An Illustration of Messiah & The Christian Church

The Story of Rachel, Lucas and Joshua

By Maria Merola

Rachel was a young Christian girl age 21 from a very good family. She was very involved at her church with street evangelism and missions to third world countries. A young man at her church named Lucas who was the same age as she captured her heart. The two of them fell in love and within one year they were engaged to be married.

Rachel and Lucas had many fond memories and special dates that they celebrated together. For instance, they celebrated the anniversary of the date that the first met on the 4^th of July at a church picnic. Then they celebrated December 25^th when they first realized at a Christmas Party at church that they were in love and wanted to get married.

This was also a special date for them to memorialize their relationship. They also celebrated Valentine's Day February 14^th each year, because it was the very first time they went skiing together and Rachel broke her leg. Later on that same year, they became engaged on Easter Sunday, March 25^th.

As Rachel and Lucas began to plan their wedding, they set a date for two years from the day they were engaged. As each anniversary date of one of these special events came up, Rachel and Lucas would plan a special party to celebrate their love for each other. They would get together with family and friends, as Rachel would prepare all of Lucas's favorite foods that she learned to prepare just for him. They would play their favorite songs which reminded them of when they had first met, and they set up images, photos and symbols of things that reminded them of their relationship.

They held these special parties to celebrate each event that memorialized something special that took place in their relationship as they would invite friends and family to participate with them. They would recall the "reason for the season", and tell stories of when they first met, when they first kissed, when they first became engaged, and so on.

But as time went on, their relationship began to experience problems. Lucas was not as in love with Rachel as she was with him. Lucas began to flirt with other women, and he would often become short-tempered and angry with her.

Rachel realized after 2 years of this, that Lucas was not the right man for her to marry. She really loved him but she knew that he was not the one whom God had chosen for her to marry.

Finally after much heartache, Rachel had to make the decision to break things off with Lucas. Rachel's family and friends were devastated because they all loved Lucas and they all enjoyed participating in the celebrations that Lucas and Rachel held in order to commemorate their love together.

After some time, Rachel met another young man named Joshua at a Messianic Jewish convention. Rachel met Joshua on the Feast of Tabernacles which fell that year on September 26^th.

Later on that year, Rachel and Joshua became aware of the fact that perhaps God was putting them together for marriage. This was a special date for them to commemorate as it happened on Chanukah that same year which fell on November 25^th. That was also the first time that they kissed as well. Joshua and Rachel later became officially engaged as Joshua gave her an engagement ring on Passover the following year on April 14^th.

At this point, Rachel and Joshua made plans to be married exactly 3 years from the day that they met on the Feast of Tabernacles.

In the meantime, Joshua went away to Florida to a Messianic Bible college, while Rachel remained in their home state in Pennsylvania to plan their wedding.

Joshua and Rachel talked to one another via email, phone and webcam daily as they continue to develop their relationship. Joshua would periodically send Rachel emails to remind her of their special dates together when he would be coming home to celebrate their love.

Rachel was also learning how to cook Joshua's favorite meals as he informed her of what he liked and did not like to eat. Joshua's taste in food was totally different than the kinds of foods Lucas enjoyed. But Rachel did not mind learning to cook differently for Joshua than she had for Lucas, because she really loved Joshua.  Joshua would frequently let Rachel know in advance that he wanted to get together with her friends and family to rehearse for their future wedding and to celebrate the one year anniversary of the day they first met that following September on the Feast of Tabernacles.

In the meantime, the anniversary date of when Rachel became engaged to Lucas was approaching on March 25^th. Rachel's friends and family still loved Lucas and secretly planned to get them back together again, so they invited Rachel to a celebration. Rachel did not know what they were planning to do, as they also invited Lucas to come to the celebration. Rachel's friends told her that they were going to celebrate her new engagement to Joshua, and she believed them. But when she arrived at the celebration, even though they were singing songs about Joshua, the food being served was Lucas's favorite dishes, his favorite music, pictures of Lucas were all over the place, and other images and symbols of Lucas were attached to the celebration.

Rachel was grieved because she realized she had hurt Joshua, by attending this celebration, but she also rationalized to herself "Josh will understand, he knows my heart, and besides it's not the date that matters, what matters is that I am celebrating Joshua from my heart."

Even Lucas showed up to this March 25^th celebration on Easter Sunday, and he pretended to be happy about Joshua and Rachel getting together as he congratulated her on her engagement to Joshua. But secretly, Lucas was hoping to win Rachel back as he schemed together with her friends.

At the same time, Joshua came home for a surprise visit from college, and he called Rachel's cell phone to find out where she was. When she told him that she was celebrating March 25^th as the date of her engagement with him, Joshua was very upset. Josh said "wait…isn't that the date that you and Lucas had first gotten engaged?"

Rachel hesitated, "yes, but don't worry about the date, I am celebrating our love together today." Joshua showed up at the celebration and saw Lucas there, his favorite foods, music and old photos of Rachel and Lucas that their friends displayed.

Joshua was so upset that he left the celebration in tears. Rachel went running after him as she tried to rationalize to him "but honey this was all for you…" Joshua replied "Rachel, don't give me that---March 25^th means nothing to you and me! That is the anniversary date of you and Lucas's engagement. And aside from the date, the food, the music, the photos, all of it reminded me of the fact that you used to be with Lucas."

Rachel apologized to Joshua "I am so sorry honey, they tricked me and told me that we were celebrating the engagement of you and I together and I believed them. I had no idea that Lucas was coming or that they were going to have photos of me and Lucas together, and his favorite foods etc."

Joshua understood that Rachel did this all in ignorance and so he forgave her and all was forgotten. Joshua went back to college and he again reminded her "remember, this coming Feast of Tabernacles we are having a memorial of when we first met, right"?

Rachel agreed to get everything together with Joshua's friends and family for the Feast of Tabernacles to commemorate when they first met the year before. Rachel had to forsake her own friends and family because they were all conspiring to get her back together with Lucas. Rachel told her friends and family that she still loved them and forgave them for lying to her, but she was going to celebrate the appointed dates that Joshua asked her to keep with him.

Now the 4^th of July was approaching, and Rachel's friends knew that this was a special date for Rachel and Lucas. They tried once again to conspire to bring Rachel and Lucas back together again. After all, Lucas was one of the "good ole' boys from church" they told themselves, but this Joshua guy who was a Messianic Jew, they thought "he's just too legalistic with all of these appointed dates he expects her to keep…"  They did not want to give up their celebrations and festivals that they had become accustomed to, so they decided to attach Joshua's name to the dates that were formerly kept for Lucas and Rachel. That way they could convince Rachel to continue to keep them, thereby making Joshua upset and hopefully sabotage their relationship. What a brilliant plan they had!

Each time a date would come up that formerly meant something to Lucas, Rachel's friends and family would invite her and they told her that they were sorry for trying to interfere with her relationship with Joshua. Now they were going out of their way to convince Rachel that they were truly celebrating Joshua on these appointed dates of Lucas. Rachel decided to attend their cookout on the 4^th of July under the guise that this was going to once again be about Joshua.

This time, Joshua showed up again without her foreknowledge, as he had been informed by his friends that Rachel was attending one of these appointed feasts of Lucas again under the guise of it being for him.

Rachel did this willfully knowing that Joshua would be upset if he found out. But in her heart she continued to rationalize, "I am doing this for Joshua." Joshua showed up to the 4^th of July celebration and saw that her family and friends were treating this as a day for Joshua, but there were still vestiges of Lucas in the celebration. Once again, Lucas's favorite foods music, imagery and symbols that meant something to Lucas but not Joshua.

This time, when Joshua showed up to the celebration, he rebuked Rachel and he was very angry. Rachel once again tried to rationalize that she was doing it for him. But Joshua said to her "I am forbidding you to celebrate anymore of these dates that commemorate Lucas, do you hear me?! If you celebrate one more of these Lucas days under the guise of it being for me, the relationship is off!"

Now Rachel was growing bitter towards Joshua as she felt that she had to choose between her friends and family or Joshua and his friends and family. Rachel felt that she should be able to celebrate both the appointed times that Joshua asked her to keep, but also the appointed times that her friends and family wanted to keep under the guise of doing it for Joshua.

Rachel began to say to herself "what difference do all of these dates make? What really matters is that I love Joshua right?" Why can't I decide for myself when I want to plan dates with Joshua? Why does he have to be the one to tell me when he wants to celebrate these appointed dates?"

When the Feast of Tabernacles had arrived that following September, Joshua came home from college fully expecting that Rachel would have everything ready for him to celebrate with the woman he loved. Joshua could not wait to enjoy Rachel's home cooking as she would be preparing all of his favorite foods. But instead, Rachel had not prepared one bit. She stayed home and did absolutely nothing to prepare for the rehearsal of their wedding and the anniversary of when they first met.

Now, this was the final blow for Joshua. He was so hurt that this woman whom he thought was going to be his bride had no respect for him what-so-ever.

Not only had she continued to celebrate the appointed times of Lucas while pretending that it was really for him, but now she defiantly disobeyed him and did not even prepare for the Feast of Tabernacles celebration that he had asked her to prepare!

In this story, Lucas represents Satan (Lucifer), Rachel represents the church, and Joshua represents Jesus/Yeshua. When Rachel continued in the appointed feasts of Lucas, out of ignorance, Joshua forgave her and he understood. But when Rachel persisted in celebrating on the appointed dates of Lucas even after she knew full well, Joshua gave her fair warning not to do it again or he had to call their relationship off.

But the final blow came when she disregarded an important date that Joshua was so looking forward to celebrating with her. She had already attended two of the celebrations of Lucas on the appointed dates that she and Lucas had formerly kept and now she did not love Joshua enough to keep his appointed feast.

Can anyone blame Joshua if he breaks up with Rachel now? What do you think?

To all of those in the Christian Church that say things like "God is not hung up on dates" or "God knows my heart" or "It does not matter what date I celebrate Jesus, as long as I celebrate him."

Satan has had his counterfeit Messiah's since the time of Nimrod at the Tower of Babel. All throughout the Bible we see God being angry with Israel because they were always forsaking him and going after these same pagan gods from Babylon and Egypt.

Finally in Jeremiah 3:8 God wrote Israel a divorce decree and divorced her for her harlotry and backsliding.

Has anything changed in today's Christian Church today?

Obedience is better than sacrifice (1^st Samuel 15:22). While Christians brag on the fact that they lift up holy hands and worship God in intimacy. The Jews are still keeping his appointed feasts. Call it legalism but who really loves Yehovah? Those who obey or those who sacrifice?