A Tabernacles Trilogy 3. Yom Kippur/Manchester/Hostages

I am well aware that I am writing this blog post just a day short of when Jews around the world celebrate Tabernacles, or Sukkot.

This year, as the world holds its breath over Hamas’s response to the Peace Plan on the negotiating table, and as Jewish eyes are blurred with tears not only with hope but grief, Sukkot 2025 could mark real change in Gaza, Israel, and the whole of the Middle East.

Hope, because no one wants war, conflict, destruction, grief, and hopelessness to set up more than a temporary home in the human heart. And hope, for Israeli’s, that the remaining hostages, alive or dead, will be returned during Sukkot. And hope for some Gazans at least that they can wake up very soon from the nightmare that has been Hamas’s regime.

Grief? Of course. The murderous attack on Yom Kippur in Manchester has chilled the bones of not only Jews but also horrified Britons who have had to clear Jewish blood and the blood of the attacker from their streets; blood spilt days before a credible peace plan might bring the horror of the Israel-Hamas war to a close.

Tabernacles, one of the three main Jewish feasts that Jews were commanded to attend each year, and, therefore, which Jesus would have attended many times, is the final feast in the calendar.

It is no surprise then that many bible commentators link Tabernacles prophetically, despite its evident purpose as a reminder of the temporary tents (tabernacles) that the Jews had to erect in the desert en route from Egypt to the Promised Land, to the end of the world and the final judgement (Rev 21v3).

My comment here is not that this is incorrect, but it falls short of the relevance of Tabernacles in this age and its prophetic significance to the church.

Just as William Seymour and others rediscovered the fulfilment of Pentecost to the church in preaching and receiving the baptism of the Spirit…hence the Pentecostal churches and the Charismatic movement in the 20th Century…so we are on the brink of a rediscovery, this time of Tabernacles.

1. Jesus as a mobile tabernacle
2. Christians as mobile tabernacles
3. Church as mobile tabernacles

Jesus
‘The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory’ John 1v14
‘Jesus said “destroy this temple and I will raise it up after three days”…but He was speaking of the temple of His body’ John 2v19-22
‘the Father in Me does the works’ John 14v11

Christians - individually
‘If anyone loves Me…My father will love him and we will come and make our home with him…the Spirit…will be in you’ John 14v17, 23
‘Do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?’ 1 Cor 6v19
‘You are the temple of the living God’ 2Cor6v16

Church
‘You are…a building being fitted together and growing into a holy temple…a dwelling place of God in the Spirit’ Eph 2v21,22
‘We know that if our earthly house, this tabernacle, is destroyed, we have a building from God, not built with hands, eternal in the heavens’ 2 Cor 5v1

The question facing us is: What are the implications for our church experience of the Feast of Tabernacles?

The clue comes from the simple ceremony conducted by Jews from tomorrow onwards for a week. They will meet in specially erected booths, the roofs loosely covered with palm branches and the like, and they meet under these roofs with holes to eat and drink, say prayers, and sing hymns. The holes in the roof mean that it is open to heaven.

It is a picture of the church gathering, the ekklesia (those called by Christ, not a human organisation) bathed in God’s presence (the light through the holes). It is not for one week in the year, but a picture of the potential reality of any church, at any time, anywhere.

Those believers who know the church is the temple of the living God will come with expectation and faith, not simply in a future fulfilment à la Revelation 21v3 ‘Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people…’ but an expectation and living faith in God’s presence now.

If Tabernacles 2025 is to be remembered as the time when the hostages were returned and the dreadful war in Gaza is brought to a close, the world will breathe a great collective sigh of relief

New Testament churches are places where the kingdom of God has already broken in, where the presence of God is normal, and where each believer is functioning as a priest and a king in training…learning, for example, to only do what they see the Father doing. It is a holy place. It is a place where, metaphorically, man removes his shoes, God is there, and the church moves as He moves. It is an awesome place. We become like Moses before the burning bush, where all our doubts, all our fears, all our past sin has been dealt with to such an extent that referring to our ‘old man’ or our ‘old creation’ is irrelevant…we grow in our understanding that God is fellowshipping with churches full of new creations in Christ. Moses lost his arguments with God at the burning bush, ‘I can’t speak’, or ‘I’m afraid’. It’s a place where we lose all our arguments with God. A holy place.

It is now 7pm on Sunday, 5th October 2025.

Jews around the world will be celebrating Tabernacles from sunset tomorrow, 24 hours from now.

If Tabernacles 2025 is to be remembered as the time when the hostages were returned and the dreadful war in Gaza is brought to a close, the world will breathe a great collective sigh of relief. The rebuilding of broken lives, broken homes, broken politics, broken hopes, and broken dreams can begin.