A CHANCE FOR A NEW BEGINNING

Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year.  This year, it falls on this weekend: beginning at sundown on Friday the 18th and ending at sundown on Sunday the 20th. It is celebrated as one long day - 48 hours. It is important to Israel because it begins the Days of Awe in which devote Jews are to reflect on their lives and repent of their sins.  At the end of that time (this year on September 27) will be Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; the most holy day on the Jewish calendar.

Unlike the Gentile New Year, which has become a day of debauchery for many, Rosh Hashanah is a time for family, prayers, reading from the Torah both mornings of Rosh Hashanah.  Faithful Jews also blow the shofar,  a trumpet made of a rams horn the significance of which is a symbol of the Lord providing a ram in the thicket for Abraham to offer in lieu of his son, Isaac's, life. Special prayers are given each evening with the lighting of candles to symbolize the sincerity of the individual's repentance.

To a Christian such as I, the connection to Jesus Christ is clear.  When Abraham was asked to sacrifice the life of his son, he didn't understand.  But, nevertheless, he obeyed.  He and Isaac traveled quite a distance to the top of a specific hill designated by the Lord.  There, Abraham built an altar and prepared wood for a sacrificial fire.  He bound his son, preparatory to placing him on the altar. Isaac said to his father, "I see the altar and I see the wood, but where is the lamb?" Abraham answered "God will provide Himself a lamb."

However, before he could sacrifice his son, an angel intervened.  He delivered God's message to Abraham that he should not slay his son.  He proved the Lord that he was willing to give his son and that was sufficient. 

The Bible doesn't explain the reasoning very well, but the Prophet Jacob in the Book of Mormon does.  He states that it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is in the similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son. (Jacob 4:5) Abraham told Isaac that God would provide himself a lamb.  Many think that refers to the ram caught in the thicket.  It doesn't.  A ram is not a lamb.  Look closely at the wording.  It doesn't say, God himself will provide a lamb. It says, God will provide Himself a lamb.

God Himself was that lamb.  John the Baptist called Him The Lamb of God and so He is.  Israel in Egypt sacrificed a lamb and painted its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their door.  They stayed inside their homes the night the angel of death came and it passed them buy because of the blood of the lamb. On the hill where Abraham prepared his sacrifice, millennia later, the Lamb of God became the ultimate sacrifice that we might by saved by the blood of the Lamb.

Even though we are of the Latter-day House of Israel and even though we no longer celebrate Rosh Hashanah, I think it would behoove us to take this time to ponder our own standing before God.  How sincere is our personal repentance? How closely have we aligned out will to His, as did Abraham? As one General Authority challenged, do we ask Him, "What lack I yet?" Every time I have asked that in prayer, He has answered, line-upon-line. 

God has provided Himself the Lamb.  Am I wise enough to have faith and repent and endure to the end that I might be saved by His blood? That is my heartfelt desire.

To all of my Jewish friends, have a blessed New Year.  May it be a sweet as apples dipped in honey.

© Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson September 2020