Missional 6

CELEBRATION!

THE MISSIONAL CHURCH AT WORSHIP

Let’s celebrate! We have many occasions to rejoice in and remember God with dancing and singing. We celebrate the birth of children; we celebrate the wedding of young couples; we celebrate the anniversaries of men and women who have been happily married for 60 years. These are occasions to mark on the calendar and rejoice annually in our God who gives us such wonderful gifts.

            The church is called to be a community of celebration in a world that delights in shallow thrills. Someone once said, “What you celebrate you become.” If we place great value on human life, we strive to be godly parents; if we place great value on longevity in marriage, we will all want to celebrate 60 years of marriage and more. By celebrating these occasions we bear witness that we rejoice in what God calls “good.”

            To celebrate is to worship God. Worship is the central act by which the community corporately celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and promised future.

            Our passage today (Deut. 16) tells us about the three most important celebrations in the Israelite calendar. They are both extremely earthy (dealing with harvests, etc.) and deeply theological. That’s good because we can see how God takes the “everyday” stuff we know and makes it profound. These three feasts were established to remind Israel of what was worth celebrating. They acted as a North Star giving direction to life like a compass pointing out the way to journey in life. And as they celebrated these occasions, Israel declared to the nations that Yahweh was God.

            We are not going to institute the Passover Feast, the Feast of Weeks, or the Feast of Tabernacles. These would have little meaning for us without the Jewish context. But we are going to unpack these feasts and discover that we have much to celebrate as a community of faith. And as we celebrate these truths we begin to act missionally.

1. A Celebration of Our Deliverance

The first festival was the Feast of Passover. It was usually held in March or April each year, according to our calendar (Abib).  This coincided with the beginning of the harvest and reminded them of their escape from Egypt under Moses. You remember the tenth and final plague in Egypt – the firstborn of every family would die unless a perfect lamb was butchered, eaten, and the blood applied to the doorposts. This last plague was the final straw that caused Pharaoh to let Israel go.

            Now as Israel was about to enter the Promised Land, Moses commanded the people to remember this great event. Note three things:

a) The people are commanded to “celebrate the Passover of LORD your God” (1). With each feast there is a command to celebrate, to remember, to observe, to worship God (1, 10, 13); b) This celebration involves eating. What’s a celebration without eating? What’s a Grey Cup party without wings and nachos? We celebrate by eating. The Israelites were to eat bread made without yeast (mozza – like a cracker) to remember that they had to eat in a hurry. Yeast also had spiritual overtones: sometimes it was likened to “sin” as something that permeates a whole person or an entire community. So the Israelites were to “Let no yeast be found in your possession…” (4). They were to purify themselves symbolically by removing all yeast from their communities.

c) God would choose the place for celebrating. During the exodus, every family unit would butcher a lamb and eat it behind closed doors. This celebration of the exodus was to be communal, to be celebrated together. There was no longer a need to hide; the celebration would be public, communal, and in a location that God would choose.

            This is how the people were to celebrate God’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Passover was to be a remembrance of God’s saving work in their lives. As they ate their bread without yeast and their lamb, they remembered “God saves.” Taste is a great reminder. When I taste broccoli casserole I remember my mom. When Israel ate mozza they remembered their escape from Egypt; and when they ate bitter herbs they remembered the slavery they escaped from.

            It was this Passover meal that Jesus ate with his disciples on the last night of His life before the cross. For Jesus, Passover was pregnant with personal application. Jesus told His disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat of it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God” (Luke 22:15-16). Then He shared the bread and the wine with them as a new remembrance of the Passover Lamb.

            The Apostle Paul picked up the Passover theme when he challenged the Corinthians to deal with sinfulness in their midst. Paul wrote, “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). Get rid of sin; purify yourselves because Christ has bled for you and you are actually clean.

            God is a missionary God. He sent His Son into the world. We celebrate the incarnation of Christ and the shedding of His blood for our deliverance from sin. Just as Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt, we are freed from our slavery to sin. Celebrate!

2. A Celebration of God’s Blessings

The second festival was the Feast of Weeks, where the Jews gave thanks to God for their crop. This festival occurred at the end of the barley harvest and was celebrated 50 days after the Passover.

            Again, Moses commands the people to celebrate, to remember that God is the true giver of the harvest. Growing crops are a gift; the strength to harvest is a gift; the wisdom to grind and bake and produce bread is a gift.

            How does God want Israel to celebrate this gift? Moses instructed them, “Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you” (10).

            The freewill offering was likely a “firstfruits” gift that meant taking the best of the best of your produce and offering it to God. While we often think of ten percent of our gross earnings as a good gift, Moses’ instructions actually say that we are to give in proportion to what God has given us. So an Israelite who felt particularly blessed by God might give up to 30 percent of his produce. Moses really declares that those who genuinely grateful for the grace of God in the harvest will be liberal in their offerings.

            This time, Moses is more inclusive in his invitation to celebrate “…you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you” (11). This is a party and everyone is invited. Remember, celebration means food. Celebrating the abundance that God has given means including everyone, even strangers, in the party. All who want to come are invited to celebrate our generous God.

            Many centuries later, Greek-speaking Jews would rename the Feast of Weeks “Pentecost.” Fifty days after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the disciples of Jesus met in an upper room in Jerusalem and waited for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

            On the day of Pentecost a mighty wind swept through the place where the disciples were staying and they were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2-4). Is this a coincidence?

            I believe that there are parallels worth noting. Because it was the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) many God-fearing Jews from “every nation under heaven” (2:5) were present when the disciples emerged from the upper room speaking in many languages. Every known language group seems to have been present. This corresponds to Moses’ inclusion of every person in the Feast of Weeks in Deuteronomy when he invited sons and daughters, male and female servants, foreigners, and so on, to be part of the festivities.

            Then when accused of being drunk, Peter explains using the prophet Joel that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on many. “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18).

            Pentecost was meant to be a celebration of the harvest of barley. Jesus, the firstfruits of God’s act of salvation, has turned Pentecost into a different kind of harvest festival. As we read the book of Acts we see that on this first day of the empowered church, 3000 were added to the church that day, a great harvest (2:41). The book of Acts continues on to describe the beginning of God’s harvest, bringing into the kingdom of God the believers who receive Christ.

            God is a missionary God. As God sent His Son, so now Jesus sends us. As the sent people of God, the church is the instrument of God’s mission in the world. Pentecost celebrates the beginning of the mission, the harvest.

3. A Celebration of the Final Harvest

One more festival remains. The third festival was the Feast of Tabernacles, which occurred after the grape and grain harvest was over. Also called the Feast of Booths, the name probably came from the temporary shelters (tents) that the harvesters set up near the fields at that time of the year. This was the last of the harvests – a climax, if you will – celebrated by feast. It was said that this was the happiest of all festivals.

            Like the other festivals, the participants are told to celebrate, to remember, to worship God for all His blessings. And like the Feast of Weeks, their sons and daughters, male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners and the widows who live in their towns are to be included (14). And again this festival must be held in the place that God chooses.

            What is different about this festival is the command “Be joyful.” More than a spontaneous emotion, rejoicing, like love, is not based on how one feels. To rejoice is an act of the will, a decision to turn to God and say “you are the source of my plenty and my pleasure. You fill me up, Lord.”

            This is the final harvest of the season and it is cause for celebration. When God provides us with grain and wine, we have enough for the coming winter. We will be satisfied with the good things of God.

            Now “harvest” is a theme that Jesus uses in the gospels to describe His work. (See Matthew 9:35-38). He came to preach the good news of the kingdom of God and to invite everyone who would come to be a participant in the heavenly feast at the end of the age (Luke 14:15-24).

            After talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus and the disciples had a conversation about food and harvests. Jesus quotes a common phrase, “Do you not say, ‘Four months and then the harvest’?” But then Jesus turns this common experience into a theological lesson, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together” (John 4:35-36).
            Then John writes that many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus. Open your eyes…the fields are ripe for harvest.

            I am no farmer, but I think I can tell when wheat is ready to harvest. Or when corn is due. Many of you are very good at eyeing a crop and seeing its readiness. But what about people? How can we tell when people are ready to hear the gospel and respond to it?

            Jesus said two thousand years ago, “Open your eyes…the fields are ripe for harvest!” The crop has been ready for a long time. Jesus wants to harvest those who believe into His kingdom.

            God is a missionary God. As God included us in His missionary program to participate in the final harvest, He works through us to invite others to celebrate God’s glory. As Pentecost celebrates the beginning of the church’s mission in the world, we recognize that we are living in temporary tents while we work at harvesting those who would believe in Him.

I may have just created a major exegetical fallacy. Taking the feasts of Deuteronomy and applying them to these NT events may have been a leap, but it is what I saw.

            Consider the chronology of what I have just shared with you: Passover celebrates the salvation of God’s people from their slavery; Jesus is the perfect Passover lamb that was slain for us and His blood has delivered us from the bondage of sin. The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) celebrates the many physical blessings of God upon His people; In the NT Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s church and the many spiritual blessings that we have received through Him. And the Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the final harvest of the agricultural season; we look with hope to the future when we will celebrate with Jesus at the Final harvest when all who will believe are gathered to Him at His banqueting table.

            The more I ponder on church celebrations, be they weddings or anniversaries or any kind of major event, I see how the Bible teaches that these occasions are to be communal. That is, every Christian occasion must be inclusive. Every Christian-based event declares the gospel of Christ; if it does not, why are we a part of it? And if it is a gospel event, it must certainly include the disenfranchised (the widow, the single, the stranger, the immigrant, etc) so that they may taste the goodness of God.

            Every church event we encounter then will be one of joy. We will leave here feeling that we were glad we came and wished we hadn’t had to leave.

            And as we have received so fully from the Lord, celebrations of this kind will encourage us to give generously of our plenty. This may be dreaming, but it is good to dream.

                                                            AMEN

Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert’s definition of the mission of the church includes this essential relationship of mission to worship:

The mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches, that they might worship the Lord and obey his commands now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father

Charles Spurgeon: “There is no good preacher who is not moved almost to the point of tears at the end of every sermon at how poor was the message he just delivered.”