Shavuot 2026

As we prepare to celebrate the much anticipated Spring feast of Shavuot, there is an interesting tradition that is found in Midrashic writings that comes to mind.  At Shavuot it is customary to fill your home with flowers.  There are times that traditions passed down through generations hold a powerful truth capable of bringing to life concepts that are not readily seen.  This tradition is taken from the Midrashic writings relaying that at Shavuot Mt. Sinai, the desert mountain, bloomed!

Isaiah 35:1-2 - "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of Yahweh, and the excellency of our Elohim."

The desert blossomed when Israel, the Bride redeemed and restored, was presented to her Groom at the set time and received her Ketubah - her wedding covenant, the Torah!  The same location that previously was seen as barren, desolate, harsh, and perhaps even unforgiving, became a place of beauty and life at the release of the WORD of Yahweh!

For fifty days we have counted, for fifty days we have walked, one step and then the next.  We were redeemed by the mighty hand of our King, amidst miraculous displays of His power and strength, guided by His hand into a place prepared just for us.  Yet when the noise of Egypt is distant, only a memory, and the desert looms long ahead, it is easy to allow the Word that was given to fade from our sight.  The journey that started with such joy, becomes a barren path, desolate and harsh as our flesh cries out against the pains meant to make us grow.  

Yet this is the place He prepared for you and I!  Whatever your current circumstances, whatever trials you may have walked through, they became the foundation of your wilderness.  The wilderness is necessary, though our flesh may cry against it, protest that the price is too great, the journey too hard, there is a mountain appointment that must be met.

And it is here as we find ourselves at the end of this cycle's journey, we finally understand that in our wilderness seasons beauty was being cultivated.  It is beautiful to hear His Voice, it is lovely to learn of our King, it is exquisite to have revealed to us the depths of His Torah reserved for the Bride who would come when summoned.  Revelation of who He is, found by plumbing the depths of the mysteries of the Torah was never meant to feel cold. Sinai was not only truth and commands, but beauty and delight. Revelation deserves beauty...and the revelation that is found in the midst of our own wilderness journeys, in the end becomes what adorns us as well.

This is what Shavuot reveals!  This is why the name of this feast itself can be translated as covenant.  It is His Covenant that makes the desert bloom, that brings teshuva - restoration to our lives.  It is no accident that when looking at Genesis 3, the only sense of our five senses that is not listed in the events of the fall of man is the sense of smell!  Our sight was  compromised when 'Ishshah looked at the tree and so we must learn to walk by faith, not sight (2 Corinthians 5:7 - "For we walk by faith, not by sight:").  Our hearing was compromised when the words of the serpent were listened to, and so we are commanded to SHEMA - to hear, understand, and obey.  Touch was compromised with the taking of the fruit and so we enter a world where clean and unclean, purity and impurity are unleashed - the touch of death becoming a barrier we cannot cross without the redemption of our Messiah.  And of course taste - the eating of the forbidden, a desire that still exposes itself in the midst of the wilderness wanderings.  

Matthew 4:4 - "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Yet our final sense - the sense of smell never fell.  Could this reveal that we would still be able to recognize the fragrance of our Groom?  And so the desert bloomed....

Song of Songs 5:13 - "His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh."

The God of Sinai still makes the barren places bloom....