From the article: The Wave Sheaf Offering -- The Forgotten Holy Day? by Jack M. Lane
Part of the process of making peace through Messiah’s blood is demonstrated year after year in the Wave Sheaf offering.
The Mishnah, written a few centuries after the time of the first century church, describes how a messenger would go out and bind the standing stalks of grain into sheaves so that it would be easy to cut. The priest, followed by his entourage, would come to the field, sickle in hand, and ask, "Is the sun set?", to which the people would answer, "Yes!!" "Shall I reap?" "Reap!!" The priest then cut off a standing stalk of grain, then took it to be prepared for the offering the next morning.
In an article in the June 1975 Good News entitled "The Wavesheaf Ritual – Proof of Christ and the Bible," Lawson C. Briggs wrote, "In the time of Jesus the wavesheaf was offered on the Sunday during Passover week. This is clear since the priests – who were mostly Sadducees – were in charge of the Temple and all the Temple ceremony (Acts 4:1-6; 5:17). The timing and symbolism of this ceremony would have been overwhelming to those who knew the events of Jesus' death and resurrection.
"The wave sheaf had been chosen in advance, as Christ was. It was tied in a bundle, symbolizing His captivity. It was cut loose from the ground just at sunset – just the time at which Christ rose from the dead after three days and three nights in the tomb. The cutting of the grain symbolized Christ's actual resurrection" (emphasis mine).
Here’s a quote from another source, a Bible study tape by Herman Hoeh: "We might as well face it – that the resurrection occurred minutes following the close of the Sabbath – Saturday night, when the wave sheaf was cut. What we have is not the old saying that I used to have to use, that the wave sheaf represents the resurrected Christ – but it represents the resurrection!
"This is the prophesied resurrection that we have never seen in the ceremonies of the law, and was properly done in Jewish tradition (page 506-7 of the Mishnah). It was a rule that it should be reaped by night, at the very beginning minutes, so there would be no delay in preparing it, and then the next morning it was to be waved.
"The resurrection occurred when the wave sheaf was cut, [and the] ascension occurred when it was waved before the altar...” (Herman Hoeh, Pasadena Bible Study, June 9, 1978).
Messiah rose from the dead three days and three nights from the time He went into "the heart of the earth." It was the only sign that He was to give. The length of time in the grave was the proof of His being the Messiah! (Matthew 12:39-40) If Messiah was to come back to life on a Saturday evening, three days and three nights after His dead body was laid to rest, that means that, when He died in the afternoon of Passover Day, that day was a Wednesday!
Messiah went into the tomb "when even was come" (Matthew 27:57; Mark 15:42). Therefore, He came out of the tomb "when even was come" – three days and three nights later. It’s interesting to see that Leviticus 23, which outlines the holy days, the days which show us the plan of God, gives us this picture: right at the moment the priest cut the sheaf from the ground, that was the moment Yeshua Messiah rose from the dead, which gave Him a new identity – the first fully born Son of God, born from the dead.
The article in it's entirety is found at...
http://livingtheway.org/wave2.html
