God's Appointed Holy Feast Days
Found in Leviticus 23, God communicated to Moses and the Jewish people after the Exodus that He has appointed first the weekly sabbath and then also seven special holy days (holidays). He called these days "holy convocations" which is essentially holy holidays with formal assembly and specific actions to be completed by the people in observance of the day. We are familiar with this concept with holidays that we celebrate every year with family traditions like feasting on Thanksgiving in celebration of the completion of the harvest season. The difference is that we know in hindsight that God communicated these observances to His chosen people with prophetic significance. That is to say, God communicated how the people should observe His appointed days each year to foreshadow events that he would complete in the future.
"Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day— things which are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. "
Colossians 2:16-17
Introduction & Spring Feasts
Of the seven annual feasts that are given to the Jewish people in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28-29, the prophetic significance of four of them have already been revealed in the past during and immediately following the life and ministry of Jesus. There's a lot of information related to the specified sacrifices and offerings, I'll look to add to this page at a later time, but the main points in this line of thinking is that the feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits all have observation practices that foreshadowed the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for the atonement of our sins ("sins" are the evil in our lives that must be atoned for to our benevolent God to avoid deserving wrath and instead be in good relationship with Him). Confirmation of this is not just that the events surrounding Jesus align with the practices of the holidays, but also that the events of Jesus occurred on the precise days of the feasts. Jesus and His disciples were in Jerusalem for the spring feasts, Jesus was crucified on the 14th day of the first month (Leviticus 23:4-5), Jesus was buried on the 15th day of the first month (Leviticus 23:6-8), and Jesus was resurrected on the day after the Sabbath (Leviticus 23:9-14). In doing these things on these specific days and with other details surrounding Jesus matching the practices and offerings, we get prophetic confirmation from God written around 1,500 years earlier and confirmed in thousands of duplicated documents and oral traditions. Like other fulfilled prophecy, this confirms both the divine nature of the Bible and also in this instance the divinity of Jesus. Following Jesus's ascension, we find the fourth feast — Feast of Weeks / Pentecost (Leviticus 23:6-8) — in Acts 2:1-12 where the disciples receive the Holy Spirit empowering the future progression and development of the church.
Autumn Feasts Introduction
Because of the revealed prophetic significance of the spring feasts during the events of Jesus's life, we look to the feasts in the Autumn to have similar prophetic significance. The three remaining feasts are the Feast of Trumpets/Rosh Hashanah, Day of Atonement / Yom Kippur, and Feast of Booths / Sukkot. All three feasts occur during the 7th Hebrew month — "Tishri" which translates to "Beginning". Because of this being the 7th month, it has some numerological associations to completion in the same way that 7 days has association to a week. So, the feasts of the 7th months are associated with completion, but also a new beginning coming.
We see the beginning & end related significance in the the first of the Autumn feasts in that Feast of Trumpets marks the beginning of the month, the beginning of the new Hebrew calendar year, and the beginning of what is referred to as the "days of awe" where for the first 9 days of the month the Jews are called to introspection and reflection of what God has done in their lives. This call is marked by the traditional blowing of trumpets called "Shofar". Then, on the 10th day the Day of Atonement arrives also called "Yom Kippur" where Jews are called to humble themselves the evening prior and seek atonement for wrong doing. Traditionally, it is thought that the day of atonement seals one's fate for the time ahead. Then, 5 days later on the 15th-22nd the 8-day observance of the Feast of Booths (aka Sukkot) occurs with seven days of fasting and then a feast on the 8th day. This feast involves building small shelters called "booths" to commemorate the time Israel spent with God in the wilderness after the Exodus as well as in celebration of God coming to dwell with man as it's the anniversary of the dedication of the First Jewish Temple (Solomon's Temple). The pattern communicted from these three feasts is a call to repentance followed by atonement & judgement followed by dwelling in the presence of God. It's a veiled form of the call into the Gospel — recognize you're sinful and in need of atonement, get your atonement through belief in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, dwell with God forevermore. Likewise, they look to align with the expected pattern of the Tribulation Period — Tribulation begins and those subject to it are confronted by their relationship with God by missing inclusion in the rapture and the associated response to that is belief and repentance followed by judgement passed on the inhabitants of the earth and finally Jesus Christ returning to dwell on Earth.