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Feasting With a Focus By Anthony Wasilkoff The physical harvest serves to remind us of the spiritual blessings we enjoy.
uring the depths of a long, arduous winter, one of my sources of hope is a good-quality color seed catalog. Many of us receive a copy or two from various seed houses in January or February. I enjoy thumbing through a copy to look over the plants that are promised to grow if I plant that company's wondrous seeds. The flowers and vegetables are portrayed as tantalizingly lush and lovely. Finally, at long last, spring does arrive and we are privileged to plant an array of seeds that germinate and poke through the ground with their tiny wisps of green. Some turn into gorgeous flowers, others into leafy vegetables. Every spring I think of the song that melodically implores, "Inch by inch, row by row. Someone bless these seeds I sow..."
Biblical lessons from the harvest Is there any connection or correlation between the Feast of Tabernacles and Thanksgiving Day? The seventh chapter of the Gospel of John describes Jesus Christ observing the Feast of Tabernacles. In his New Testament Commentary, for John 7:2, David Stern writes, "The festival also celebrates the harvest, coming, as it does, at summer's end, so that it is a time of thanksgiving. (The puritans, who took the Old Testament more seriously than most Christians, modeled the American holiday of Thanksgiving after the Sukkoth [or Feast of Tabernacles])." The wonderful Feast of Tabernacles is identified by its Creator by more than just one name. In Exodus 23:14-16 we read, "Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year... and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field." The Feast of Tabernacles is connected to the major harvest that occurs at the end of the growing season. In a sense, it is a type of harvest festival -- a time of gathering in, a time of expressing gratitude to the One who makes it all possible. Of our wondrous Creator, Acts 14:17 states, "Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." This passage seems especially applicable during the eight days we spend together at the Feast of Tabernacles.
Our family was blessed to observe the Feast of Tabernacles in Prince Edward Island one year. Some of you readers may have been at that lovely locale. We were in the beautiful province where Anne of Green Gables was set. One of my recollections is that of people from Newfoundland taking excursions to local fruit orchards. They so much enjoyed picking a goodly number of apples to take back home with them. There is definite joy in participating in the harvest.
Greater meaning for Thanksgiving Day What this implies is that we humans are the recipients of the bounty of a benevolent God. Thus, it is necessary for us to express our gratitude and joy toward Him. Too often Thanksgiving Day is lacking real meaning because many people aren't really thankful, while those who are don't know whom to direct their thanks toward.
Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as an official event by a proclamation. He upbraided his fellow citizens for having "forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us." Lincoln continued, "We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own." The Feast of Tabernacles is surely a time of rejoicing and celebration. But it must also focus on expressing sustained gratitude to the Source of all our blessings and bounty. We do this all week long. Each year those in Canada, the United States and some other nations also have a special opportunity to express extra thanks on Thanksgiving Day. We have much to be thankful for In Luke 12:48 we read, "To whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more." Of the Sabbathkeeper, God says in Isaiah 58:14, "Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of LORD has spoken." In Matthew 13:16-17 we read, "But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."
In a column written some time ago, Dr. Laura Schlessinger addressed the topic of covetousness. She referred to a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal about the "haves and have-mores." Even in these times of economic health, one could observe "the wave of envy gnawing at those near the top of the economic pyramid as they see others making even more." Dr. Laura concluded her column by saying, "With the help of the commandments we can rise above these basic instincts to focus on our blessings and be thankful for all that we do have. Gratitude is the best medicine for covetousness." Hebrews 6:4-5 describes what happens to us as the result of conversion: We are "...enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come." Surely, this occurs to us most of all at the Feast of Tabernacles, a time of celebration, rejoicing and thanksgiving. Would you like to learn more about the people who keep these annual Holy Days? Please request the free booklet today. Copyright 2007 by United Church of God, an International Association All rights reserved. |
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