I’ve always been pretty laid back. There are generations of
finely-tuned English restraint in my end of the gene pool, the most obvious
result of which is that I tend to be more comfortable with fairly austere,
reserved modes of praise.
But people were made to celebrate. Including me.
We’ve done it all through history, in good ways and bad.
Celebration seems to be hardwired into the human race, Brits notwithstanding. Whatever
doesn’t come out in church comes out anywhere near a football pitch. All
cultures celebrate, though it may look vastly different from one cultural
setting to another.
Celebration was baked into Israelite culture by God himself.
We may tend to think of the Law of Moses primarily as restricting and subduing
the baser human impulses, which it certainly did. Paul’s New Testament explanation
of the purpose of law reveals that it was primarily intended to create
awareness of sin, something he emphasizes over and over.
That’s doesn’t seem like something to celebrate, and it
isn’t. But the law was also an important aspect of Israel’s testimony to the
nations. As Moses himself put it, “What great nation is there, that has
statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?”
Indeed.
Tithes and Celebration
The law, had it been consistently obeyed, would have brought
Jehovah into every moment of Hebrew life: not simply consciousness of sin,
repentance and worship, civil order and moral and physical hygiene, but
even ... celebration. The tithe of the field was set aside specifically for this purpose:
“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire — oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.”
While it seems a bit odd to associate the legitimate use of wine,
strong drink and “cravings of the appetite” with the presence of Jehovah, the
verse is most definitely there, and it’s not going away. I do like the idea
that there is no corner of the human spirit that may legitimately recuse itself
from the presence of God and exempt itself from his touch.
The Festive Spirit in Acts
Christians, too, should celebrate, and maybe in ways we
don’t currently. After all, we have a great deal more to be festive about than God’s
earthly people did:
- the disciples celebrated the fact that they were reckoned worthy of suffering for their association with Jesus;
- the Ethiopian eunuch celebrated his salvation and his identification with Messiah;
- Barnabas celebrated the salvation of Gentiles, though, as a Levite, he had no national or personal investment in it; and
- the congregation in Antioch rejoiced that the Jewish law was not to be imposed upon Christian believers.
A Nation of Celebrants
If we leave aside the examples we see in the early church,
we find the epistles peppered with injunctions for us to be a people characterized
by celebration. Hope, truth, the obedience or joy of others, the maturing of
fellow believers, avid faith, sacrifice and the fellowship of Christ’s
sufferings are all causes of Christian cheer and exuberance — so many
different causes that listing them all quickly becomes tedious, so I won’t.
Suffice it to say that “rejoice always” and “in all things” are New Testament
watchwords.
So do we really celebrate like the early church? Do we bring
the Lord Jesus into every aspect of our lives, as the Israelites were
instructed to bring Jehovah into theirs? It’s worth considering.
Terms of Comparison
Now, I’m not at all suggesting that there is value in
behaving like delirious charismatics, or in working up the appearance of
enthusiasm to avoid looking less spiritual than the effervescent perk-bots we go
to church with (everybody knows at least one of these). Still, as much as I
prefer my glee in small doses, I suspect our tepid Sunday morning cheer might
seem just a tad feeble to the apostles, especially when during the week many of
us seem to be able to find our voices over things that, comparatively speaking,
don’t matter in the least.
For me at least, that means if I find myself more worked up
over a rock concert, a football game or a good job performance review than a
baptism, a new convert or an interpretation of a passage that suddenly connects
the dots for me, I have probably lost the plot somewhere.
It’s not about whether I can nail an 8.5/10 on the
celebration scale in church every Sunday morning. It’s about where everything
else in my life fits on that scale.
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