Two Benefits of Attending and Attending TO a Festival or Feast

Two weeks ago I experienced a festival with a feast at my eldest daughter’s wedding.

The memory of the event bounces around in my mind with a festive flicker of colors, smells, songs, words, laughs, tastes, faces, smiles, and embraces.

As I danced my daughter into the open arms of her new husband, my heart expanded. 

A constellation of cherished community fueled the festival and feasting giving her undeserved favor and love.

·        A festival is an organized series of acts or performances enjoyed by a gathered community.

·        A feast is an elaborate party with a well prepared free-flowing of food and drink shared with deep joy.

We were designed by God for both. 

In fact, according to John Sittema, the Author of Jesus at the Feast, the people of God were given seven festivals that all gave a foretaste of the gospel.

The story of Scripture describes these seven annual feasts found on the calendar of every Jew:

1.      Passover (Enjoyed on the 14th day of the first month)
2.      Unleavened Bread (Enjoyed on the 15th day of the first month to the 21st day)
3.      Firstfruits (Enjoyed on the 16th day of the first month)
4.      Weeks/Pentecost (Enjoyed on the 6th day of the third month)
5.      Trumpets (Enjoyed on the 1st day of the seventh month)
6.      Day of Atonement (Enjoyed on the 10th day of the seventh month)
7.      Booths (Enjoyed on the 15th day of the seventh month to the 21st day)

Two benefits bubble up to the surface of our minds when we attend to the meaning of these festivals.

The first benefit is to see the connection between the Old Testament Festivals and their fulfillment in Christ.

Again, thanks to the insights of John Sittema, notice how each Old Testament festival listed above finds their fulfillment in Christ:

1.      Crucifixion/Passover (Friday of Passion week)
2.      Burial/Unleavened Bread (Saturday of Passion week)
3.      Resurrection/Firstfruits (Sunday)
4.      Pentecost/The Gift
5.      Trumpets/Preaching the Gospel
6.      Day of Atonement/The Joy of Salvation
7.      Booths/Living Fellowship

A second benefit is to see how these seven festivals fulfilled in Christ transform or reshape God’s community:

1.      Justification-Legally declared righteous in the sight of God
2.      Sanctification-Becoming more and more like Jesus by the Spirit
3.      New Creation-We have moved from death to life
4.      Empowered by the Spirit-He lives in us growing spiritual fruit like love and joy
5.      Witnesses of the Gospel-We share the story
6.      Forgiven and accepted in Christ-We are saved, being saved and will finally be saved
7.      A New Community-We become part of a local body of believers and their children

Did you know that every fifty years the people of God were commanded to throw an additional festival called Jubilee?

Jubilee is a word meaning “to blow the horn” and it is derived from a man named Jubal, the father of all musical instruments (Genesis 4:21).

It commenced on the Day of Atonement with the musical blast of the trumpet.  This sonic blast was meant to “proclaim liberty throughout the lands to all its inhabitants” (Leviticus 25:10). 

Yes, these are the very words inscribed on our Liberty Bell here in America.

God commanded that everyone participate in this party so that freedom would be inscribed on the hearts of His people.

This climactic celebration sent the sound of God’s reign of grace soaring into the community of God.

If you are unfamiliar with the story of God, a great way to enter into the story would be to study the festivals of God’s people. Noticing their fulfillment in Christ and the transformative reshaping they give to the church would deepen your understanding of His gospel of grace.

·        Jesus’ death was timed to take place on Passover

·        Jesus burial was timed to occur on the Feast of Unleavened Bread

·        His rising again to new life waited for the dawning of Firstfruits

·        The showering of His Spirit came fifty days later, on the Feast of Pentecost

·        The Feast of Trumpets defined the task of the church:  Announce the music of the Gospel

·        The Day of Atonement defined just what salvation really means

·        The Feast of Tabernacles shows what it is like to live in the joyful festivities and fellowship of the Trinitarian God

·        And Jubilee gives us the final rehearsal for what the new heavens and earth will be like, tilting us forward into its glory, grace and final rest.

I can’t wait for the next feast and festival with the people of God as we savor His mercy and grace together!

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

How Does the Christ of Christmas Breathe Peace into Our Panic?

What are you thinking about this Christmas season?

               How you’re gonna pay for all the presents, when you’re already financially flailing?

                              Your thinking just might morph into panic!

               How you must endure those boring holiday parties with the awkward, superficial conversations when you’re already feeling isolated and alone?

                              Your thinking just might mutate into panic!

               How you’re gonna miss that loved one you lost last year whose absence will eclipse any hoped-for joy?

                              Your peace just might melt into panic!

The breathing, creative Spirit of the living Christ always breathes peace into our panicky thinking.

The warmth of the Spirit’s breath wrote this a long, long time ago through the fingers of Paul:

Philippians 4:8  8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Wait.  My worries didn’t make the list?  Neither did my angry grudge or gnawing sense of always being behind?

·        To help us follow the new thinking path of Paul consider the transcendentals.

Have you ever heard of the “three transcendentals?”

A transcendental is something that stands above everything in the physical realm.

Philosophers have always tried to find that which stands above everything below.  They wanted to locate sturdy unbreakable realities that we all could rely on.

Don’t get weirded out by that quest of theirs.  You’ll know them when I reveal them.

They agreed on beauty, goodness and truth.

Let’s spend a few minutes thinking about these three.  Allow them to spark your interest in going back to the God-breathed transcendentals of Philippians 4:8.

First, what is Beauty?

Thomas Aquinas said that beauty is “that which when seen, pleases.”

Augustine added that beauty is the combination of clarity, symmetry, proportion, harmony and wholeness.

Think of a beautiful waterfall.  It pleases the senses as it combines the sound of the thundering river, the sight of the foamy water rushing over the edge, the smell of the surrounding environment, the touch of the mist on your face and sometimes even the taste of the pure water on your tongue.

Have you ever thought about Christ through the lens of his transcendent beauty?  How many ways does he please your senses as you combine the clarity, symmetry and harmony of his life?  Have you ever tasted him as you read about him in the living Word?  Have you ever experienced him during communion as you’ve swallowed whole his beauty?

Theology professor James Bryon Smith writes that beauty is that which makes you say “wow!”

The brilliant American pastor Jonathan Edwards taught that beauty is not only captured in creation but enjoyed by the heart.

How about spending a few minutes admiring the beauty of creation (Jesus created everything) and redemption (the combination of God’s plan to rescue sinners just might make you say wow!).

·        If someone looks at you this Christmas season, would they think that you are a mini-advertisement for the beauty of God in Christ?

Second, what is good or goodness? 

Goodness is that which aids or improves or benefits another.  The opposite of good is evil.  Evil is that which does not benefit others.

Have you ever considered just how good Christ is?  He left the transcendent realm of beauty to enter into the evil, twisted wreck that we inhabit.

Why?

To do good to his people. To make us alive to beauty again.

He spent nine months entombed in Mary’s womb only to enter the world on a dark night in a damp barn.

The transcendent one came down.

He would grow up doing good and die to bring the highest benefit to the lowest, undeserving sinner.

How about spending a few minutes meditating on the goodness of God.  How about thinking of tangible ways to do good to others.  Who needs the benefit of your love?

Goodness fizzes gratitude up and out of our hearts.

The third and last transcendental is truth.

Truth is fact plus meaning.  Truth is that which when you run into it, won’t budge because it aligns with the unbudgeable reality imbued into it by God.

My heart is so addicted to wrong things and truth is what you bang into when you’re wrong.  My best friends love me too much to allow me to live into the lies I believe by reminding me of the truth of God.

Love rejoices in the truth (see 1 Corinthians 13).

Truth executes reality.  When we encounter truth we instinctive shout “I agree!”

What truths can you stake your life on today?  What lies are you listening too that need to be silence by the transcendent teachings of Christ?

Swiss Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar said that beauty must never be separated from her sisters, goodness and truth.

This Christmas let’s not allow ourselves to be separated from our brother Jesus as we emanate beauty goodness and truth to all.

As Dostoevsky wrote, “Beauty will save the world.”

The beautifully true and good Jesus is doing just that as he breathes peace into our panic this Christmas.

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

The Waltz of the Reformation

My daughter will waltz away from me as she marries her good man in two months.

As we practiced our daddy-daughter-dance last night, I noticed that waltzing-that triple-time dance step- emphasizes the first beat.

STEP-two three, TURN-two-three, ONE-two-three…

As God’s story waltzes across history, have you ever noticed that the triple-step has been deformation-reformation-transformation?

·        Deformation was the distorting, warping, change for the worse that Adam and Eve brought, not only on themselves when they turned from the gracious God, but into all mankind born after them.

Created with open arms and open hearts, the disease of the deformation of sin slithered into the human race and bends us all away from God and others and into our own selfish cul-de-sacs.

Sin and self-sufficiency are initially arousing and spicy.  But all self-love eventually sours.

Formed to fixate love on God and neighbor, we redirect our love into our own selfish drives as we drive away God and others.

I appreciate author Heather Choate Davis’s summary of our universal deformation in her short book Man Turned in on Himself.  She reminds us that salvation hinges on the emphasis of the deformation of original sin. 

Sin is not primarily a little act that one does that can be trivialized or rationalized.  Sin, according to the story of God (see the book of Romans) is a spiritually congenital condition or state.

We must rewind church history to the time of Augustine around 400-420 AD to find a grotesque picture of sin’s deforming effects.  To explain Psalm one (where a person turning from God retrogresses from walking to standing to sitting) he painted a five-step curling and curving in process that went like this:

Step One:  We were created standing upright, heart lifted, arms outstretched and facing God.

Step Two:  We turn away with our backs to God in distrust and disloyalty.

Step Three:  We stand in settled opposition with arms crossed.

Step Four:  We settle into our selfish state so completely that we take our seat.

Step Five:  As the body has moved physically lower and further from God, the last submission to sin is to slump over and curve down to the earth like an animal.

Have you ever read the sickening story of Nebuchadnezzar (see Daniel 4:33)?  This glorious king created to bring God glory experiences de-creation and his curved fingernails and curved body bear the effects of sin’s curse and weight.

Said simply, we sin because we are sinners, just like we dance because we are dancers or sing because we are singers.  Sin is not localized outside of us but inside of us and actually embedded in our very being.

One thousand years after Augustine described the universal incurvation of humanity, Luther would coin the Latin phrase:

“homo incurvatus in se.”   He reminded the world that man is hopelessly turned in on himself and unable to uncoil and save himself.

Picture a beautiful portrait painted on paper.  Imagine the portrait selfishly crumpling itself up into a wrinkled ball for no one to see and helplessly unable to un-wrinkle and spread itself out again.

When we try to live in a spiritual fetal position, the addictions we incubate inside the curve fester while the help, hope and love of God we need, outside of the curve, remain shielded by our self-sufficiency.

·        In 1517 the second step of the triple-step dance of God’s story burst on the scene in an era called the reformation.

Since every self-fueled effort to reverse the curve of sin back-fired, the church searched the story of God in Scripture and rediscovered grace.

Grace, the unearned, undeserved favor of God, shared freely in the face of Christ, was preached with abandon.

The masses became drunk on grace and began to dance without inhibitions as they gathered to worship and spread grace everywhere without cost.

Christ came to save us not just from the wrong in what we do but in the wrong in what we are.  He did not come to save friends or even strangers, but enemies.

Like a threatened cat, our arched back, raised hair and extended, curled claws met God’s forgives and free favor.

And like never before, those that trusted in this message of grace began to uncoil and uncurl.  They experienced transformation.  Wedded to Christ, a “truster” in His death for them and life in them experiences the transformation of who he or she is.

·        Transformation, the third step in the waltz of God, is not an insignificant alteration at the edge of one’s life.

Transformation describes how the hands of Christ, through the power of the Spirit, remold man in a movement from a tight, fetal, selfish clay-ball of sin into a pliable, yielding, entirely outward giver of love to God and others.

The defaced masterpiece shifts and stretches outward in sacrificial love.

Transformation, described best by author Matt Jenson, is dancing away from incurvatus in se to excurvatus ex se.

As Christ dances with you he turns you entirely outward extending his love.

We now curve out conveying a life-giving convexity free from addiction, fear and greed.

When any of us dance with Christ we experience daily transformation where we lift up our hearts to God in worship and love others, sourced with his self-giving love.

Deformation-Reformation-Transformation.  The triple-step dance.

Imagine your anxiety, narcissism, and addictions turned inside out.

Anxiety-that feeling of failure in advance-transformed from “fear without faith” (as Robert Kelleman puts it) into peace, fixated on the present care of God.

Narcissism-falling in love with your own warped reflection- transformed into falling in love with God as you reflect His love towards others.

Addiction-an over-attachment that enslaves us and constricts us like a boa constrictor-transformed into an addiction to share and smile and sacrifice forever.

As I’ll practice my three-step waltz with my daughter to ready me for the wedding day, I invite you to practice the waltz of grace

               …as you emphasize deformation, stepping to reformation and ending in transformation.

Dancing with Jesus forever,

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church

Car Alarm or Fire Alarm: How do you REALLY Treat Self-Awareness?

Reality, like a fire alarm, has a way of giving us rude awakenings.

Fire alarms break the calm and silence like a toddler jumping hard onto a sleeping parent. 

They awaken our anesthetized awareness to warn us of imminent or actual danger.

That’s why when I heard that the fire alarm in my next-door neighbor’s home began to holler at the hearers, I cocked by ear to hear more.

What force could awaken the lidless, watching eye of that alarm so that it activated ear-drum booms and blare to make us more aware?

It began with a storm.

South Carolinian storms flicker and flash with lightning and then crack the whip of the wind with thunder.

I do not exaggerate when I say that when I heard the thunder that day, the blast was louder than any I’d ever heard in the past.

The fire department arrived to address the neighbor’s alarm and told him that a large lightning bolt lashed either the ground or a home nearby.

The voltage from the bolt went viral as it travelled through multiple conduits only to wreck my neighbor’s water heater.  According to the fire department, the heater’s thermostat melted and the wiring was becoming so hot that the entire home was in danger of catching fire.

Which meant my house could’ve also gone up in flames because of the proximity.

Three cheers for our local fire department for finding and ending the destructive danger!

Spiritual self-awareness is a lot like a fire alarm.

Self-awareness is when I tell myself the honest truth about my flaws, failures and faulty loves.

And if I’m honest, I treat my own self-awareness more like a car alarm than a fire alarm.

Do you remember the last time you heard your car alarm interrupt the calm and quiet of life?  

When my car alarm screams, I stop it before I get shamed by someone.  I initially care more about covering ME than I do about a potential or actual threat.  Who wants to be glared at in embarrassment?  But soon after the initial embarrassment I move on with life. 

The car alarm raises my awareness but quickly dissipates like the afterglow of a firework.

A fire alarm won’t let me get away with shushing reality’s findings of real flaws, failures and faults.

The Christian story tells of the mistrust Adam and Eve hurled at God as they chose to distrust the warning that their maker graciously shared regarding eating forbidden fruit. (Check out Genesis 3)

God promised that partaking of that killer fruit would set off a chain reaction in reality that ended in perishing.

Before the disobedient distrust, they were prospering, naked, free of shame and uninhibited.

Distrust dismantled God’s good design and the result was not only self-awareness but painful self-awareness.

They manufactured make-shift costumes out of dead leaves to hide the dirty feelings that attended the merciless fact of their faults and failure.

But that’s like you and me hearing a fire alarm and then thinking that simply covering our ears will quiet the noise alerting us to danger.

Our culture’s Godless beliefs and practices have hit the mute button on God’s living voice.  Most of us sleepwalk through life under the stupor of secularism (the philosophy that says that only material reality exists, not spiritual reality) because it plugs our ears to the sound of the gavel of guilt.

That’s why Matthew Vos, professor of sociology at Covenant College wrote “In the invisibility of our normality, there we find our idolatry.”

The “normal” de-godded routines and practices in our secular culture reveal idols like the excessive use of stuff, sex and substances to cover the cacophony of guilty shame our sin reveals.

But if we plug our ears to guilt, we will never hear the saving word of grace.

Peter, a follower of Jesus, had a “fire-alarm-moment” one day on a boat with Jesus (check out the details in Luke 5:1-9).  

Jesus told him to fish and he told Jesus that he had already worked all night and there was no use.  But just for kicks he went fishing just a little longer when he knew Jesus wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The nets puckered so full that they began to break and Peter’s eyes were as wide as saucers as he saw the power and perfection of Jesus.

His knees literally buckle as he shouts in painful self-awareness --“Leave me Lord, I am a sinful person.”

He breaks out in a spiritually allergic rash at the awareness of being in the presence of the living God.

But Jesus refused to leave Peter.  Peter’s honest confession of the self-awareness of his sinful condition cracked open his hard heart so that softening love could flow in.

Grace is the only way to remove the grime of painful self-awareness.

Peter would follow Jesus long enough to see him perform the single, unrepeatable action of the atonement where Christ experienced the deserved destruction for our sins on the cross so that all who trust in Christ really have full and final forgiveness forever.

So the next time self-awareness sits up straight and screams in your conscience will you silence it like a car alarm or respect it like a fire alarm?

If you’re honest about your sin, all you will ever hear from the Father is……FORGIVEN!”

Pastor Howard
Senior Pastor
Metro North Church