THANKSGIVING in the OT: Festival of Tabernacles
Happy Thanksgiving!
What is the meaning of Thanksgiving? For some, it is all about the Thanksgiving Break: 5 days, or an entire week, to take a break from school or work. For many, it is a time for families to gather, eat too much turkey, and appreciate their blessings. For many, it is the beginning of the holiday shopping season (which began in September)—a day to prepare for Black Friday (starting at sundown!), Cyber Monday, and the coming holiday rush. For a few people like us, it is a time to gather and give thanks to God for the blessings of the year.
As we celebrate Thanksgiving this year, we want to dig a little deeper into the meaning of the celebration. It has roots in the Old Testament. Exodus 23:16 says, “Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.” For farmers without irrigation or insecticides, it was natural to thank God for providing the rains and keeping the pests away. If our food comes from grocery stores or home delivery, we don’t have that visceral sense of gratitude for the harvest. What does Thanksgiving mean for us? We need to dig a little deeper.
The Festival of Ingathering was much more than a prayer of thanksgiving before digging into the turkey. It was like a church campout!
Leviticus 23:39-43 “Beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the LORD for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’ ”
(Note to preacher: This sermon was originally part of an interactive experience in the fellowship hall of the church. At this point, I asked for volunteers to build a shelter, to represent what the Israelites would have built. I provided a simple v-shaped structure [left over from VBS], and branches to make a roof. We sang a couple of traditional hymns, as the volunteers made the shelter.)
What was the purpose of living in temporary shelters? The shelters reminded the people of their time in the wilderness, when they had no land, no houses, and no crops. They were totally dependent upon God. When they were comfortably settled in the promised land, and they took their prosperity for granted, God wanted them to remember that they would not be where they were without him!
We also have a tendency to take our blessings for granted. Thanksgiving should be a time to remember that everything we have comes from God—especially our freedom in Christ, Christian families and the church, and the privilege of trusting God.
(For an interactive experience, with the people sitting at tables, ask each table to write on the paper provided some things that are often taken for granted. Then, one or more people at the table can pray, and thank God for what he has given to them.)
Because of the shelters that were built, the Festival of Ingathering was also called the Festival of Tabernacles (or the Feast of Booths). The festival took on additional meaning through the years, which can enrich our understanding of Thanksgiving as well.
HOW SHOULD WE CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING?
1. WE SHOULD REMEMBER THE POOR.
In Deuteronomy 16:13-17, Moses gives instructions: “Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the festival to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the LORD empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.”
As the people settled in the Promised Land, some would be more prosperous, while some would miss out on the bounty of the land. Rich and poor would be separated socially, according to wealth and status. In the Festival, however, all would live in the same shelters, and celebrate together: rich and poor (orphans and widows), servants and masters, even aliens who did not have legal rights. There was also an offering, which was proportional, according to how God had blessed them.
In many churches, a Thanksgiving offering is designated to a variety of benevolent causes. In some churches, it is the largest offering of the year, distributed to organizations that help people in need. That is appropriate, as the Festival was a time to show solidarity with the poor.
(If this is an interactive experience, now would be the time to collect the offering! I had the children collect it.)
2. WE SHOULD REPENT AND REJOICE.
The Festival of Tabernacles was a joyful celebration. Yet there came a time when the Jews were not able to celebrate with joy. Because of their sin, they were taken away into Babylon as exiles, where they owned no land, and had no harvest of their own. One of them wrote a song that reflected their mood, Psalm 137:4 “How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?” They stopped celebrating the Festival, since they had little to celebrate.
After 70 years in exile, a few went back to the Promised Land. They rediscovered the law of God, and they sought revival. The Festival of Tabernacles became an occasion for both celebration and repentance:
Nehemiah 8:13-9:3 “On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, gathered around Ezra the teacher to give attention to the words of the Law. They found written in the Law, which the LORD had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month and that they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem: “Go out into the hill country and bring back branches from olive and wild olive trees, and from myrtles, palms and shade trees, to make temporary shelters”—as it is written. So the people went out and brought back branches and built themselves temporary shelters on their own roofs, in their courtyards, in the courts of the house of God and in the square by the Water Gate and the one by the Gate of Ephraim. The whole company that had returned from exile built temporary shelters and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great. Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly. On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God.”
We don’t often connect confession of sin with joy and thanksgiving. Yet for the Jews, returning to God’s ways through the Law was the key to a life of freedom and blessing.
As we thank God for our blessings today, are also aware of how we miss many of God’s blessings, because we are not living as God commands. Our families, our communities, and our nation struggle because of disobedience and neglect of God and his ways.
As we pray today, we should repent of whatever we have done that leaves people in sin and separation from God, in poverty and oppression. We should pray for ourselves and others, that we might return to God, and receive his bountiful blessings again. As we seek God and his ways, we will be filled with his joy.
(If you are doing an interactive experience, lead the group in a prayer of confession, assurance, the joy of forgiveness and grace, and commitment to seeking God and his ways.)
AT THANKSGIVING, WE CAN HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.
The Festival of Tabernacles celebrated the past. As people remembered the time in the wilderness, they did not remember it as a time of rebellion and frustration, but as a simpler time when the people were dependent on God, who provided for their needs.
When we celebrate Thanksgiving, we might have nostalgic memories of times when church attendance was higher, communities were safer, and our nation seemed more godly. If we idealize the past, however, it is easy to despair about the present and the future.
When a small number of Jews returned from exile in Babylon, they were faced with harsh realities. Their modest temple did not compare with the grand temple that Solomon had built. Many of them were influenced by the pagan values and lifestyle of the pagans around them. Their political and economic existence was threatened by powerful nations on every side. They were fearful for the future, and some of their fears were realized, as the land would be overrun by the Greeks and then the Romans.
Yet in the midst of their fears, God spoke through his prophet, Zechariah, to give a new vision of the Festival of Tabernacles. It was a vision of a greater future, with greater blessings—not only for Jews, but for all people.
Zechariah 14:16-19 “Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.”
Zechariah said more than he knew, for the “survivors from all the nations” are us! We are non-Jewish people from the nations, coming to the Festival in humility, and in joyful celebration. Praise God for what he has done: not in punishment, but in salvation.
Our Thanksgiving should not be a time of fear, but a time of hope. When we gather at our tables with our families and friends, feeling the love and counting our blessings, we can look forward to a day when all will gather at God’s table, to celebrate his blessings. As Jesus promised in Luke 13:29, “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
The Israelites looked back to their shelters in the wilderness, where rich and poor together trusted God to provide for them. We look ahead to our home in heaven, as Jesus promised in John 14:1-2, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?”
On this Thanksgiving, we celebrate not only our blessings in the past, but the greater blessings to come. We will be totally free from the bondage of sin, celebrating an eternal feast with all God’s people. The poor and needy will be blessed, sinners will become saints, and the joy of the Lord will be shared by all, in the presence of the God who has redeemed his people as his own.
So on this Thanksgiving, we remember the poor, we turn back to God and his ways, and we live in hope of God’s eternal blessings. Thanks be to God!
