disciples. That's John. Love John. He's a good guy. In John chapter 19, and Ashley mentioned it during this poor portion, it says that now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden there was a new tomb.

Then just a few verses later in the next chapter, we read that Mary of Magdal comes to the tomb. She finds it empty and she weeps. And when Yeshua appears to her, she doesn't recognize him at first because she thinks he's a gardener. Now that might sound like a little innocent case of mistaken identity, but again, John is the most theological loaded gospel out of the four. He doesn't write stuff on accident. Mary thinks he's a gardener because in a very real sense he is. Think back to Genesis, to another garden. This story begins in Eden, a garden of life, of potential, a garden of communion with God.

And that is where we find the first Adam. And that's where the first Adam failed. He was called to tend the soil, to guard it, to cultivate creation. But instead, through distrust and disobedience, he introduced death into the garden. But here we are again in a garden. But this time, a different Adam is present. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul calls Yeshua the last Adam. The one who brings life where the first Adam brought death. And John shows us what that looks like. He's the gardener. The one who tends the soil of new creation, who sows resurrection life into the grave. The one who turns tombs into gardens.

This is John's quiet way of saying a new Eden has begun. Things will never be the same. The curse from the first garden is being reversed in this one. Death, once planted in the soil of creation, is being uprooted. And in its place, resurrection life is starting to grow. Sometimes it grows fast and big, sometimes slowly, but it's growing fast. So when Mary mistakes him for a gardener, I don't think she's wrong. She's seeing Yeshua through the lens of Eden, even if she doesn't realize it yet. And this is the profound hope of resurrection. It's not just Jesus is alive, but that deserves a hallelujah all the same.

Amen. But that he's restoring this world right now. This is the profound hope that the new creation has begun and it starts in a garden.

Living in Alignment: Love and Empathy

So why does Leviticus spend time on this tiny feast? Because God isn't just telling us what to believe. He's about teaching us how to live in the rhythm of reality. Dallas Willard, in his book, The Divine Conspiracy, he says, reality is what you bump into when you're wrong. Firstfruits is about living in alignment with the truth of the world as God is remaking it every day. To say it plainly, if Yeshua is the firstfruits and his resurrection is the sign of what's coming, then our entire lives must be oriented around the harvest that is also coming. We live in the time between the sheaf and the full field.

We live in a time between the empty tomb and the full resurrection, between the gardener's waking and the garden's completion. And this rhythm, this posture of expectation isn't just spiritual, it's practical. It shows up in how we live and how we love and how we choose to forgive, even in how we give. Gosh, give everything. How we live. One of the hardest things I've had to do throughout life is learn empathy for others. To my point earlier, when we step over the threshold, we don't see people the same. We see people who need a savior. We see people that need love. And what is love? Augustine and others essentially said love is anything that brings people together, unites.

Now, I could argue against that definition, but I think it's a good place to start. Love is what draws people together. Love is what unites and anything that does that. That's how it shows up in how we live and how we love others and how we forgive others, even when we don't want to. We realize that if Yeshua could absorb offense to stop evil and not allow it to continue, then we're called to do the same. We forgive. It even shows up in how we give and how we tithe to our home church fellowship.

Giving of Our First

What a great topic—giving. Especially giving of our first isn't just about funding ministry. It's a very real principle throughout the scriptures. It's about aligning ourselves with the pattern of resurrection. That is what happens when you choose to tithe the first of your income. When we give, we declare that what we have isn't the result of scarcity or self-sufficiency. It's the result of God's grace. Every single thing that you have in your life—that is the Christian worldview. It is not because you necessarily did anything. It's because it was given to you. It is all grace. From money to the relationships you have. From the blessings you have. Grace. We're living as people who believe God is bringing new life. Not just spiritually, but practically. Bringing it into our communities, into our relationship. The rhythms of rest that we have. And yes, even our finances. We tithe not because we're afraid of losing, but because we're participating in a kingdom where nothing offered to God is ever wasted. It's always planted. It's always part of the harvest to come.

Trust in the Rhythm of God's Faithfulness

This is why tithing or giving, bringing our rishit, our first, has always been such a powerful act of trust. It mirrors the same motion of the priest lifting the sheaf before God. Here is the beginning. Here is my trust. Here is my declaration that the harvest belongs to you. And it's not for the weak, but for the faithful, for those who dare to believe that everything they have belongs to God already and who are willing to demonstrate that belief with their first and best. It's for those who are living now in the rhythm of the world to come, trusting the gardener even before the full harvest arrives.

And if you've never entered into that kind of trust, if you've never experienced the release that comes from giving in faith and entrusting your finances to God, then today, the day before we celebrate first fruits, is a beautifully fitting place to begin because this isn't about chasing a harvest of wealth. I disagree with that theology, even though I understand the principle is there. It's about aligning your life with the rhythm of God's faithfulness. It's about planting something sacred in the soil of obedience and saying, I trust you with the first because I believe in what you're bringing next. The harvest that comes from anything and everything that we give—it's not measured in dollars.

It's measured in transformation. It's measured in peace and in joy and in renewal, in fruit that actually lasts. And it always bears the fingerprints of the gardener, every time.

Firstfruits and the Resurrection

And Paul picks up this idea of firstfruits in Romans chapter 8. He says, "There's that harvest language again. So much." The Spirit is not just a comforting presence. It's the presence of the age to come, given to us in advance. It's like the first breath of spring air after the brutal winter. We are the first fruits people. We are groaning in anticipation for the world to come, for the kingdom to be fully manifest, planted in the soil of the broken world, but already sprouting with resurrection life everywhere we look. James 1.18 echoes this. It says, "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be kind of first fruits of all he created." Do you see it? The image of a harvest isn't just about what God is doing in Yeshua. It's about what he's doing in every single one of you. It's about what he's doing in us.

Living as People of the Resurrection

So what does this mean practically? Always sounds good when you read stuff and you make it theologically sound. What does it mean? It means that resurrection isn't just an event to be celebrated once a year. It's the reality to be lived every single day when we walk out the door. It means that we don't live toward death—we live from resurrection. It means that when we see pain, when we see war, when we see death, when we see decay, we don't just shrug and say, "That's just how the world is." We say, "No, that's how the world was. That is passing away. And I'll do everything in my power to help it pass away." That's our calling. We work. We love. We serve. We forgive. We build. We heal as those who have already tasted new creation. We live as signs of the harvest to come. And that's tough sometimes. It's tough. Because I want to tell you, and many of you know this, the world does not want you to live like this. The world wants to get you on their side.

The World's Pressure

The world wants to tell you that you can play religion when you pray every morning. You can play religion when you go to church, when you read the Bible. But when you walk outside, you need to join the collective. Whatever they say you need to be zealous about, you need to do it. When the world says you need to go to war over something, that's what they want. I know what the Bible says, but sometimes you feel like you just have to. When the world says that's an evil man, therefore you need to label him evil with us, you say that's a man that just needs to be forgiven. And you know you're doing it right when people start getting angry with you. Every four years, the politics flips. The world's trying to get you to hate someone else. Do something else. Stand with them against something that's usually vague and ambiguous. You ever realize how every single politician—oh, I'm a soapbox now—every single politician, president, everyone, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, whatever, good majority of them proudly say, I am a Christian, and we need to strengthen our Christian nation.

But they never go into detail about what type of Christian—what do you mean? Is he Catholic, Presbyterian? Are you extremely progressive? Are you extremely conservative, Catholic? Where are you at? Which one? Which Christianity, which Christian worldview are we going to abide by? No, that's always left out because they don't care, because that's not the point. They're just trying to get everyone together. Hoorah, hoorah, let's go. Let's go do what I want people to do.

We Are the Revolution

Guys, the way that we become a Christian nation is by overthrowing empires. No such thing as a Christian empire on earth. And if there was, it wasn't. We are the revolution. Yeshua is the revolution. Christians were feared because their agenda was to topple worldly empires. That's what Revelation is all about. The whole book is all about encouraging and giving hope to Christians that no matter how big the empire is, that beast, it can't hurt you. In fact, you're hurting it by staying faithful. So the next time, whether it be tomorrow, in five years, eight years, ten years, fifteen, twenty years, the whole world gets together and wants to get a good hate going. And wants to try to get you and entice you to taste the hate with them. You can have standards and boundaries— don't yield just because someone tells you that you need to. There's someone else that says there's a better way. There's a different way. Yeshua is the most radical and dangerous person I've ever read about.

Firmly Planted Feet

Why Christian persecution got so bad in the Roman Empire isn't because they were drawing swords and trying to be like the zealots. It's because they refused to do what they were told. They refused to kill. They refused to hop on the Roman political bandwagon. No, the peace of Rome. Let's go spread the peace of Rome. We don't. We spread the peace of God. Don't you serve Caesar? See, here's the thing. I don't serve Caesar as my kurios, my leader. I serve Yeshua. He is my kurios. He is my Caesar. That's what got Christians killed. It wasn't their zeal and their loud voices and their sharp knives. It was their firmly planted feet and their discernment given to them by the Holy Spirit. And so I want to encourage you, don't ignore the Holy Spirit. Don't ignore the Holy Spirit. If you're doing it right, the world around you will be rubbed the wrong way.

The Priestly Sheaf

So with that, I want to close with a reflection, if you will. The priest walks into the temple with the first sheaf of barley, and the people watch. And he waves it before the Lord, and everyone knows, everyone knows the harvest is now beginning. It's a quiet ritual, but it has a loud proclamation behind it. Can you imagine Yeshua walking out of the grave before the light's first dawn? Evening and the morning was the first. Can you imagine the voice of the Father speaking, "This is my first sheaf of the great harvest that is coming. This is the sign. This is my guarantee, the down payment. This is the cosmic amen to the work of redemption that is coming now."

And you are the next wave of the harvest, every single one of you. And so we live like it, understanding that we have no enemies if we love everybody. We worship like it—both with arms raised, voices high, or in the quiet moments of meditation and prayer. We forgive like it, even as we are amazed at the power that the Holy Spirit gives us to speak those words, "I forgive you." And we hope like it, because the hope of the resurrection is what ties it all together. We know it is coming because it has already happened, and it already is. It already is. Because the tomb is empty. The gardener is awake, and the harvest has begun.

Amen. Please stand as we conclude with worship.

Come for Prayer

And if you need prayer today for any reason, as we have a prayer warrior on either side of the stage, walk up. You don't even have to say anything. There will be someone to pray with you. If you brought something in today—not someone—if you brought something in today you'd like to leave here, the stage is a mock altar. Just symbolically leave it here. Let it stay here.

Father, We Thank You

Alvina Malkinu, our father and a king, father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together and to talk about resurrection, to talk about the first fruits, to talk about the harvest, to talk about all of your promises that we know are true and valid because we've seen the work. We've seen the work in others and we've seen it in ourselves. And I ask that the Holy Spirit that your word says is in us even now, the same Holy Spirit that raised Yeshua from the dead lives in us even now, would continue doing the work of Yeshua through us, that you have seen fit that we would carry the responsibility or the ability to love like Yeshua did in every way possible. We thank you, Father, for the opportunity to be a part of new creation even now. In Yeshua's name we pray. Amen.

Blessings and Benediction

Shema Yisra'el Adonai Yohe Adonai Echad U'shev Yevolah—Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, and blessed is the name of his glorious kingdom for all eternity, starting now. And may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance toward you and give you his peace. In the name of our star, Shalom, our Prince of Peace, Yeshua HaMashiach, we pray. Now go forth and be the co-gardeners. Move in the power of the Holy Spirit that has been planted in you so that you may harvest the fruit of the lives that the Father intends to harvest. In Yeshua's name, amen and amen. Shabbat shalom, family. --