A time of remembrance & celebration
For the Christian
holidays featuring Christmas
and Easter, are annual reminders of all God has done for us in Christ. We can
help our children appreciate the significance of these occasions’ best by using
them as God used the festivals in Israel, as opportunities for individuals to
relive, to participate in the sacred events.
· The Feast of
Tabernacles (Exodus
23:16; Deuteronomy 16:13). Like Passover this feast taught family members of
all ages about God’s nature and what he had done for them and was a time of
renewed commitment to God.
· The Festival of
Hanukkah originated
as the festival of the dedication or cleansing of the Temple. It reminds us of
the victory won by the Maccabees in 165 B.C.E. to insure the purity of the
worship of God and to preserve the distinctiveness of Israel and Jewish
identity.
"Hanukkah looks back to a victory and
the preservation of the Jewish people when they were in the land. For us it
also looks forward to a time when our Jewish people will be preserved despite
intense suffering. This preservation, again while Jewish people are in the
land, will culminate in the victory won by the Great Shepherd, Yeshua." Messianic Services, by Dr. John Fischer
In the congregation and at home we can let
children act out different roles: let them be Mary or Joseph or a shepherd or
be a disciple of Jesus when He is crucified, or one of the women who finds the
empty tomb.
While Herod
refused to worship Jesus, many welcomed Him and came to offer the Christ child
their love, their worship, and their gifts. How good it is this Christmas
season to offer Jesus our love, our worship, and to express our thanks with
tangible gifts.
It’s important to know that God does not
intend for our relationship with him to be only meditation, reflection and
confession of sin. We are also to praise Him for who He is and for what He has
done for us. Christmas is a time of celebration to renew our faith and to
commemorate God’s goodness.
I want to share with you a devotional
I discovered many years ago from the “365 Day Devotional Commentary” by
Lawrence O. Richards
December
25 - Revelation 9:12-21
“Every now and then Sarah crawls up in her mother’s
lap and says, “Give me love.” They hug and pat each other, coo and smile, and
feel especially close, Mom and daughter.
Christmas is just such a time for us. “Give me love,”
is Jesus’ way. We gather around Him, eager to hug and be hugged. Eager to be
reminded of His love, and eager to affirm ours as well.
There’s something about love that draws us. And
there’s something about punishment that repels. We see that in our home too.
Even when punishment is well deserved, and Sarah knows it, her lower lip
sullenly protrudes. She looks accusingly out of angry eyes, and sometimes even
shouts out her feelings that it’s all unfair.
This is a contrast we need to see this Christmas time,
as we read of God’s terrible judgments on a sinful human race—and feel shocked
that Revelation reports, they “still did not repent.” They did not change their
minds or change their ways.
That’s why Christmas is such an appropriate expression
of our faith. It’s God reminding us that He has heard our cry of “give me
love.” And He has given love in the Christ Child whose birth we celebrate.
As
long as the world has Christmas, God reaches out to give us love, and the door
of salvation is open wide. Oh, let us speak to others of this love, before the
judgment comes, and hardened hearts are frozen in a rebellion that will lock
them away from love for all eternity.”
Christmas is where we celebrate
the love that we have received through Jesus, God’s gift to us, not the
judgment that we deserve.
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