One of my early lessons from reading the entirety of the Bible was noticing how many feasts God chose for His people. Lots. And proper parties, where everyone came and shared and everyone went home full. Community happened, blessings were shared. Look it up for yourself. God likes a good party.
I’m a Protestant with Messianic leanings – I know that most of the West’s holidays were lifted from various European traditions and paganism. I battled that back and forth for a good while, because Truth is important to me. Finally I decided that the heart of the holiday is what matters. The idea of community, and whatever it is that we’re celebrating. That’s why I have little use for Halloween – celebrating evil isn’t my bag. But Christmas? Christmas is good. On Christmas, we celebrate our Lord’s birth. Was He born in December? Very unlikely. But we don’t have a date. So, we use this one. Whatever. I was born in December – there are plenty of years I’d just as soon celebrate my birthday in June. Would be more convenient. (I don’t, but it’s been done).
What do we celebrate on Christmas? What do we do? We get together as families, and we worship the King. We give each other gifts, because He gave us the best gift of all time. And we feast.
Souls need feast times. Times of joy, times to eat the richest food and drink the most elaborate drinks. Feast times give us a reason to endure the normal days, a reason to endure the fast times. Protestants tend toward asceticism – as if the porridge and water of everyday, virtuous and healthy as it is, should be EVERY day. But lives need rhythm – and the memory of the Christmas feasting carries one through the dark days of January and February.
In other words, eat the fudge, drink the eggnog, have your fill – and you likely won’t want another serving for a year. Hug your relatives, sleep late, enjoy your presents and don’t feel guilty. You were created to enjoy feasts, and isn’t that kind of cool? 🙂
Hands, Heart, Hearth 
The Feast of Tabernacles is during September. It celebrates the foretold Messiah, who was born during it. Saul intended to sacrifice cattle to Yahweh he was told to kill in place. He paid dearly for his rebellion. So did the nephews of Moses and the guy who just wanted to keep the ark from falling. Saying it is “all about the heart” means “I want to do it so here is how I will rationalize it”. That makes one an idoliter of their own heart. This is not some deep mystery. The Bible clearly tells you what to celebrate and how. Google can clearly tell you the history of roman catholic pagan festival (where they murdered Christians to celebrate xmas by the way).
This is not hard. The choice is clear.
The Feast of Tabernacles *is* in September, and that’s one of the better hypotheses that I’ve heard. However, I’ve also heard arguments for Spring. We don’t know, because it wasn’t written down.
As we have been released from the Law by Jesus’ perfect performance and His death, I am no longer required to keep the feasts in the Bible. Sometimes I do, because they are rich in lessons, history, and meaning – but I am not required to do so.
If you want to hold yourself to that law, you’re going to want to do so in JERUSALEM, which is part of what is required.
I’m well aware of the history of various festivals – the origins, what they mean now, and where we got our current version. (Queen Vicky was quite the influence on western culture).
If you are in community where you can celebrate the Biblical holidays rather than the cultural holidays, and you can feast together with the brethren… I envy you, a bit.
But as for the rest? I’ve been over it with a fine-toothed comb, spent years thrashing it out, and this is where I stand. I may be wrong – but I am not ignorant.
Thought I’d drop in and say hi (exceedingly rare to get to do so). Anyhow, hope all is well, and 2017 brings some good blessings. 🙂
Thank you! I hope you have a beautiful 2017 as well. Always looking forward to new things. 🙂
Yeah. Hoping to start that other blog I talked about some time in the near future. We’ll see. Until then, I’m a lurker, as I have been. 🙂
Well, let me know when you start the blog, I’ll link and read! 🙂
@hearthie
Actually it’s already started, but just haven’t had the time/ability to do anything with it yet.
I’m always impressed by people who have such intentionality with their blogging. I just write….
Happy New Year, Ballista.
And happy new year to you, too.
@hearthie
FWIW, I got the urge to blog (in general), so I got going. Not quite the plans I originally had in mind, but something informal that can work for the things I have in mind to share that are outside of my main blogging plans.
http://ballista74.wordpress.com/
I hopped over and visited. 🙂 Will update my sidebar presently.
Thank you!