These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the Lord, and these are their stages according to their starting places. They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day after the Passover… (Numbers 33:1-3 ESV)
Calendar by FEAST
The wandering Israelites did not state they left on a Thursday, or in October, or at 6:00 am… but rather, the time of departure was noted as occurring on a religious holiday.
Many ancient folk kept calendar by a schedule of planting and harvest. Because food production was the most important thing they knew. Other ancient folk kept calendar by a schedule of honoring the gods they perceived, naming months and days after their chosen deities. They knew SOMETHING was out there, and set up their schedules trying to honor that.
God’s people, the Israelites, set of their schedules in obedience to God’s proposed timing. They had seven feasts, arranged over three time periods. Those feasts annually taught (and to some degree experienced) the story of their salvation. In fact, it would have been very difficult to understand God’s work without those annual scheduled events.
They had feasts because the feasts shouted to them about what was most important. They had feasts because the feasts pointed to the most important aspects of their lives. They had feasts because thereby they knew about the One True Living God. They had feasts because in the feasts, they knew that God.
It shows up in these verses because we see the feasts were their calendars. They were time markers. They were schedule-makers.
Today, Christian time-keeping has been railroaded by our culture. While we do not purposefully honor gods, or harvests, or much of anything through our calendars, we certainly are not reminded of our God through the regular passing of time.
But we can do that. We can mark our days and weeks around the Lord’s Day. We can remember our salvation as we regularly celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We can talk about important impact of our God on our daily lives.
Let HIM run our calendar.