Title: Thanksgiving Message/Leviticus 23:39, 42-43
Leviticus 23:39, 42-43
After you have gathered all the crops from your fields, you must keep the feasts to the Lord for seven days from the full moon of the seventh month. The first day is a day of rest. Even the eighth day is a day of rest. For seven days you must stay in booths. Then your descendants will know that when I brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, I made them dwell in booths. I am the Lord your God.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Always rejoice. Pray constantly. Be grateful for everything. This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
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Second, this is a purely American Puritan tradition. That's why Koreans keep them in Korea. A more serious problem is that these people thanked God for the first grain they planted after Thanksgiving came to America, and what they ate until the grain came out. Until then, what those people ate was what they ate and bought from the farms of the Native American Indians. Then, of course, we had to thank God and at the same time thank the Indians. Nevertheless, as you always see in cowboy movies, the descendants of these Puritans knew how to thank God, but they slaughtered all these Indians who had been feeding them for a year and took their land. Why do we have to keep the traditions of those people is what led me to reject it. So we thought we'd celebrate our Thanksgiving.
Looking at our Thanksgiving Day, I knew that Chuseok, on the full moon in August, is a very good day. First, this has a solid basis in the Bible. In the book of Leviticus you read today, the Israelites kept the day of the full moon rising after the end of July as their feast, the Feast of Tabernacles. This is Thanksgiving. From then on, a grand feast of thanksgiving takes place for ten thousand days. The Feast of Tabernacles observed by the people of the Old Testament is our Chuseok. Certainly this has a biblical basis. Not only that, but our Thanksgiving is similar to the Feast of Tabernacles in the Bible. First, it is the giving thanks to God with fresh grain, the second is not only one family, but also all men and women, slaves, and wanderers all gathered and ate together. that it happened.
Even now, when I look back on my life in my church, I thank the elders, deacons, and members who have always served this church with me. After removing all the pieces and laying the mongseok, a mask dance pad comes out and dances the mask dance, and as you all know, there are a lot of double sounds in mask dance. But since it's a church, I would like it to be a little bit more refined and use more polite words, but I danced while keeping the double voices as they are. It's hard to accept that a decent member of the church. But in my church there was no one against it. I don't know if there were people who didn't say anything behind the scenes and objected. I think that such a wonderful church was our church.
But yesterday's newspaper said that Gyeongdong Church was the first church in Korea to keep Thanksgiving as Chuseok, but now it is said that Jeil Church and Hyangrin Church are also keeping it. The sad thing is that 25 years have passed, and despite what we have clearly claimed in newspapers and other articles, it is still a disease of the Korean church that we have not been able to change. I think that our history should be developed and passed on by you.
Our life of thanksgiving cannot be stopped as long as we live by faith no matter what situation we are in, and this event where we gather together to give thanks, and then celebrate and share food does not end here. The day of the end that Jesus promised us On the day of the end, a great feast of the kingdom of God will be held in the new heavens and new earth. We look forward to that great feast and have a taste of the feast here, that is our worship and our feast. I hope you will keep this in your heart and live a life of true gratitude.