Good Morning Friends,
Every religious Jew knew the Gospel according to Leviticus 23 for it contains the wise plan of God for the ages. Jews are celebrating the Day of Atonement today, but it is for Christians too. It is the foundation for the ways in which we worship. Many people will be fasting today and contemplating their personal journey of faith. You are invited to that meditation. In our Old Testament reading today, we find the people of God learning about the feasts of the Lord for the first time. The Lord instructed Moses, to confront the people through the feasts. It gave the people a message that they did not always want to hear but something they needed to experience. So too in our New Testament lectionary passages the theme of God’s sovereignty is the backdrop and as is our own hypocrisy. It all hints at a bit of a scandal. Interestingly there is synergy between these passages about how the law and prophets are experienced considering Jesus. Still the questions of wisdom and worship remain… So, How Will You Celebrate The Feasts of God?
Scripture: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall celebrate at the time appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a Passover offering to the Lord, and on the fifteenth day of the same month is the festival of unleavened bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. For seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation: you shall not work at your occupations. The Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall raise the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall raise it. And from the day after the sabbath, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the elevation offering, you shall count off seven weeks; they shall be complete. You shall count until the day after the seventh sabbath, fifty days; then you shall present an offering of new grain to the Lord. Now, the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you: you shall deny yourselves and present the Lord’s offering by fire; Speak to the people of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month, and lasting seven days, there shall be the festival of booths to the Lord. The first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. Seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the eighth day you shall observe a holy convocation and present the Lord’s offerings by fire; it is a solemn assembly; you shall not work at your occupations. These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you shall celebrate as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord offerings by fire—burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day
Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37 (NRSV)
Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.
Romans 2:1-11 (NRSV)
“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.” One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.
Luke 11:42-46 (NRSV)
Message: Humans suffer from a sin-related problem that alienates mankind from God. We have a superiority bias and related to that we have a humility issue. Everybody is pointing Styrofoam We Are Number #1 fingers and we have a propensity to neither hear the reality of our actual status nor to do those things that would improve our lot in life. And we cannot avoid the debate with those who do not agree with the Christian viewpoint and moreover are adversarial in its discussion. We are between a rock and a hard place. God instituted seven Feasts for the nation of Israel to address this very issue. These feasts provide a two-fold purpose. They were both object lessons to remind them how merciful and gracious God had been to them and to provide a beautiful portrait of Christ as God’s prophetic time-table as the ages unfolds. The first three feasts, the feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits are closely related. And are observed in the first month of the Jewish calendar, Nisan. The last three feasts, the feasts of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles are also closely related, and they are observed in the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. Between these two groups is the fourth feast called the Feast of Pentecost. The first four feasts have been literally fulfilled by Christ. These last three feasts are to be fulfilled by Christ. Now the 23rd Chapter of Leviticus has a lot of symbolism that Jews knew and remembered. The feasts in some ways have largely lost their meaning but in them the wisdom and power of Jesus as our Sabbath and Feast is manifested in an ordered ecclesiastical year that can guide our lives of worship. For therefore we worship the way we do as a remnant of these traditions but also including teaching as was the custom in the first century. You see each one of us has a religious system – a way of doing things that gives us a feeling of piety and importance. When we stop and consider that we have some things to change when we are already doing our best, we can very easily get defensive and angry, but the thing is that the last thing any of us want to hear is that we have done something wrong. Jesus was accused of plenty of things he didn’t do wrong. He was accused of insurrection, not paying taxes, and plotting to tear down the temple in Jerusalem. He was accused of breaking the Sabbath, being a drunkard, and blasphemy. It only got worse. On the cross he was accused of being a cheat, an adulterer, a liar, and every other kind of sin in the book. Worst of all, he was punished for those things, even though he did not deserve it. Instead of getting angry about it however, God pronounced it fair not foul. In a way Jesus allowed Himself to be falsely accused, so we could be justly acquitted. That is the message of the Gospel – not guilty, even though we are. It is about atonement. So, when God points the finger into our lives through friends and family the proper response is not to be angry or excuse our behavior – even if we are not getting a completely fair shake. Instead of getting defensive or angry at our accusers, what God wants us to say is, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” That is the right response. That is how we are to apply today’s scripture to our own lives. So, if we put the shoe on the other foot and examined the challenge of change from the Israelites and scribes and Pharisee’s points of view. Don’t you think that those people primarily responded in anger because their places of authority were being threatened. Their system was under fire. When we seen change and power shifts in our worshipping communities, we too might get defensive. Hence our need for mercy….all around.
And So, today’s scripture affirms over and over in different ways that the Lord is the Lord of our time; that our time belongs to Him. And the very insertion of the seventh day Sabbath and this cycle of feasts into the experience of the Israelite impressed upon the Israelite believer that God is the God of my time, that all of my time belongs to God, and that I set apart some of that time in recognition of His Lordship over me, and as an opportunity to praise Him for the manifold gifts He has given to me by making me, by creating me, by redeeming me, by providing for me, by forgiving me, by giving me a hope for the future. The Day of Atonement in the scriptures was a specific day for fasting, repentance, consecration and sanctification. As Christians we ought to have specific days in our walk of faith to examine our length of spiritual progress in relationship with the Lord. Today is one of them.
Pray in this day of sorrow that we might find celebration. Pray we believe we can move the hand of God to compassion. Pray we seek God. Pray we listen to God. Pray we obey God. Pray we put God first. Pray we forgive. Pray we appreciate how prayer works together with Scripture in our quest to hear and listen to God. Pray we become spiritually disciplined. Pray we handle rebuke with grace. Pray we realize what Christ did for us. Pray if we are kind. Pray we have souls that explode with love in the face of conflicts. Pray we are willing to suffer though transformation. Pray we are willing to choose a new birth over the warmth of a womb. Pray we worship in Spirit and in Truth. Pray we produce fruit and give the best to God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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