A Day of Celebration

Toward a New Creation
Judgment and Salvation

The Day of the Lord

Exodus 23:14-19  The Message

¹⁴ “Three times a year you are to hold a festival for me.

¹⁵ “Hold the spring Festival of Unraised Bread when you eat unraised bread for seven days at the time set for the month of Abib, as I commanded you. That was the month you came out of Egypt. No one should show up before me empty-handed.
¹⁶ “Hold the summer Festival of Harvest when you bring in the firstfruits of all your work in the fields.
“Hold the autumn Festival of Ingathering at the end of the season when you bring in the year’s crops.
¹⁷ “Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Master, God.

¹⁸ “Don’t offer the blood of a sacrifice to me with anything that has yeast in it.

“Don’t leave the fat from my festival offering out overnight.
¹⁹ “Bring the choice first produce of the year to the house of your God.
“Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

For Reflection

We struggle with the conviction to be active in establishing the Kingdom on Earth.  We can hardly think of how to be part of God's Kingdom without considering the "will of God."  We pray "..thy will be done."  However, we struggle with the particulars of God's will.  How specific should we apply our assumptions about God's will?  Is it God's will that I should marry,  take this job, or experience this illness?  Or are questions of God's will better understood as God's hope and aspirations for human kind?  Or both?

Clearly in these passages it is God's will that we celebrate our relationship to God through specific rituals which which emphasize our joyful dependence upon God's benevolence.  Is it God's will that we celebrate God and recognize God's sovereignty?

Pray

that you will seek to understand God's will for your life.  Pray for the realization of God's Kingdom on Earth.