COUNTING TIME

Do you know where we got our calendar?

Or how it is set up?

Or if everyone else in the world

uses the same one?

This weekend we fall back into a new category of time as "daylight saving time" clicks off. Now we have to know how all our appliance clocks work. Aaugh.

Calendars are a challenge since we're constantly having to throw in some time (like leap year) to make them come out right. Since I am an Americentrist (my map has America in the center), I use the Gregorian calendar. Where did I get that? It came from the Pope who got it from Julius Caesar (the Julian calendar). Our Gregorian calendar is largely a solar calendar, but we place Easter each year by using the lunar calendar. If you are Muslim, you use a lunar calendar. You may think the Jews use the Biblical calendar, but they have tweaked it over the years and added man's tradition. The Jewish calendar is called the Calculated Jewish Calendar. So we can't exactly go by that. We can go to what God told Moses (first five books of the Bible, the Torah) and see what God ordained as the Biblical calendar.

Consider how God counts time. Go back...waay back. If you were dealing with people who did not have a watch like the one above, how would you let them know when to start counting the day? Our day starts after midnight. How would shepherds know when midnight was? You could start the day when the first light was observed, but many would be asleep...so sunset is a much better choice. Everyone could see the sun drop down behind the horizon line. VOILA!...A new day. And that is what Israel did. You saw Fiddler on the Roof. Remember when they were rushing around to set the table before the sun went down? Besides, the Jews went by what God had said: "and it was evening and morning, one day". Genesis 1:5

OK, that's a day. What about a week? A month? A year? How would you break down time into those pieces? Would you watch the moon? It counts their month for them. The moon cycle starts as a sliver and moves until it is bright and full, then keeps going until it is the opposite crescent, then disappears a while, then repeats. When Israel sees the first crescent, if you count to the next new crescent it will be 29.5 days. New crescent moon to full moon is 14 days. Makes sense. And the week? Well, each quarter of the moon is seven days. Yahweh made it easy to count time. They just look up. I'll bet that kept them in better touch with creation/Creator as they were reminded to "look up" for direction.

The Hebrew word for week is "shabua" and it shows completeness or perfection. We first saw the word when God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because in it He had rested from all His work. The word for "rested" is the root word for "shabath"...the Sabbath. Leviticus 23:15 affirms that the Lord intended to use seven days for a week throughout time.

When the Creator divided the year into months, He did not say anything about "January" or "February", etc. Why would He? January comes from a Roman mythology god of the doorway. Good luck getting through that door. And February is also Roman and comes from the Latin for "purification". Can we just agree that there is only one Purifier and Door?

God's names for months were also markers for where He would put His celebration days. ("Look for the new moon of Abib and keep the Passover".) You don't get to move God's special days around to suit people's vacation schedule like we do with George Washington/Abraham Lincoln's birthdays. Our God is a great mathematician and things click right along as they have since time began. The Jews were told exactly (Leviticus 23:2) when the correct days were to observe His feasts in proper worship. The observances are placed for a sovereign reason.

"My days are like a shadow that lengthens, and I wither away like grass. But You, O Lord, shall endure forever, and the remembrance of Your name to all generations. You will arise and have mercy on Zion, for the time to favor her, yes, the set time, has come." Psalm 102:11-13 NKJV