Title: Keep the Feast of Tabernacles
Contents
In the Old Testament, it is a festival that the Israelites keep after the Exodus from Egypt to commemorate their 40 years of living in tabernacles in the wilderness. After harvesting the land, they kept it for 8 days from July 15th. For 7 days, they built a tent in the field and lived there. On the 8th day, they made offerings and kept it as a holy assembly.
Thanksgiving is derived from the religious life of British Puritans who came to America to live a godly life. Puritans escaped persecution from Catholicism and went to the Netherlands to keep their faith, lived for 11 years, and then boarded a 180-ton small boat, the Mayflower, and arrived at the New World, the Port of Plymouth, in the United States, after 65 days of voyage in 1620.
It was a cold winter when they arrived. Malnutrition due to severe cold and lack of food killed 44 out of 102 people in the winter that year, and the rest suffered from disease and had to work hard due to lack of workers. It was the Indians who helped them who were in great pain at that time. Indians, the natives of the New World, gave corn and other grains to the Puritans in difficult circumstances, and taught them how to farm.
With their help, in 1621 the Puritans were able to reap a bountiful harvest. The origin of Thanksgiving is that the Puritans invited the Indians who had given them grace, ate the harvested grain and turkey, and gave thanks for the first harvest in the new continent together.
It was in 1904 that the Korean church began to observe Thanksgiving as a church feast. At first, the Presbyterian Church alone celebrated November 10 as Thanksgiving Day, but as a result of the meeting of the denomination mission in 1914, it was kept as the third Wednesday of November to commemorate the arrival of American missionaries to Korea. Sunday was celebrated as Thanksgiving.
As Korean society is rapidly changing into an industrial society, the Thanksgiving celebrations held at churches in the past are now becoming a thing of the past that remains in our memories. Thanksgiving, which has been observed at the church, has not been able to preserve its original purpose and passed like an annual event, so there is an argument that it should be replaced with a nationalistic Chuseok.
The fundamental purpose of Thanksgiving is to express gratitude to God for keeping us and giving us a bountiful harvest during the year, and to give thanks. Thanksgiving is important in its original meaning. An American church is said to use part or all of its seasonal offerings to help the needy neighbors such as the homeless and starving children around the church to revive the meaning of Thanksgiving, or to invite local residents to hold a feast. It is to empathize with the mission of evangelizing the community by showing that the church is taking the lead in serving the community. What, then, is the spiritual lesson this Feast of Tabernacles gives us?
1. Rejoice completely (verse 14)
1) Your children, slaves, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows contact each other. -Love your neighbor as yourself.
2) in the place chosen by the Lord - in the church community
3) For a blessing in all your goods and in all that you put your hands on - ask in faith, faith and hope
2. Give as much as you can (16-17)
1) Do not come out empty-handed, but bring your gift Think of the grace you have bestowed upon each of us.
Thank you for your blessings.
Matthew 6:19 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
Matthew 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break through and steal.
Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
John 12:3 Mary took a pound of very expensive perfume, pure nard, poured it on Jesus' feet, and washed his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the smell of perfume.
John 12:4 Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples who was going to arrest Jesus, said,
John 12:5 Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?
If you love the Lord, give it your best. In the end, you give it for yourself.
3. Remember the days of slavery (Deuteronomy 16:1)
Remember the 430 years of slavery in Egypt. Consider that we, who were slaves to sin, are set free from sin through Jesus Christ. He protected them with a pillar of fire and cloud for 40 years in the wilderness.
freed from suffering from slavery. He fed quail with manna for 40 years. My clothes didn't come apart and my feet didn't swell. Remember God's grace.
We are strangers. Look at your hometown of Canaan with faith.
1 Peter 1:17 If you call him Father, who judges each person according to their deeds, not by outward appearance, live your sojourners in fear.
1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I urge you, as strangers and passersby, to control the lusts of the flesh that war against the soul
Psalm 39:12 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and listen to my cry; do not be silent when I weep; for I am a stranger and a sojourner to you, like all my ancestors.
Hebrews 11:13 All these died to the faith, and did not receive the promise, but seeing them from afar and welcoming them, and testifying that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
Hebrews 11:14 For those who speak like this show that they are seeking a homeland.
Hebrews 11:15 If they had thought of the country from which they came, they would have had a chance to return.
Hebrews 11:16 Now they long for a better homeland, which is in heaven; therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, but has prepared for them a city.
The spiritual meaning of Thanksgiving is as follows.
Let's share love with our neighbors of the lowly through the harvest.
Knowing that all of these are blessings from God, let us give thanks to Him.
Let's be grateful for the grace of salvation, realize that we are a stranger to our eternal homeland, and become more fruitful of the Holy Spirit.