Annual Traditions

From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the Lord. - Leviticus 23:17

The Festival of the Firstfruits was an annual tradition for the people of Israel where they’d recognize that God was the one who gave them a new year of life. Part of the grain that they brought in during the harvest - some of the very first sheaves - were baked into loaves of bread and offered to God as a picture of the reality that God is the one who makes the ground bear fruit.

This scripture is a great picture of what it looks like to make a symbolic offering - to seek to recognize God’s involvement and goodness by establishing annual traditions to remind us of these things.

Do you have any annual traditions that help you stay centered on your values? Is there some small way you could commemorate God’s goodness on this day, the first day of 2025?