Friday, October
6, 2017
“Each year you must celebrate three festivals in my honor. First, celebrate the Festival of Unleavened
Bread. For seven days the bread you eat
must be made without yeast, just as I commanded you. Celebrate this festival annually at the
appointed time in early spring, in the month of Abib, for that is the
anniversary of your departure from Egypt. No one may appear before me without an
offering. “Second, celebrate the
Festival of Harvest, when you bring me the first crops of your harvest. “Finally, celebrate the Festival of the Final
Harvest at the end of the harvest season, when you have harvested all the
crops from your fields. At these three
times each year, every man in Israel must appear before the Sovereign,
the Lord. Exodus 23:14-17(NLT)
Festivals in
our state are plentiful, and they represent so many different issues, causes
and just plain any-kind-of-reason-to-have-a-party
theme you can imagine. At random I
picked a website[2] of the
festivals in North Carolina; there are so many different types of festivals
around the state this time of year…how can you choose?
·
Bluegrass
·
Latin
American Culture
·
State
& County fairs
·
Winston-Salem
International LGBT Film Festival
·
Family
Film Festival
·
Greensboro
Barks & Brews (I assume that’s for beer-drinking dogs)
·
Art and
Seafood Festivals galore
·
Chili
Challenge Festival
·
Cross-Country
Bicycling Festival
·
Hellbelly
Hootenanny in Asheville (don’t ask)
·
Lest
we leave somebody out, Thomasville has Everyone’s
Day to kick-off October
And, for
the all-time favorites there are going to be some tough choices or tough
schedules for those who attempt being in two different parts of the state at
the same time…Oktoberfest! On October 14th
Durham will host the World Beer
Festival. And providing the
tough choice of deep soul-searching for attending the event with the greatest
social conscience, just 241.3 miles west of Durham, Hendersonville will have
the Families Living Violence Free
Shagging Pig Festival[3].
You just
can’t make up some of this stuff!
Now, that’s
a bit of fun at the expense of our state’s tourism ticket, but the concept of festival has a long history,
and it is something we need. We need
celebration for numbers of reasons.
In today’s
Exodus reading God commanded Israel to celebrate three festivals annually. The purpose is to pass along the faith,
remembering not only Who
we worship, but why we
worship. The Exodus was a historical
divide for the Israelites, releasing them from Egyptian bondage. As American independence from British tyranny
is celebrated on July 4th each year so we will never forget the
meaning and cost of our freedom, God wanted all of His children to remember the
grave cost of their freedom.
Festivals
can lose momentum in time when the meaning gets drowned in the drinking, eating
and just plain partying. There is a
festival, ongoing for the last two thousand years, which started when the tomb
was discovered to be unoccupied. The
resurrection is celebrated every week in our communities of faith – and every
moment in our hearts, if we keep our life’s focus balanced well.
That is a
festival well-worth keeping!
For You Today
Whenever
and whatever you’re about
to celebrate, take a moment to re-focus on Who gave you the abundant life you’re going to invest in
that time.
[3]
Actually there is a
social issue at back of this festival…a focus on eradicating domestic violence
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