Their Holidays? Or Ours?

"These are the Lord's appointed feasts, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies..."
Leviticus 23:37

Their Holidays?  Or Ours?
By Rev. William Dohle

Have you ever been to another country during a holiday??

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to travel to India for a semester abroad.  The whole experience changed my perspective on everything.  Religion.  Faith.  Life.  What is clean and what is dirty.

But most of all it changed my view of holidays.

It may come as a shock, but the rest of the world does not celebrate the same holidays we do.  Next Monday is Labor Day in the United States...but the rest of the world doesn't care.  At the end of October is Halloween(my favorite holiday)...but that isn't celebrated everywhere.  And even the sacred Christmas is just another working day in some parts of the world.

But just as they don't celebrate our holidays.  We don't celebrate theirs either.

In India, we were present for their holiday of Diwali.  This Hindu holiday is a feast day to celebrate the coming of light.  In many ways, it mirrors the Winter Solstice event and even Christmas itself.  Indians celebrate it by decorating their homes in bright colors.  They float candle-lit boats down the river.  And they send each other gifts and cards.

"Happy Diwali!"  They say!

As an outsider with a group of outsiders, we tried to fit in.  But you could tell that this wasn't our holiday.  This was theirs.  As much as we tried to celebrate with them.  As many Diwali cards I sent out from India to my relatives back home, it still wasn't my holiday and I haven't celebrated it again since.

This foreign feeling is the same feeling I get when I read the 23rd and the beginning of the 24th chapter of Leviticus.  This is a strange land...with strange holidays.

The Hebrews here are instructed to celebrate seven feasts to the Lord.

• The first is celebrated weekly.  The Sabbath or Shabbat.  The day of rest from creative work and a day to dedicate to God.
• The second is Passover...the celebration of the people of Israel's release from bondage.
• The third... First fruits.  A sort of Harvest festival if I'm not mistaken.
• The fourth...the feast of weeks.  A day to remember the poor.  "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field...Leave them for the poor and the alien."
• The fifth...The Feast of trumpets.  "Do no regular work on this day."
• The sixth...The Day of Atonement.  A day to atone for the sins of the people
• The seventh...the Feast of Tabernacles...a time to remember how the people lived in tents so many years.

Many of these feasts are spoken of in the Gospels because all of these feasts were celebrated by Jesus himself!  Look for yourself throughout the Gospels and see how they follow these ancient holidays.

I've always wondered... why don't Christians celebrate these holidays too too?  If so many take the Bible as the "inerrant Word of God" and "divinely inspired"...then what about these verses here?  Shouldn't we be joining our Jewish brothers and sisters in a few weeks as they celebrate the Day of Atonement?  And then shouldn't we be crafting our tents outside for the Feast of Booths?  When did God tell the church, "Forget the Jewish holidays.  Make up your own instead!"?

Most Christians set aside these verses in the Law.  They just don't apply to them.  Instead, we have other holidays that we celebrate.  Christmas.  Easter.  Fourth of July.  Halloween.  Civic holidays and religious ones combine together for us and we fall out of step from what Leviticus instructs.

Are we disobeying God here?  Does God care?  Does it bother him that we are not following these commandments?

Personally, I not sure God really cares WHAT holidays we celebrate.  I think he calls us to celebrate!  To lay aside what we normally do for a time and to do something different is important to God.  I think God calls us to celebrate...and to remember.  And we Christians can do the same in our own ways too.  In fact, we can use the same outline of holidays to fashion our own...

• The first...we too can celebrate a Sabbath and put God first one day a week, laying aside our own cares.
• The second...there's nothing to say we can't join our Jewish neighbors in celebrating Passover with their Sedars.  The Jews I've met are more than happy to invite us into their celebration.
•  The third...First fruits.  I think Thanksgiving fits perfectly into that category, so long as we remember that we need to give thanks more than we need to shop.
• The fourth...the feast of weeks.  What if Christmas day was a day to remember the poor and to stop in the middle of all our gift unwrapping to pray and to help and to give to those who are in need.  Whoa!  That sounds...radical!  But isn't that what we say Christ did for us?
• The fifth...the Feast of Trumpets...I've always liked the idea of Marti Grau.  What if we made it a point to celebrate life...even before the lenten fast.
• The sixth...the Day of Atonement... Many Christians celebrate the whole season of lent, 40 days, as a time to repent and that is good.  But the Day of Atonement for us should be Good Friday when we remember that atonement was made once and for all.
• The seventh...the feast of Tabernacles.  Did you know that the Holy Spirit came one year on this very feast to "tent" among us?  What if we took this time to think on the ways that God is already here.

I think this list is a start.  A start to a pattern for all of our lives.  May we know the grace and mercy of God that we may walk confidently through all that life brings.  Happy Holidays!  And happy ordinary days too!

God of the holiday and the ordinary, give us reasons to celebrate and worship you.  Open our eyes to your holy presence, both in and out of our holiday celebration.  Amen.