14 Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.

15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)

16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

God had already given instructions for the feast of unleavened bread (the Passover), which He reminded the people of here in verse 15, and He also told them of two more feasts to be observed throughout the year. Those two new feasts would be tied to the beginning and ending of the season.

The first feast wasn’t at the very start of the season, though, but rather when the crops had developed enough to give up their firstfruits. The second feast was after they had gathered in the last fruits at the end of the year. Thus they were feasts based on the bounty of nature, celebrating that God had given them some in the beginning, and in greater measure at the end.

Three feasts throughout the year. Converted to our current Gregorian calendar, the feast of unleavened bread would happen towards the end of April, when the firstfruits were well on their way, yet not quite ready to be plucked. The feast of harvest falls in May or June, when the first fruit is completely ripe, and the feast of ingathering comes around October, when the stalks are fully spent and give their last before perishing.

That is their sequential order in our Gregorian calendar, but recall that the Passover occurred at the very beginning of the ancient Israelite calendar. It marked the transformation from the old year to the new. With that in mind, it becomes clear that these feasts are symbols of our lives. The feast of harvest was the feast new birth, fresh life being brought forth anew, like the firstfruits that it celebrated. The feast of ingathering was the end of one’s work, the succumbing to death, and the long winter of the grave. The feast of unleavened bread was the state in between, the limbo betwixt death and rebirth. The bread was unleavened because it represents us still dead in the tomb, but it is looking forward to the fruit that is about to come forth, the life that is about to be restored when the cycle repeats.