I LOOOOOOOVE the holidays!!! I really enjoy "special" days of any kind, and am just generally a sap for memorable events or get togethers. But what really gives me the jollies is the opportunity to widely, joyfully, and decoratingly (is that a word?) proclaim the wonder of God and His Salvation this time of year.
Christmas in particular holds very dear and personal times of worship and reflection upon what God has done for me... for us! And it seems Thanksgiving has become a month long preparing of my heart and a time to spur my kids to think on God's care for us. By the time December comes, the anticipation and wonder is building to a climax. There's a real sense of the need, and desire, to stop and simply thank God for all He has done and reflect upon the glory of His story in our house. I guess Thanksgiving isn't a separate holiday from Christmas in our house, it's just the build up to the celebration of the Redeeming Gift we are most thankful for.
Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. - Psalm 103:1-5
Traditions and Ideas
Our family traditions are still newly forming. Our kids are just 3 and 5 and truly we didn't have a tradition or special time during Christmas or Thanksgiving before the kids came. For my household, that was mostly due to our marriage troubles. If you are a childless couple, especially a newly married couple, I'd encourage you not to wait until the kids come (if they do) to start your own special times of worship, activities, and memories during the holidays.
That was a bit of a sidebar... anyway, back to our traditions and ideas.
Here are some of the things we do during the month of November:
Pick a verse or two from scripture to say and talk about daily, committing it to memory. This year I picked 1 Timothy 2:1.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people
Find a craft or two to do with my kids which helps us all to verbalize and bring to mind how much we have to be thankful for. This year we did this and this.
It turned out like this:
And here's the Youtube video if you'd like to do it! :)
Find a way to remember, pray for, and reach out to someone else in need. Each year I pray about this, and sometimes the person in need is right under my own roof, so the focus is a ministry of service there. This year we may go to the local nursing home and just walk around with the kids and kneel down to visit with some widows and widowers on Thanksgiving day.
And when it comes to the actual Thanksgiving meal ours is pretty traditional. Two of the highlights from our menu though are the sweet mashed yams and the homemade rolls.
For Christmas
To begin celebrating Christmas I pull out the tree December 1st, along with all the decor I've collected over the past couple years, and put on the music!!! I LOOOOOVE Christmas music. My favorite song is O Holy Night. I let the kids decorate the tree, which leaves lots of great memories and pictures and the perfect looking tree in my book! :)
During the month of December I also pick a new verse or two to discuss daily and put to memory and try to memorize a song that the boys and I can sing.
This year, the boys will be involved in their first Christmas program at our church, which I'm really excited about.
I've been learning about Jesus through the study of the Biblical Holidays and just realized... HELLO, yesterday was the begining of the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth) Sheila!
First, just sensing that testimony in me of, "Yes, this is true," while reading about the spiritual living out of tabernacles by us as those born again, sojourning through this life, looking forward to our heavenly and eternal city made by God.
I read this excerpt from a commentary by Matthew Henry in the chapter:
It is supposed by many that our blessed Saviour was born much about the time of this holiday; then He left his mansions of light above to tabernacle among us (John 1:14), and he dwelt in booths. And the worship of God under the New Testement is prophesied of under the notion of keeping the feast of tabernacles, Zec. 14:16. For, [1.] The gospel of Christ teaches us to dwell in tabernacles, to sit loose to this world, as those that have here no continuing city, but by faith, and hope and holy contempt of present things, to go out to Christ without the camp, Heb.13:13-14. [2.] It teaches us to rejoice before the Lord our God. Those are the circumcision, Israelites indeed, that always rejoice in Christ Jesus, Phil.3:3. And the more we are taken off from this world the less liable we are to the interuption of our joys.
"The gospel of Christ teaches us to dwell in tabernacles, to sit loose to this world, as those that have here no continuing city, but by faith, and hope and holy contempt of present things, to go out to Christ without the camp..." WOW! That rings amen in my soul! I praise God that increasingly I have a holy contempt of present things. The more I walk in the Spirit the more I understand how true it is that in following Christ you must hate your own life ( Luke 14:16). When Christ has been born in you, you sit loose to this world, while at the same time loving and longing for a deposit of that continuing city to be found in the souls around you.
I truly believe it was in the spirit of the feast of tabernacles, that, before even studying out the Biblical holidays, I began desiring to celebrate at Christmastime John 1:14 by pitching a tent in the living room next to the Christmas tree and reading John 1:1-18 to the boys and talking to them about how God came and dwelt in flesh among us kinda like us leaving our beds and houses to live in a tent.
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14
There's so much to learn of our Lord, to really get to know HIM! If we search for Him we will find Him. Studying the Biblical holidays has really enriched my intimacy with the Creator of the Universe and the Lover of my soul!
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people. And any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall do no manner of work; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be to you a sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your sabbath." - Leviticus 23:26-32 (emphasis added by me)
What was a law pointing Israel to their need for atonement is, to those circumcised in heart ( believers in Jesus as Savior and Lord), a law of spiritual life in Christ.
To one it is a law like the law of a land... do's, don'ts, etc. to show them/us that we are in need of atonement ("...the Bible's central message is atonement, that is, that God has provided a way for humankind to come back into harmonious relation with him..."). To the other (the believer) it is a law of spiritual life. It is not something we do so that we are accepted, it is a truth of the rhythm of life we have in Christ. Just as it is true of who we are as earth dwellers that gravity holds us to the ground it is true of Spirit-walkers (those who live by the Spirit through Jesus' atoning work) that what happens during Yom Kippur is part of our spiritual lives.
Because Jesus is our atonement, we live out Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) as a season of life in the Spirit personally and prophetically Yom Kippur will be lived out (fulfilled) in season of it's divine appointment nationally (I believe for each nation) and world-wide. I have a lot of contemplations and discussions and mostly listening and storing in my heart to ponder over how the season of Yom Kippur will play out in time for America as a nation and for the world with Israel's appointed time. I ponder these things and pray about them as God moves in me to see how He moves a "day" or time of atonement in my own life personally. I do believe what the Spirit does in our lives effect the whole body and the whole body lives out nationally and globally what the Spirit is doing in us individually.
Anyway, as I was thinking today and praying and really listening to God's heart about what Yom Kippur means for me, as a Gentile, saved by faith in Christ, I began to realize that what the scripture says is to happen on Yom Kippur was already happening in me, in my heart, and it has been that way for a season of about a month or so. It's been a time where it seems like my sin is continually before me and I'm hating my own life ( in a good way ) which is in turn growing my love for Christ and what it cost Him to save me and bring me to Him again. I realized Yom Kippur is really a season of spiritual life in Christ. Pictured in the Old Testament, and lived out by faith in our lives now, there are still daily sacrifices: dying to self, confessing sin, acknowledging need for forgiveness and rejoicing that it is found in Jesus, (Luke 9:23), but there is also found this side of heaven seasons of being grieved over our own sin: seeing our sin, confessing it, being freed from it, being healed and matured in Christ.
It's a law, like gravity, at work in my life in Jesus. It's not a law I obey so I don't get in trouble... no! It's a law at work in me! A law of doing what David did in Psalm 32:
When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord," And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah For this cause everyone who is godly (those who know they are sinners and who confess their sins) shall pray to You In a time when You may be found... Psalm 32:3-6a (Parentheses by me)
It's a law I find at work in me when once a time (a season) I, "...acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me." (Psalm 51:3) It's not that I don't acknowledge my sins daily, for the most part I do... as the Psalm says, they're always before me. But there also comes seasons when my transgressions seem to be staring me in the face daily and I feel that heavy hand of God upon me. Sometimes in Spirit-life in Jesus it's Yom Kippur. My sin is just always in front of me and my soul is afflicted because I know how much it cost to be atoned for.
It's a law I find at work in me which ultimately makes me love the Lord more, and love other people's souls with Christ's love more too. Because, like Jesus said:
"Therefore I say to you, her sins which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." (Luke 7:47)
It's the law of the Spirit exposing sin in me, rebuking and chastising me... His hand "heavy upon me," so that I am afflicted in soul and confess my sin. I say the same thing God says about what I've done and my condition (which is what it means to confess). Specifically, openly. Though it stinks.
As I was listening to a teaching from Searchlight today about confession, one of the things Jon Courson said which struck me was something to the effect of, confession is not asking God for forgiveness... you already have forgiveness in Jesus. Confession is saying what God says about what you've done and your condition... calling it sin, just like He does and then giving thanks for the forgiveness you have in Christ. He went on to talk about how confession is like what happened when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11:1-27. He could have commanded the stone to roll away and then called Lazarus to life, but instead He commanded people to roll away the stone. There has to be a rolling away of the stone, though it's hard and what comes out is gonna stink, for a person to experience resurrection life in that particular area of their lives. That's what sin looks like in a picture: the rolling away of a stone and letting the stink be exposed so that Jesus can show Himself powerful to atone for us in bringing us new life and in freeing us from those sins that have bound us and kept us in death.
Yom Kippur is really a law of spiritual life like Paul described in Romans 7:14-23 which brought him to the glorious declaration, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
This morning I sat down with my boys and confessed a sin that has been before me constantly lately, the sin of being angry. I said with my mouth what God says about it, that if you're angry with your brother for no just reason then your as a murderer in His eyes (Matthew 5:21-26). I said, "Lord I've been angry with Connor and Ryland for no good reason, and I've murdered something in them Lord, something has died..."
Just saying that out loud was so hard! It was like rolling away a heavy stone and then it stunk. My flesh wanted to say, "But I'm not a murderer. Getting angry isn't the same thing as murder." But when I said what God said about my sin and agreed with Him though it stunk I was able to embrace His forgiveness knowing that it cost Him His life to atone for that sin. And I look with anticipation for the resurrection life He is replacing that old, dead sin of anger in me with. I wept. And then I rejoiced because Jesus is the Lamb who died for me and the Lamb who ever lives to make intercession for me during this day of atonement season of my life.
When's the last time you openly, specifically, with your mouth said what God said about your condition?
How about you? Do you experience seasons of your sin always being before you? If so, embrace it! It's Yom Kippur for you! Confess them openly and let the resurrection life of Jesus resurrect you!
Yesterday was Rosh Hashana. I've been studying the Biblical holidays with my sons, starting with Passover this year. In Passover, Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of Weeks I could really see Jesus... His fulfillment of these feasts is fairly obvious to me and exciting, because I can see God's story woven through HIStory and these special times God set aside for Israel.
But when it came to Rosh Hashana I was having a hard time. I read about how Rosh Hashana and the other fall holidays are those that have yet to be fulfilled in God's prophetic time line and it seems true to me, yet I prayed that the Lord would reveal to me something of Himself through this holiday.
Through A Family Guide to Biblical Holidays and scripture I learned that the shofar (a ram's horn) is sounded on Rosh Hashana and that Psalm 81 is read by the Jews on Rosh Hoshana. So, having no real inspiration about what I could do to learn of Jesus on this day and to teach Him to my sons through this day I decided to simply read Psalm 81 to my boys and listen to the sound of a shofar online, and then to just think on these things all day. Amazing how simply doing these few things really gave me an ear to hear the Lord.
As I sat down with my boys and read Psalm 81 I was struck by the heart of God. God emotes. God feels. God remembers. God loves us so tenderly, so vulnerably.
My boys were to draw a picture of something they heard me read, but they kept asking to hear the psalm again, four times, so that by the time I finished reading the fourth installment of Psalm 81 I was really sensing, at least in part, the Spirit's purpose and how God is revealed in Rosh Hoshana.
The psalm begins saying, "Sing... blow the trumpet..." Why? "This He established in Joseph as a testimony..."
God's testifying through this holiday. What is the testimony?
In verses 5-10 God says the testimony He established in this memorial of trumpets holiday (Leviticus 23:24) is remembering God's presence and deliverance.
He says this is the thing He wants His people to remember on a day when trumpets are blowing and people are singing and shouting joyfully to God:
That HE went through the land of Egypt where His people didn't understand the language.
That HE removed the burden from their shoulders and freed their hands from carrying baskets (as slaves).
That He delivered and answered when His people called to Him in their trouble, and that He tested them at Meribah (Exodus 17:1-7).
Why does God want His people to remember in the setting of blowing trumpets, singing and shouting? Because He wants to teach them. (Don't kids learn better when there's music and something dramatic involved like a real loud horn!?)
"Hear, O My people, and I will admonish you!" (Psalm 81:8a)
And in the verses to follow I hear God's pleading heart. The heart of a father or mother longing for their wayward child to come home. The heart of a lover betrayed, a spouse rejected.
"O Israel, if you would listen to Me!" (Psalm 81:8b)
Listen to what? LISTEN to this: Get rid of and stop worshipping foreign gods! (Psalm 81:9) Because God is the One who delivered this people, He's the One who fed them, not their man-made gods.
"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it." (Psalm 81:10)
This celebratory holiday fast becomes "our solemn feast" (Psalm 81:3) as you read through Psalm 81.
Why is it solemn? Because God's people are singing and blowing trumpets and God is grieved crying, "But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me." (Psalm 81:11)
And with the heart of a husband who truly loves his wife God will not impose His desire to be loved and remembered against His peoples' will. He lets them go, "So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels." (Psalm 81:12)
But He holds out a longing hope, "Oh that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries."
God here is painting the picture He painted through Hosea's prophetic life. His people have played the harlot and He has been longsuffering towards them like a faithful husband. His love for them burns with jealousy, a righteous jealousy, for He knows only destruction awaits them when He gives them over to their own ways. But He is God, He is not a fallen husband. So though His people have committed adultery against their God, worshipping the work of their own hands, God says,
"Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and wall her in, so that she cannot find her paths. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them; yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better for me than now.'" (Hosea 2:6-7)
Just as a sounding shofar wakes up someone asleep, warns someone in danger, rallies warriors, and ushers in a trembling that sets the tone for awe-filled worship of God, Psalm 81 is a solemn reminder that God is faithful and we His people, have not been. It's a wake up call to the danger of being one who pretends submission to the LORD, yet really is a hater of Him (Psalm 81:15).
The holy sound of the shofar combined with the reading of Psalm 81 reveals to me at least some of why this is considered a new year celebration for the Jews. There is a new beginning which happens when you remember the unfailing covenant of God's love and what it cost Him to rescue you and at the same time you see how you have left loving God for loving what you can do for yourself. There's tension. There's fear because you know you deserve condemnation for your spiritual adultery against God but He doesn't give it to you. There's awe because God's love for you is so pure that He'll reject you for a time, allowing His chastisement to come against you, not so that you will be condemned but so that you will run to Him again!
Remembering sins grieves, but doesn’t the joy of His covenantal, always, unwavering, right-to-the-end, love wipes away the tears?
Our shortcomings cripple, but doesn’t the joy of the Lord strengthen these bent and weary bones?
The solemnness of this feast comes from remembering that damage is done, God is grieved, chastisement comes because of our sin, yet there is joy amidst the tears because the One we have hurt allures us to Him again!
The sages of the Jerusalem Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 1:3) say, “Normally, someone standing in judgment would dress somberly, cloaking himself in black robes and not trim his beard. After all, he does not know how it will turn out. Israel is different, though. We dress in white and cloak ourselves in white and trim our beards and eat and drink and are joyous for we know that God will do miracles for us. Being judged by God is at once an awesome thing — He knows all — but He is a merciful God. Even judgment itself need not be devoid of joy (Talmud Rosh Hashanah 1:3).
Only God's people can find joy even in the trembling, holy fear of God's merciful judgement. For the judgement on His people is not condemnation, it is the rebuke from a God who loves us like a perfect Husband and perfect Father.
"For your Maker is your husband,
The LORD of hosts is His name;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel;
He is called the God of the whole earth.
For the LORD has called you
Like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit,
Like a youthful wife when you were refused," Says your God.
"For a mere moment I have forsaken you,
But with great mercies I will gather you.
With a little wrath I hid
My face from you for a moment;
But with everlasting kindness
I will have mercy on you, " Says the LORD, your Redeemer.
Isaiah 54:5-8
Rosh Hashana is a time of "Woe is me, for I am undone!..." (Isaiah 6:5)
The Feast of Trumpets is a time of, "Take words with you, and return to the LORD. Say to Him, 'Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously..." (Hosea 14:2)
This Jewish new year is a time of rejoicing in the merciful judgment of God on His own people because it shows that we are His and that He loves us.
For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?...Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.
-1 Peter 4:17,19
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. - Jesus (Revelation 3:19)
My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?...Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:5-7,11
Rosh Hashana is a truth of spiritual life in Jesus, of living as a sojourner, as a jar of clay with a priceless treasure inside. As we walk with Him there must be regular times of remembrance when we draw near to God in humility and go from that time lifted up by Him. For first must come:
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners; and purify your hearts you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. - James 4:8-10
Then can come:
Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength- Nehemiah 8:10
My First Love I come to You with weeping words. I have been Gomer to You who have been Hosea to me. When I was young I loved you like a fiance. I was kind towards you. I went after You even when there was no abundance in me...when I was like a wilderness...wild, and overgrown with weeds and barren from neglect. But then I went ahorring. I left You , my first love, for the insatiable lust of my flesh and feelings. You have been faithful though I have been foul! You have allured me. You have brought me back into the wilderness and spoken comfort to me. Revive me even now! Awaken me from sleep! Blow in my ears like a shofar!
Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Jeremiah 2:1-2
