Shavuot Tabernacles lulav etrog photos

During the Feast of Tabernacles (also known as Sukkot), people celebrate the harvest in several ways, including holding a group of leafy branches (the lulav) and a piece of citrus fruit known as an etrog. During the eight-day-long festival, people joyfully wave the branches as they celebrate. By the end of the festival, the branches are dried out. In the New Testament era, enormous crowds would gather at the Temple, sing, pray and wave their dried-out branches in a spirit of celebration. The collective noise would have sounded something like rain. Typically, it rains in Israel only from November through April. Since the festival of Sukkot occurs late in the year, the land would be brown and the people would be desperate for the first rains of the season. During his ministry, Jesus attended the Feast of Tabernacles at least once in Jerusalem (John 7). It was there, on the last day of the festival, that he shouted, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) In such an environment, it’s easy to understand why Jesus had to shout in order to be heard.