My sister reminded me this afternoon that Rosh Hashanah (the Feast of Trumpets) was beginning at sundown. On CNN this evening, the correspondents on Larry King and Anderson Cooper 360 kept talking about how anymore work on an economic bailout by Congress is delayed until Thursday now due to Rosh Hashanah. This has to be the first time in American history where Rosh Hashanah (or any of the holy days) has affected the whole nation in any way. Suze Orman pointed out that we lost one trillion dollars today alone without the bailout. Given that we have to twiddle our thumbs for now, maybe it's worth talking about the holidays for which we're literally giving up billions each day this week.

In Leviticus 23:23-25, sandwiched between the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot or Pentecost) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), we find:

"And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the people of Israel, saying, "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the LORD."'"

There is a Christian tradition that looks for the fulfillment of each of the seven holy days listed in Leviticus 23 in Christ. According to the tradition, four of them have already been fulfilled. Passover (Pesach) always looked back to the first sacrifice of Passover lambs in Egypt and the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery. The day was fulfilled when Christ, the Lamb of God, breathed his last at the time of sacrifice (the ninth hour or 3pm) on that Passover Friday, and the curtain in the Temple was torn in two. The New Testament records that there was something of a rush to bury the body because sundown on Friday evening marked the beginning of not only the Sabbath but "that Sabbath was a high day" (John 19:31 ESV). This means that in that year the Sabbath (Saturday) coincided with the first day of the weeklong Feast of Unleavened Bread, which follows Passover. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Christ breaking the unleavened bread at the last supper and saying of it, "This is my body." The Sunday following that Sabbath was the Feast of Firstfruits when the first grain of the harvest was offered to God in the Temple (Leviticus 23:9-14). At dawn on that day, Christ rose from the dead, "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep," as Paul describes him in 1 Corinthians 15, the first of a new creation. Fifty days after the Firstfruits was the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot or Pentecost). Just as Passover looked back to deliverance from Egypt, the Feast of Weeks was traditionally a time to commemorate the giving of the Torah and the establishment of the covenant between God and Israel. Acts begins by recounting how at Pentecost the first believers were anointed by the Holy Spirit, the Counselor Christ had promised, by whom we are "sealed for the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30).

Apart from whatever shallow romantic appeal the tradition may hold, there does seem to be an intelligence to the coinciding of the holy days and the Sabbath in the year of Christ's death and an ordered correspondence between the meaning of each day and the events that occurred that year. As the author of Colossians writes, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."

What then of the remaining three holy days? Without venturing into the speculative realm of eschatological detail (as some are eager to do), the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) are often associated with Christ's Second Coming, the Judgment Day, and the creation of the New Heaven and New Earth respectively. I prefer to leave the details of how things play out to God, but there is little doubt that the three remaining days will also find their fulfillment in the work of Christ.

According to Wikipedia, "Rosh Hashanah is characterized by the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet made from a ram's horn, intended to awaken the listener from his or her 'slumber' and alert them to the coming judgment." Rosh Hashanah begins the period of the High Holy Days, the Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim) or the Ten Days of Repentance (Asseret Yemei Teshuva), with a call to prepare for the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) through repentance of sin. The Day of Atonement concludes the High Holy Days and "is the most solemn and important of the Jewish holidays."

That is what began this evening and what is costing the nation billions of dollars this week by the delay it has caused. If anything, may we take these valuable days waiting for an economic bailout to focus on the far superior value of the atoning sacrifice for sin that we have in our Messiah. May we appreciate the profound significance of these next few days and look with expectant hope to their coming fulfillment in Christ.

Washington Mutual was killed this week with the immediate cause being a run on the bank by panicky customers (though arguably doomed by long-term causes). $16.7 billion were withdrawn in 10 days. WaMu was my bank and the bank used by a lot of people I know. Some withdrew all their assets this week after reports surfaced that WaMu was failing.

If this kind of thing continues to happen, the best response is not to withdraw all your money and sock it under your mattress. Your bank account is FDIC insured up to $100,000. To be safe, don't keep more than $100,000 in any one bank, but do give the system a fighting chance to recover too.

Also, I know the SEC has already cracked down on shorting financial stocks, but anyone who's out there shorting anything domestic and trying to make a bundle off the current state of the economy, give it a break.