Feasting and Camping with Christ

Scripture: Leviticus 23: 33-43; Revelation 7: 9-17

Sermon: Feasting and Camping with Christ

Topics: feasts, camping,

Preached: May 25 2014

Leviticus 23: 33-43 Feast of Booths (Tabernacles, Tents)

33 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ³⁴Speak to the people of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month, and lasting seven days, there shall be the festival of booths^* to the Lord. ³⁵The first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. ³⁶For seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire; on the eighth day you shall observe a holy convocation and present the Lord’s offerings by fire; it is a solemn assembly; you shall not work at your occupations.

37 These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you shall celebrate as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord offerings by fire—burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, sacrifices and drink-offerings, each on its proper day—³⁸apart from the sabbaths of the Lord, and apart from your gifts, and apart from all your votive offerings, and apart from all your freewill-offerings, which you give to the Lord.

39 Now, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the festival of the Lord, lasting seven days; a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day. ⁴⁰On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic^* trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. ⁴¹You shall keep it as a festival to the Lord seven days in the year; you shall keep it in the seventh month as a statute for ever throughout your generations. ⁴²You shall live in booths for seven days; all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths, ⁴³so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Revelation 7:9-17

The Multitude from Every Nation

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’

¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, ¹²singing,

‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom

and thanksgiving and honour

and power and might

be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’

¹⁴I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’

Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

¹⁵ For this reason they are before the throne of God,

and worship him day and night within his temple,

and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

¹⁶ They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike them,

nor any scorching heat;

¹⁷ for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

I love camping.

I know not everyone does,

so I thought I would simply state that love from the get-go.

I am now realizing I may be making a big sermonic faux-pas –

all the people who love camping are probably camping right now,

and all the non-campers are probably sitting here, in church.

In spite of this, let me confess again, “I love camping.”

Never did much of it as a kid confined to a farm.

But from my college days onward, I have loved camping.

In fact, truth be told, I proposed to Shirlene in a tent while camping.

By modern standards,

namely the lengths that many guys go to

in order to make their proposal special nowadays,

my proposal was … well, pathetically lame.

But hey, it was in a tent,

at an Institute for Christian Studies Conference.

between throwing Frisbees barefoot in the grass,

and listening to speakers talk about how we can change the world.

I proposed while in a tent.

Not only was the proposal in a tent,

but our honeymoon was spent

camping as we drove across the continent.

Camping for me has many, many happy associations.

I’m not alone.

When asked to respond to the word “camping” with one word

the most popular responses were:

wilderness,

outdoors

tent.

The next most popular responses were:

Fun

Family

Happiness

What is it about camping that causes

the food to taste better,

the sleep to be more restful,

and life to be simply more precious?

No wonder we have the expression: “Happy Camper.”

FEAST OF TABERNACLES — the Bright Side

Today in our look at the Old Testament Feasts,

we are looking at the Feast of Tabernacles,

or Feast of Booths

or Feast of Tents.

All different names for the same Feast.

It was the 3^rd Fall Festival in the Jewish Calendar:

First the Feast of Trumpets – Rosh Hashanah

Then the Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur

And finally the Feast of Tabernacles – Sukkot.

One the one hand it was both a Harvest Festival,

that rejoiced in the bounty of the crops being gathered in.

That is why this Feast had more eating than any of the others.

On the other hand,

this was very much a Religious Festival that asked the Israelites to live in tents or huts for a whole week

to remind them of who they were —

they were refugees rescued from Egypt

who spent the next 40 years wandering the wilderness in tents

with the Lord their God.

When I think about wandering around in the desert for 40 years,

I can’t help but think about how hungry and thirsty they must have been.

How life must have always been lived on the edge —

The edge of starvation

The edge of dehydration

The edge of death.

But read the Old Testament prophets

and the days in the desert are described in glowing terms.

The prophet Hosea talks about this as being the days of romance,

the romance of God and his people:

Israel, the young bride,

being wooed by God, the groom (Hosea 3:14-15)

Deuteronomy notes that throughout their 40 years in the desert,

Israel lacked nothing (Deut 2:7).

And years later,

when Nehemiah and the returned exiles

celebrated this Feast of Tabernacles,

they remembered that while Israel was in the desert

their clothes never wore out

and their feet never swelled up (Nehemiah 9:21)

Camping with the Lord was all good.

That is why this Feast,

was the most enjoyable, the most fun

of all the feasts in the Jewish calendar.

During this feast, people waved palm branches,

they danced, they ate.

The Jews referred to this Feast simply as the Season of Joy.

THE DOWNSIDE

If you know anything about Israel’s actual 40 years in the desert

you know it was not all a season of Joy.

It was not all fun.

There was hunger, and thirst, and rebellions, and plagues.

The same is true for camping …camping isn’t all fun all the time either.

When I was a minister in Canada,

I was the Chaplain for the Pine Ridge Cadet Corps –

Cadets was a boys club for 8-12 year old boys.

The Pine Ridge Cadet Corp was all the cadets in our Classis (region).

My main job was to attend their annual Camp-Out

on the May long weekend.

May long-weekends are notoriously unpredictable when it comes to weather.

Some years it was bright, sunny, warm, and dry.

Other years it was wet, cold, miserable.

I remember one such weekend.

It rained every day.

The nights were practically freezing.

Everyone spent the whole weekend with blue lips and frozen fingers.

I learned then what the main job of the Chaplain was –

to tend to homesick boys.

And that year there were a lot of them.

What do you say to a 9 year old boy

whose teeth are chattering with cold,

whose eyes are teary,

and who pleads,

“Can I just go home now?”

LOOKING FORWARD — WATER AND LIGHT

The Feast of Tabernacles was a back-to-the-future type of Festival.

On the one hand, in living in tents,

they remembered back….back to when Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years.

But this Feast was not only backward looking.

It also learned forward.

It had rituals —

a daytime and a nighttime ritual —

that said things are not perfect here and now,

that this is not our permanent home

and that we are all pilgrims waiting for the Messiah to lead us to something far better.

The Day-time ritual was the Ceremony of Drawing Water.

Water was a key need in Israel’s travels through the wilderness.

In New Testament times,

when the Feast of Tabernacles was being celebrated in Jerusalem,

Temple priests would draw water from the pool of Siloam.

Then, in a long procession,

the water would be carried to the Temple.

When the water reached the Temple,

the people would chant from Psalm 118: 25

Save us, we beseech you, O Lord.

Help us, we pray.

They were looking forward to the day

When the glory of the Lord filled the earth

The way water covered the sea.

The Night-time Ritual was the Ceremony of Lights.

Huge Lampstands were placed in the Temple courtyard.

They were as high as 75 feet,

with bowls of oil on the top containing as much a 10 gallons of oil.

These lampstands burned all night

so the courtyard never was dark.

Then, very early in the morning,

as the sun rose

the people turned their backs to the sun

and turned their faces toward the Temple.

And they chanted:

Many turn their faces in hope toward the sun,

But our eyes are turned to the Eternal One.

These rituals reminded the Jews,

even during the most festive feast in their calendar,

that their hopes were set on the Messiah,

who would lead them to a well-watered place of divine light

and everlasting joy.

Now remember what Jesus said to the crowds who

gathered for this Feast of Tabernacles in the gospel of John 7-8.

Jesus stood up and he pointed to himself

as the source of living water

and said, Anyone who is thirsty come to me;

let the one who believes in me, drink.

Later he added,

I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness

But will have the light of life.

What Jesus was doing was showing that

All their longings and all their hopes

for a better life, a better world, a better future

could be found in him.

REVELATION 7

We read Revelation 7 because in many ways

this is a vision of the Feast – this Feast of Tabernacles –

and how it will be celebrated at the end of time.

All the pilgrims – Jewish pilgrims and Gentile pilgrims –

they will all come together in this huge crowd,

waving their palm branches and singing with joy.

Joy because they have come to the end of their pilgrimage –

they have finally arrived home.

No matter what temporary shelter they had before —

God is now their shelter;

Whatever darkness they had to endure before

now the glory of the Lord was their light;

Whatever hunger or thirst they had to suffer through

Now they were surrounded by springs of water and the fruit of trees.

Hunger – gone

Thirst — gone

Loneliness – gone

Homesickness – gone

Tears – gone.

Now Joy, only joy.

CONCLUSION

There is a certain irony to this Feast of Tabernacles.

Here was a harvest festival,

in which they had more food

more fun,

more joy than any other festival;

and yet….yet they were asked to live simply and in tents,

flimsy little shelters.

Why?

Wasn’t it to re-assess life?

To come to see that

so many of the visible things that give our live

stability, security —

things like homes, bank-accounts, pension plans,

even health, and friends, and family —

all these things have a certain flimsiness to them.

And yet the very things that appear flimsy –

our own faith, the future of the church,

our hopes for a better tomorrow,

A kingdom that will come,

A God who cares

A Savior who saves —

All these apparently flimsy things

are in fact more secure and more stable than we know.

If you find yourself far from home this summer,

perhaps in a tent

looking at the stars

listening to the night tree frogs chirp

feeling the gentle inhaling and exhaling of the one you love beside you.

know that

life is good

so very good

but this is not as good as it gets –

this is but a foretaste of how good it gets.

Amen