King James Bible : Leviticus 23:
10: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:
11: And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

This is a one day feast and on first appearance has apparently very little to offer, a couple of verses in Leviticus and that is all we are told. What we do see is that the harvest cannot begin until the offering is made, it is a foretaste of the full harvest, but you cannot send your workers out into the field until the first fruit, sheaf of barley, has been waved before God by the priest.

As a point of interest one of the ways that the Jewish calendar works is to start the first month not only does the moon have to be sighted new over Jerusalem but we are also told that the barley must be "aviv". Aviv means that it has reach a point where it is just about ready for harvest, not ripe already and not still needing more growth. If the barley is not ripe the Jewish calender simply adds a month and we come back at the next full moon.

Just one sheaf was brought for the offering and would have been harvested by the priests from the fields around the mount of Olives. You can still see the barley growing wild here even today as it has self seeded it self every year.

The designated feast of First Fruits is given by God to Moses to be conducted on the First day after the sabbath. For most people this is meaning the first weekly sabbath after the Passover. This is only to be done when the children of Israel are in the land that God has given them. As this is also during the Feast of Unleavened Bread then we are talking about the Barley Harvest and the harvest cannot start until after the Priest has performed this offering.

Let me clear that up a little, some people say that this should be the day after the Passover Holy day, so Passover being on the 15th Nissan this feast should then be on the 16th Nissan. Most people however say that the feast should be on the day after the first weekly sabbath after the Passover Holy day. does this make a difference or what is the problem? Fair questions and my answer is this, the day after the Passover Holy day could well be a weekly sabbath and also if the 16th had been the designated day then Leviticus would have noted that date. Because Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread equals 8 days then there has got to be at least one weekly sabbath. You cant do any work on either a Holy day or a weekly sabbath so you cannot therefore go out and cut a sheath of barley to be waved in the Temple.

In light of that and if you have already read the article "From the Cross and the Grave to resurrection is 3 days and 3 nights.", Passover is on the 15th, weekly sabbath is on the 17th, therefore First Fruits starts at sunset on the 17th, in that article I show that Jesus would have been resurrected just a short while before sunset.

The resurrected Jesus is now in the office of the High Priest of the order of Melchizedek, He is our High Priest, so let me speculate a little.
King James Bible : Matthew 27: 51: And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
King James Bible : Matthew 27: 52: And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
King James Bible : Matthew 27: 53: And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
and that is it no more mention of them, did they just get back into the graves and die again or... could it be the reason Jesus told Mary not to touch him in the garden was because in those early hours He had not finished the duties of the High Priest. He could not be touched especially by Mary because that would have made Him unclean and defiled (because of her contact with a dead body just 3 days earlier) He could then no longer be the High Priest until He was clean, I believe this takes 7 days. So as the High Priest He has this last feast to perform, could it possibly be that when he ascended to the Father He took those who had got out of the grave up with him and presented them as a First Fruit offering to The Father. There is no mention of this at all but it seems to make sense and Paul wrote in King James Bible : 1 Corinthians 15: 20: But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

When reading the Bible you have to be a little careful with the phrase first fruits when you are looking for the Feast of First Fruits because you will find reference to another offering of first fruits made by the Priest during the Feast of Pentecost but this is just an offering not a Feast. This offering is made from the wheat harvest and again no one can start the harvest until after the wave offering has been made. The difference here is it is not a sheaf but 2 loaves of bread made from the wheat. There is then another first fruit offering made later on near to the time of the Fall Feasts, this is for all the other harvests. If you are looking for more details especially in the King James version, you also need to be aware that this is translated as one word, so firstfruits not first fruits.

There are a number of references all through the Bible that we should be aware of.

King James Bible : Jeremiah 2: 3: Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.

God chose the nation of Israel to be His chosen people, they were to be Priests and Kings to all other nations and are His First Fruits of the eventual harvest

King James Bible : Romans 11:16, 26
16: For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
26: And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

Yes I know there are 9 verses between these 2 above but the subject has not changed, Paul is writing to the Gentiles and telling us that Israel is the first fruit, and that they are Holy, and will ALL be saved even though at the moment they have been partially blinded to the salvation of us gentiles.

King James Bible : James 1: 18
18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

James is primarily writing to the Jews here but this can also be applied to followers of Jesus

King James Bible : 1 Corinthians 15: 20
20: But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

The fact that Jesus rose from the grave is our promise that we will be harvested it guarantees that there will be a final harvest and that we as believers will be raised from the grave in a similar way.

What has become apparent for me, is that the church has very little knowledge of and has taken very little notice of the feasts and so no longer grasps the concepts that were being taught. Many churches and church people will interpret parts as saying "we should not associate or be in the company of unbelievers because that makes us as evil as them", I have heard many times, "if you smoke, you will burn in hell" or "Drink is of the devil" or "money is evil". They will use verses to show this as well, even if they are totally out of context "King James Bible : James 4: 4 ... know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." There are a lot of other verses that can also be applied but you get the idea. "Turn or burn" was a common phrase when I was growing up especially when talking about going out into the field to harvest. Go into the center of Birmingham UK on a Saturday and just see and listen to the street preachers, both christian and muslim as they fight for your soul as they see it, but they miss seeing the sick, the homeless, they offer no helping hand etc. If we as believers are supposed to be the first fruit offering and as first fruits make the rest of the world Holy then it is easy to see why Jesus said the numbers of the labourers is few.

Matthew 9 : 37 :- Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
Matthew 9 : 38 :- Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

I feel I have to give a warning here about those who say that we must obey and celebrate these feasts.
King James Bible : Romans 14:
5: One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
6: He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.
We are clearly told here by the Apostle Paul that if you want to remember and celebrate a day unto the Lord, then do it, but if you do not wish to keep the celebration then dont. We are not allowed to judge anyone for doing it one way or the other. My thoughts here are why do you wish to hold onto the shadow picture of Jesus when you have the real Jesus living with you and in you.