The Call of the Shofar

​The blessing of the shofar is an integral part of the celebration of the New Year that has a couple of names. "Rosh Hashanah" means The Head of the Year. It is also called "Yom Teruah" or The Day of Blowing. God makes it clear that we are to celebrate the New Year in Leviticus 23, Verses 24 and 25. "On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet (shofar) blasts. Do no regular work, but present an offering made to the Lord by fire." Beginning on sunset this past Friday, 9/11/26, the year 5787 began.
 
There is such significance to blowing the shofar when we consider where this instrument was used. The first time the shofar, or ram's horn, appears in the Bible is in Exodus 19:16. "Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled." (NKJV) The setting was Mount Sinai after the children of Israel had traveled from Egypt and God descended on the mountain to give Moses the Ten Commandments.
 
Not only is the shofar blowing a call to intimacy with God, but it is also a reminder of God's mercy and compassion to us. The very same horn that we blow today came from the head of a ram—like the one caught in a thicket when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac. God promised Abraham abundant blessings because of his obedience. Those blessings are passed down through the generations to us.
 
Psalm 81:3 makes it clear that the shofar is to be used during God's appointed festivals. "Blow the trumpet at the time of the New Moon, at the full moon, on our solemn feast day." (NKJV) Joel 2:1 contains a prophetic warning about the day of the Lord's return. "Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is incoming." (NKJV)
 
If we continue to the New Testament there are several Scriptures that remind us that the Lord will return to us with the sound of the shofar. May I suggest that our horn is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our ram in the thicket—our atonement. The shofar, blown on the new year is meant to be a spiritual wake up call for repentance and a rehearsal for the return of Jesus. The shofar blast is a sign for God's people to gather and a proclamation of the coronation of King Jesus.
 
The message of the shofar is clear. As it says in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first." Let the shofar blast be a reminder of our need to be ready for God's final return.