Partying that Provokes

  • David Fairchild
  • May 24, 2009
  • Series: Nehemiah

Nehemiah 8:13-18: “On the second day the heads of fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Law. 14 And they found it written in the Law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, 15 and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, ‘Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.’ 16 So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. 17 And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. 18 And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the rule.”

We’ve been in the great book of Nehemiah the last several weeks and as we’ve unpacked the meaning of this book, we’ve begun to learn more about our God and His grace.  We’ve learned that the book of Nehemiah really isn’t about the restoration of a wall but about the restoration of a people who had forgotten what it was like to trust in God and live in such a way that demonstrated their love and reverence for Him. 

A man, Nehemiah, is given the heart of Jesus and he comes from a distance and dwells with his people to lead them into living hope in a living God who will rebuild and restore their ruined lives.  They’re called into this great missional building project as a way of enacting what God was doing with them.  As they dust off the old stones that have fallen and lift them in place, they’re shown that though their hearts have fallen and grown dusty, God is lifting them up again and putting them in the place they belong.  As they restore gates that were destroyed by fire, they are shown that God is restoring their burned lives and making them new again.

This is why from chapter 7 on, this story focuses on the lives of God’s people and how they are to live in response to God’s saving and restoring grace.  It’s about a Holy God who is shaping a holy people to live the way they were created to live. 

Last week Tim opened the Scriptures and we read the story of God’s people opening their Scriptures for the first time in many years.  The people were so hungry to hear from their God that they all gathered together as one man and told Ezra to open the book of the Law and read it.  They listened to the Word being read and explained to them for six hours!  They were hungry and needed to hear from God.  As they did they began to weep as their hearts were broken over how far they were from what God intended for them. 

But as they wept they were told by Nehemiah, Ezra, the Priests, Scribes, and Levites not to mourn but instead to return to their homes and rejoice because the “joy of the Lord is their strength.”  So they went home, ate great food, and drank great wine.  They shared what they had with those who had nothing and did as they were instructed because they understood God’s word.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at God’s people being called to generosity and the reason why they were to be generous.  Because their God was a generous God and they were to live in response to His generosity.  Then we looked at God’s people being called to rejoice last week because their God is a God of great joy.  And this joy is their strength. 

This week we’re looking at God’s people being called to celebrate.  Why do you think they’re being called to a celebration?  Because their God is a celebrating God and He wants His people to live as they were intended, in response to His character and His nature.  This is why we were all created.  We were created to live a responsive life. 

And the fact is, we do respond to what we worship.  We actually become like what we worship.  We will either respond in hopelessness and despair because we’ve forgotten what God is like or we’ll live in joy and celebration because we remember who He is and who we are in Him.

Continuously we read in the Old Testament that God’s people are called to remember what God has done.  The reason is important.  Our propensity to forget what God is like and has done is the primary reason we fail to respond with joy and trust in God’s faithfulness.  The reason we have such great difficulty celebrating is because we’ve forgotten what we have to celebrate. 

God’s people can be quick to forget and slow to remember.  This is why God gave us His word, so that we would never forget what God was like.  So that we can always turn and listen again to who He is, what He’s done, and what He promises to do.

STUDY

Verse 13: “On the second day the heads of fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Law.”

So after the first day of reading, remembering, and rejoicing, the heads of the families come back the second day to hear more from their God.

The first mark of true revival begins with the hearts of the fathers, the heads of the home, being turned towards God and then towards their family. 

The leaders of the home realized that unless they soaked themselves in God’s words they would be doomed to forget what He’s like and they would lead their families in despair and hopelessness.  So they came together to hear, read, and remember what their God was like. 

Verse 14: “And they found it written in the Law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month.”

In their studying and reading they found in God’s word what was commanded for His people.  God wanted His people to be a feasting and partying people.  They realized that this feast they were reading about was at the same time of the year they were in so they began to prepare for this great feast of the seventh month. 

The Feasts

God has instituted a number of feasts and celebrations throughout the year for His people.  His people were supposed to reflect what God was like in the way they celebrated. 

There were seven main feasts that the Jews would celebrate and a number of smaller monthly feasts as well.  They were called to party together and remind each other of what God was like and as they did it they were to feast and rejoice. 

This was to help His people continuously remember that the joy of the Lord was their strength and that God was a redeeming, restoring, and rejoicing God; that they were His people and He was their God. 

Turn with me to Leviticus 23.  In this chapter we’re not given all the details and historical setting, but we are shown the various feasts they were required to keep.

I want you to look at Leviticus 23:2.  Who’s appointed feasts are these?  It says they are the God’s appointed feasts.  These are the Lord’s.  He created them, describes them, and then calls His people to enjoy them as His feasts.

Sabbath

Leviticus 23:3 The first thing that God planned for His people was to celebrate their God by resting in Him, trusting in Him, enjoying Him, and remembering that all we do throughout the week is for Him.  Most likely our inability to rest is an underlying reason for our lack of rejoicing and celebrating.  Not being able to rest is a clear demonstration of what we believe.  We can’t rest because we believe that we are our own security.  What we demonstrate is that we think everything will fall apart without our involvement.

Passover

This is the first of the Jewish feasts in the spring in the Jewish month of Nisan. This corresponds with our Easter celebrations. The Passover feast celebrates the Jews being delivered out of Egyptian slavery. The name Passover is taken from the first Passover in which each Hebrew household sacrificed a yearling lamb without spot or blemish. The blood of the lamb was sprinkled on the crosspiece and side posts of the door. The Angel of Death passed over the homes sprinkled with blood, while those without the blood had the first born child slain.

The Jews saw Passover as having agricultural, historical, and spiritual significance. In addition to reminding them of their ancestors receiving freedom from their bondage from Egypt (historical and spiritual), it also reminded them of their dependence on God for rain which marked the end of their rainy season.

Feast of Unleavened Bread

This feast occurred during Passover beginning the day after Passover eve and lasted for seven days. During this time the Jews removed all leaven from their households and ate unleavened bread. The unleavened bread reminded them of their ancestors who hurriedly left Egypt for the Promised Land and did not have time to wait for their dough to rise.  Leaven was also a metaphor for sin.  The family would find all the leaven in their home and throw it out as a way of demonstrating that they were to rid themselves of any remaining sin. 

The Feast of First Fruits

Also related to Passover and Unleavened Bread, this Jewish feast celebrated "the morrow after the Sabbath" or the day after the first day of Unleavened bread. The Jewish feast was a celebration of thanksgiving for the barley harvest during biblical times. The significance of the barley harvest was this was the first grain of the season and the Hebrews saw it as a promise of larger harvests in the future. As Christians, we see Jesus as our First Fruit, because just as the barley harvest was the promise of more to come, He is our promise of resurrection and eternal life since he conquered death and the grave for us.

Feast of Weeks or Pentecost

The Feast of Weeks came exactly 50 days after the Passover Sabbath. The name Pentecost means “50”. The Jews refer to this feast as Shavuot which in Hebrew means “Weeks”. This feast is also a feast of thanksgiving for the wheat harvest. Many believe that this is also the day that the Law was received from Moses on Mt. Sinai. The particular significance for this one of the Jewish feasts is that the priests offered two loaves of bread which were made with newly harvested grain and contained leaven or yeast.

The feasts during the seventh month we’re reading about in Nehemiah:

Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah

This feast was several months after Pentecost.  The Feast of Trumpets, also called Rosh Hashanah, was the beginning of the Jewish New Year.  It was part of a month-long celebration.  The people were called to blow the trumpet or shofar every day during the celebration so that everyone who heard it would repent and prepare for the Day of Atonement 10 days later. 

Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur

After the ten days of repentance and searching themselves, the most solemn day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, was observed by biblical Jews. This was a time of prayer and fasting. It also marked the only time when the high priest could enter into the Holy of Holies inside the temple. He was covered with the blood of a sacrificed animal to beg forgiveness for the sins of the people.

It was to demonstrate that when we violate God, we’re violating the giver of life.  Life must be taken to demonstrate that we would much rather choose death than life and the consequences of our choices means the life that’s in the blood is shed.  As an example an animal was killed to show that their sins required death.  The priest would lay his hands on the head of the animal and cry out the sins of the people upon the animal and then slit its throat.  And as disgusting and horrific as this was to perform, it was to remind the people of how disgusting and horrific their sin was to God. 

Also, another goat would be taken and the priest would pray and place the sins of the people of Israel on the goat and then set it free as the scapegoat that was never to return to the camp.  Not only does God forgive us of our guilt but He removes our sin from us and remembers it no more. 

Then we come to the feast that the heads of the homes were reading about, the Feast of Booths.

Feast of Booths or Sukkot

The final feast is referred to as Sukkot which in Hebrew means Tabernacle or Booths. This marked a time for the biblical Jews to build open-topped tent-like structures and live in them during this time as a reminder of the temporary dwellings the Israelites lived in during the wilderness journey.

Let’s look at what they did during this feast in verses 15.

Verse 15: “and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, ‘Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.’ 16 So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. 17 And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. 18 And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the rule.”

The reason God called them to do this was so that they would remember that God had set them free from Egypt and it was a rehearsal of the kind of booths their ancestors lived in during their time after their release from slavery until they entered the Promised Land. 

God didn’t want His people to forget His redemption.  He wanted them to act it out and always remember His power to save.  It followed the time of harvest so they would get the branches after the harvest and they would build living quarters.

Can you imagine what this would be like if we all moved out of our houses for a week and built tents on our streets and everyone joined us and we all celebrated, read God’s word, ate, drank, laughed and rejoiced as we talked about how good God was to save us from our slavery?  Someone would stand during the day and read God’s Word in the middle of our camp and then when it was night we would barbecue and lift our cups in honor of our mighty King and Redeemer.

What an incredible, visible witness this would be.  And that’s exactly what it was supposed to be.  God wanted seven days of visible demonstration that God was their Redeemer and Provider.  In fact, when they built the booths they were supposed to keep an opening in the roof so they could look up and see the stars that God made in the sky.

This was supposed to remind them of the promise God made to Abraham that his offspring would be as numerous as the starts in the sky.  It was a missional reminder that God gave this promise and saved these people to be a witness to the nations so that God would gather in a multitude of those He was going to love and pour His grace upon.

The reason they were instructed to live in these booths made from leaves was to remind them that everything they had, including their homes, were a blessing from God and came from His good hand.  God wanted His people to never forget!

Remember Me!  Remember what I’ve done for you!  Remember my salvation!  Remember my good hand to give you all you need!  Don’t forget!  You’re my people.  I’m your God.  Never forget!  And as you remember, party and rejoice, celebrate and eat for your joy and my glory.  And show this off to the nations watching you.

If you didn’t have God’s word, especially the Old Testament, you would think by walking into a church that we were the most boring, stiff, somber, and hopeless people. 

But when you open the OT, you realize that we are supposed to be the biggest partiers and most joyous and celebratory people that have ever lived!  Listen, Jews don’t throw bad parties.  You know why?  They know how to express themselves and they show what it looks like to party. 

We are grafted into this family, we are children of Abraham because we’ve believed in Christ and we are to pick up this same heart of celebration and rejoicing. 

And the reason we struggle so mightily with joy and celebration is because we have forgotten.  We have forgotten what God is like.  We have forgotten how good He is.  We have forgotten how merciful He is.  We have forgotten how He’s rescued us.  We have forgotten that He is a God of great joy.  We have forgotten that He loves to be with us.  We have forgotten.

So, our hearts become hungry and our souls become thirsty for other things that we hope will satisfy us.  And we become disheartened and hopeless when we find out they are empty and don’t fill us.  So we stuff in more and more and more, trying to fill that emptiness that gnaws at us and eats us away from the inside out. 

Some of you are trying to satisfy your spiritual thirst through a relationship and you’re finding that because the other person is just as broken as you, they can’t sustain your needs.

Some of you are trying to satisfy your hunger by staying busy with friends and hobbies and you’re realizing that when you’re alone, you’re truly alone.  You feel the void of nothingness that tells you you’re worthless.

Some of are trying to feast on the pleasures of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, only to find that not only do they leave you empty, you now feel a guilt and shame for your self-absorption.

Some of you are trying to bridge the gap of our separation with God by being good people and it’s only making you resentful of God and hateful and critical of others.  You’re starting to realize that religion is killing you.

So how are you going to celebrate and rejoice?  How are you going to fill up what your soul is hungering and thirsting for?  Will you keep doing the same?

Jesus realizes the thirst of our soul and in John 7, in the midst of this same feast, the Feast of Booths, at the very end when everyone drank all they could and ate all their stomachs could handle, and laughed hard and loud, Jesus stands up and says this:

John 7:37: “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.’”

After all this feasting are you still hungry?  After all this drinking are you still thirsty?  Does your soul still feel parched and dry no matter how much you laugh?  Is anyone thirsty?  Come to me and drink.  Come to me and taste and see how much there is to feast upon.  Come to me and find the joy your heart has always wanted, always needed, and couldn’t find anywhere else.  Come to me and I will fill you.  I will give you living water.  I will satisfy you.  I can and will be enough.

John 7:38: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"

Jesus is our Sabbath.  He is the rest for our souls.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb that was killed and whose blood was sprinkled over our lives so that God’s wrath would pass over us. 

Jesus is our unleavened bread who is without sin and has come down to be our bread of life.

Jesus is our first born, first fruit of God, the first born from the dead so that we would be given new life by God giving His greatest and best to us.

Jesus is our Pentecost who is given so that we might be thankful to God and generous to others.  The Law came to Moses on Pentecost but when Jesus came He brought us grace.

Jesus is the one who will blow the final trumpet on the last day and call everyone of His own to Himself. 

Jesus is not only our High Priest who offers a sacrifice in the Holy of Holies on the day of our atonement, He is the sacrificial Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.

Jesus is the basis for our Feast of Booths.  Not only does He fulfill all that these feasts pointed towards by satisfying the hunger of our souls, He also comes and tabernacles among us, He pitches a tent (John 1:14) and comes to us. 

It is no accident that the Feast of Booths follows the Day of Atonement.  Redemption comes first, then celebration.  When we fail to celebrate it’s because we fail to remember our redemption in Christ.  When Israel failed to celebrate and rejoice it was because they forgot their redemption that God won for them.  Our memory is tied to our joy, what we know about God, and what we know about His actions on our behalf.  History, for us, is alive because it is how our theology is formed.

Future Jerusalem

Isaiah 65:17-19: "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.  18 But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.  19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.”

0 Comments | Login to Post Comments