Just as the Lord led the children of Israel on a 50-day journey from Passover in Egypt to Pentecost at Mount Sinai, He desires to lead all His people on a 50-day spiritual journey every year—from Passover to Pentecost.

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Show Notes:

On the day of Pentecost, the 120 disciples were in one place in one accord. How did they arrive at that spirit of oneness and unity? They had been on a 50-day spiritual journey from Passover (Pesach) to Pentecost (Shavuot).

This 50-day journey begins at Passover during the feast of unleavened bread with the waving of the sheaf of the first fruits and continues up to the feast of Pentecost. For the disciples, these 50 days included the Passover meal with Yeshua, followed by His arrest, trial, torture, crucifixion, and resurrection, and His post-resurrection teaching and impartation, His Ascension, as well as days of waiting and praying together in the upper room in Jerusalem.

This 50-day journey created an atmosphere of testing and shaking for the disciples. It brought them to the end of their false beliefs, their false expectations, and their false hopes. It initiated a godly sorrow that brought repentance. It created broken spirits and contrite hearts. During these 50 days, they had been ground into a fine flour, baked into the loaves to be waved before God, and anointed by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses of Christ’s resurrection. Let us also embark on this same 50-day spiritual journey, that we would also come forth as true witnesses to the world of the Lord’s resurrection power.

Scriptures:

• Leviticus 23:10. “You shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest.”
• John 12:24. “But if [a grain of wheat] dies, it bears much fruit.”
• Matthew 27:52–53. “The tombs were opened, and many bodies … were raised.”
• Leviticus 23:15–17. “You shall count fifty days.”
• Acts 4:13–14. “They … began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.”
• John 17:22–23. “That they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me.”
• Luke 22:31–33. “Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.”
• Matthew 26:30–35. “Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.”
• Mark 14:26–31. “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!”
• Matthew 26:71–74. “And immediately a rooster crowed.”
• Luke 22:61–62. “And Peter … went out and wept bitterly.”
• John 19:26–27. “He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’”
• Mark 16:9–11. “When they heard that He was alive … they refused to believe it.”
• Mark 16:12–14. “He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart.”
• Acts 1:2–5. “He also presented Himself alive … by many convincing proofs.”
• Acts 1:9–14. “These … were continually devoting themselves to prayer.”
• Acts 2:2–4. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
• Acts 2:31–32. “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.”

Quotes:

• “During these 50 days, the disciples experience their final preparation for ministry, just as Yeshua underwent the temptation in the wilderness that prepared Him finally and surely for His ministry.”

• “What is the purpose of the disciple’s unity? They must be perfected in unity and oneness so that the world may believe that Christ was sent by the Father as the Messiah to bring salvation to all of the earth.”

• “The disciples went into this time of deep, deep repentance and of seeking God, and they began to realize they were incapable of doing anything of themselves. Christ had this same realization that in Himself He could do nothing, but that what He did was only by the Father.”

Takeaways:

1. This 50-day journey begins at Passover with the waving of the sheaf of the first fruits and concludes on the first day of the feast of Pentecost. In Judaism, the counting of these 50 days is called the “Counting of the Omer.”

2. This 50-day journey was significant for the disciples because it marked the end of Christ’s ministry on the earth and initiated their final preparation as disciples. Like Yeshua’s temptation in the wilderness, either they would be destroyed by this testing and shaking, or they would emerge in the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill their commission as witnesses to the world.

3. This 50-day journey is important for us, because like the disciples, we must experience the preparation and perfecting of our spirits in order to enter into unity and oneness with one another, so that in the power of the Holy Spirit we will be a witness to the world in our day and age of the truth that God has sent His Son as the Savior of the world. “You will be one,” Christ told the disciples, “and when you’re one, the world will believe.”