Suffice it to say, this is an huge undertaking that requires all of the resources, people and space of our church. I can tell you, I was so amazing blessed for my family and I to be a part of this ministry.
My role, we to do some tech support and help as needed, and to be a villager in the Bethlehem scene. I got to hand out authentic Matzo bread.
So, I'm in costume, handing out unleavened bread. Suddenly I'm approached by a woman who says... wait for it... "Can I ask you a religious question?"
"Umm... sure? What's up?" I reply, imagining the gauntlet of skeptical arguments and theological difficulties she might have in mind. Frantically I start bracing myself and recalling the past several years of Seminary and all of the study I have put into Biblical interpretation and understanding...
So, she asks "I'm really amazed by all of this effort to tell the story of Jesus. Why don't we still celebrate the Jewish holidays as our own?"
For a moment.. I was speechless. (Ask my wife, or anyone in my office, this is not common.)
What a great question!
I started to explain that part of Jesus' issue with the Jewish High Holy Days, and the sacrificial system of that time. Well, it sort of revealed the best of the Jewish people, and the worst. On the positive side, people knew sacrifice was required and tool the practice quite seriously. On the not so good side, the religious authority had become so corrupt, they realized they had the people trapped. I recently heard Joe Boyd's retelling of the Gospel of Luke, and in it he compares what was happening in the Temple, with what it's like going to a professional baseball game. You know, when you walk in the gate, immediately a hot dog costs $9 and a small beer is $12. They have you trapped!
So it was at the temple. Sacrifice was NOT optional. And, if you didn't have your own animal, the only place to get one that was legit, was... you guessed it... purchased from the Temple itself. The markup was insane!
My point to this woman was that Jesus realized that ritual and tradition had replaced relationship. This is NOT what God desired from His people. (If you don't believe me, check out the Book of Amos.) God wants a change of heart, repentance, restoration and relationship. THAT is why Jesus came. To make that possible, and to setup the Kingdom of God, a new Kingdom, with a new economy and a revolutionary love and forgiveness that would change the world forever.
So, the Jewish holidays became less significant as Christians began to sort out what it means to live in relationship with God not replace that relationship with some empty ritual.
We left the conversation like this: While it wouldn't necessarily be wrong to celebrate these festivals and holidays. (Jesus likely did too). We have to be careful that they don't replace the relationship God desires and requires.
A couple of days later, as I was reading, I came upon this statement, and I wish I had it in mind as I responded to this woman.
Paul, as he writes to the believer at Collosae, in Colossians Chapter 2:6-23 we read:
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their nonspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
Jesus, by his sinless life, death on the cross, and resurrection over the dead fulfilled the old Law. He didn't change it, or devalue it. He completed it. We couldn't, so God did.
I wish I had this verse in mind as I shared with this person. It was a great question. Paul says that we shouldn't be judged by others on whether we celebrate certain festivals or not. God doesn't want that anyway. That wasn't His design when He created Humanity. Remember Genesis, God and Adam and Eve would walk together in the cool of the day. God made people for relationship with Him, with one another, and with Creation.
The rituals and traditions, the celebrations and sacrifices, these were all part of a system created to deal with the corruption that broke the world through sin. This was God providing a way for humanity to make it right. But we turned it into an empty system. There was no relationship.
So, God provided Jesus. Himself in the flesh. to do what we could not. Jesus took care of it. All of it.
Now, we can have relationship with our Creator! Christmas is such an amazing time!
So, to my friend who asked why we don't celebrate these things anymore. I'd say the same thing. It might be a wonderful and helpful reminder of God's faithfulness and love. It could be a rich and powerful experience to celebrate such a Holy Day as a follower of Jesus. It's just that as Paul says, Jesus took care of it. God wants us to have a relationship with Him, not some festival or ritual.
As Christians, this remains a helpful and powerful warning as we look ahead to celebrating Christmas. This can be a beautiful, generous and loving time of year (or a brutal shopping experience at Wal-Mart on Dec 23rd...), but if we don't catch what happened in that manger. That God Himself left all of His Glory behind and became a crying, helpless, naked baby in a feeding trough, surrounded by smelly animals, born to an unwed mother and her soon-to-be husband, both of whom would be scorned by their community, family and friends... all so that he could be tortured and hung on a cross to die... all for US! If we don't get that... then we've missed it.
JESUS TOOK CARE OF IT!
We celebrate, we rejoice and praise him. But we don't do it to get something. We've gotten all we could ever need. We've gotten so much more than we have earned. Jesus calls us worth it. We are valued and loved.
We celebrate because of what we've been given. As that overflows out of us, we become a light shining in the darkness.
I'm so excited for Christmas this year! (And to be honest, no... life isn't always easy these days.)
My excitement isn't about gifts, or meals (ok...maybe a little). I'm excited because Jesus says I'm worth it. YOU are worth it. My prayer is that my excitement at this incredible news, that Jesus is Lord, and that he says we are worth it... my prayer is that God will fill us all with the truth of this amazing news so full that we are bursting at the seams and that it spills out all around us.
Whatever other traditions, rituals and celebrations we have this season, let's start a new one too. Let's make it a tradition to be full. Not of pumpkin pie, or turkey or stuffing... (enjoy, but remember why). Let's be full of Jesus. He completed the work. Let us turn back to him, build the relationship and out of our thanksgiving and celebration, let's share our joy with anyone, anyone who will listen.
We have everything we need in Jesus. How can we give it away?
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