What Does Shavuot Mean to Jews and Christians?

Next week, May 25-27, is the Jewish festival of Shavuot , while Pentecost will be celebrated on Sunday, May 28^th in the Christian church. What do these festivals mean to Jews and Christians?

Shavuot and Pentecost

Jewish Shavuot, meaning ‘Weeks’, coincides with Pentecost. How are the two connected?

Shavuot occurs at the end of the seven-week period that begins with Pesach (Passover.) During Jesus’ time, the newly harvested wheat was brought as an offering to the Temple in Jerusalem.

The name Pentecost comes from the 50 days elapsed since Jesus’ execution as the Passover came in. Why did the Holy Spirit descend on his followers, who were gathered together in one place, very possibly the Temple courts, on this particular day?

Was it simply because Shavuot is one of the 3 pilgrimage festivals in the Jewish calendar, when thousands of Jews from the Diaspora would join thousands upon thousands of locals going up to Jerusalem, which meant many people would hear of Jesus?

Holy Spirit

Or was the descent of the Holy Spirit intended to coincide with Shavuot because both events mark receiving God’s law? Shavuot is when Moses came down from the mountain bearing weighty tablets of stone, engraved with God’s Law. Since we carry the Holy Spirit in our hearts, God’s new law, given at Pentecost isn’t heavy at all. Our burning desire to do His will is lighter than a feather.

Hundreds of years earlier, the prophet Jeremiah foresaw this:

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel  and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them”
declares the Lord.

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

(Jer. 31:31-34)

Reading the Scroll of Ruth at Shavuot

Traditionally, the scroll of Ruth is read in synagogues everywhere, well into the night, at Shavuot.

What has Ruth to do with this festival? Is it simply that her story is set at the time of the barley and wheat harvests, celebrated at Shavuot?

It is more than that:

• Ruth’ story establishes her lineage down to the great King David, whose birth and death are associated with Shavuot, a confirmation of her importance within Judaism, (even though she was a Moabite by birth).
• Ruth’s unwavering loyalty and kindness to her destitute mother-in-law Naomi are an inspirational example of the chessed (lovingkindness) and compassion so prized within Jewish tradition. 
• There is also an object lesson in the misfortune that befell Elimelech and Naomi for abandoning the Land of Israel during a time of crisis. Not only did Naomi lose her husband, but her two sons also died. She was left vulnerable, a widow alone, but for her daughters-in-law. In Genesis, we read that God tells Isaac to stay in the Land during a time of famine, (Gen. 26:3). It looks as if Elimelech should have done likewise.

Ruth’s Connection to Christianity

• Ruth’s story is one of redemption and salvation. Boaz’s saving of Ruth, Naomi and Elimelech’s line foreshadows Jesus’ act of salvation to humanity.
• Ruth, a Moabite Gentile, is ‘grafted in’ to Israel through her marriage to Jewish Boaz in the same way as Gentiles have been grafted into Jewish Christianity.
• King David and, ultimately, Jesus Christ (see Matthew 1) are descended through Ruth’s line, demonstrating that God’s inclusive plan of salvation includes the Gentiles.
• Jesus tells us that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and Ruth is a fine example of lovingkindness in her treatment of her mother-in-law, Naomi.

My Personal Link to Ruth

Ruth makes a powerful and beautiful declaration of her faith in the one God of Israel when she tells her mother-in-law:

“Do not urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 

Ruth 1:16-17

Her conversion comes as she enters the Land of Israel, leaving behind her the catastrophes of Moab.

My ‘catastrophes’ were five years of cancer and other extreme ill-health, the failure of my long-term marriage and of my business.

I came into Israel saying ‘Hineini’— ‘Here I am’— to God. I wanted God to show me something: I was looking for meaning and purpose in my life.

I never expected that His answer would be to show me Jesus.

The full story of how God called me in the Land of Israel and led me to meet and marry my Boaz, is told in my memoir, She Does Not Fear the Snow, an Amazon #1 bestseller that was shortlisted for the Munce Prize, 2012.

You can start right now by reading my 5-minute Testimony, full of signs and wonders: HOW I MET JESUS by clicking the box at the top of the sidebar.