A Kinsman Redeemer
It is the greatest love story ever told: a treasured woman is enslaved, beaten, and in chains. Her beloved arrives to free her, vanquishes her captors, and whisks her away to safe, hidden retreat. There, he comforts her, confesses his great love for her, and proposes.
This is the story of G-d and His beloved, Israel.
He saved her from slavery, defeated the Egyptians and their "gods", and carried her safely through the desert, the Red Sea, and the wilderness to Mount Sinai.
The Torah is considered to be a wedding contract between G-d and His bride, Israel in a betrothal ceremony at Mt. Sinai. Jeremiah refers to G-d as the Husband (Jeremiah 31:32) and several references are made in Scripture to Israel as His bride (e.g. Isaiah 62:5). One of the most powerful of these references is the entire book of Hosea where Israel is portrayed as a harlotrous wife following after false gods.
The book of Ruth relates the story of another kinsman redeemer who saved his beloved: Boaz. Boaz and Ruth are the ancestors of both King David and Messiah.
Two loaves?
This moed requires the offering of two loaves of the firstfruits from among the wheat "baked with leaven as first fruits to the LORD" (Leviticus 23:17). If leaven represents sin (see pictures from Pesach) then we know this offering cannot represent Messiah, Himself, because He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Believers, however, do have sin in their lives and yet the Gentile believers of the past two millennia are only the first fruits of the harvest of Israel (James 1:18, Romans 11:11-12). Why are there two loaves offered? Perhaps to symbolize both Jew and Gentile.
We also see the "bride" (the Jewish believers at the time of Pentecost) was actually made into a unity on Shavuot when the Holy Spirit was given to the believers. G-d's Spirit distinguished between who was the bride and who was not.
Let's press onward to learn about the traditions of Shavuot.