Remembering God's Goodness
It's very pleasant to be with someone who responds to life's situations with gratitude. It even feels warm to think about grateful people. The other day, I was thinking about such a person and his name is Lou.BY PAUL BUBNA Nehemiah 8:9-17
Lou is in his eighties now. He was quite ill recently and had to go to the hospital. He has just been released from the hospital. Normally, it hurts to see people you love in pain. But visiting Lou was a pleasant experience for me for Lou is a grateful person.
Lou doesn't hear well so it is hard for him to listen to the radio. And he has had eye surgery recently so he really can't read either. But he is grateful because he enjoys listening to all the hymns that are playing in his mind. And during one of my recent visits, he listed off all the poems and scripture verses that he had recited to himself. "I am not really bored here," he said, "there is so much to think about and be thankful for."
Contrast. As I left the hospital, I thought of those people I know who have quite a different attitudewho, when you visit, will give you a long list of complaints, gripes, and negative thoughts. They are all Christians too. What makes some people grateful and others ungrateful?
In the Old Testament, God instituted a thanksgiving celebration for the people of Israel. The developments connected with that celebration gives us some helpful answers. From the historical facts alone, we can see the following:
I. Thanksgiving comes out of remembering God's goodness
Shortly after the Israelites had been taken out of slavery in Egypt, God gave them a set of instructions on how they could draw near to Him. Those instructions, which are recorded in the Book of Leviticus, can be divided into three basic groups.The first group had to do with sacrifices; they were designed to deal with the guilt and sin of the Israelites so that they could enter into the presence of God.
Secondly, there were instructions for practical daily living. They were meant to set the Israelites apart to God, to keep them from being contaminated by the idolatrous lifestyle of their future neighbors.
The third set of instructions had to do with celebrating the goodness of God; the Israelites were to observe seven major feasts every year. Those feasts built into the lifestyle of the Israelites a sense of identity, the identity of being God's people.
The climax. The last of these annual celebrations, called the Feast of Tabernacles, was an especially joyful one. We read a summary of God's instructions in Leviticus 23:39-43:
"So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival of the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the eighth day is also a day of rest. On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.
"Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in booths for seven days: All native born Israelites are to live in booths so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God."
Notice that this eight-day feast was to be a joyous festival. They were to go into the fields and bring the firstfruits of the harvest and then eat together to celebrate God's bounty.
The feast was also a time of remembering God's deliverance. The Israelites were to build booths and live in them for seven days, commemorating thereby that their forefathers lived in tents in the wilderness after they had come out of slavery in Egypt.
II. Forgetfulness leads to a disobedient life
After the Israelites had entered the land of Canaan, they presumably began to celebrate all of those feasts. There is little comment about the feasts in historical books of the Old Testament except the fact that they were practiced to one degree or another. The only specific reference to the Feast of Tabernacles, as we'll see, is about the one that was celebrated a thousand years later.The intervening years, meanwhile, were an almost unbelievable tale. Except for a short period, the people had forgotten what God had given them.
Immediately after the death of Joshua, the Israelites started spending 400 years as scattered, meandering tribes. It was the period of the Judges. Then, they asked for a human king and God let them have their way. The first king, King Saul, ruled but for a short while, because he was disobedient. King David and his son Solomon then did bring cohesiveness to the nation and established a glorious kingdom. But it lasted only 80 years.
After Solomon's death, the kingdom was divided into two. The northern kingdom consistently rebelled against God and engaged in idolatry. After 200 years of spiritual decline, God used the Assyrians to overrun them in 722 B.C., scattering the ten northern tribes forever.
Captivity. While idolatry did not infect the southern kingdom of Judah quite so badly and while it did have a few periods of revival and restoration, it ultimately also suffered a major spiritual and moral decline. In 586 B.C., God sent the Babylonians to judge it. Most of the inhabitants that were not killed in the battle were carried off captive to Babylon.
After seventy years of captivity, King Cyrus came to the throne and allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuilt their temple. A generation later, Nehemiah was permitted to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city wall. The rebuilding of that wall helped to reestablish the city of Jerusalem and bring back national identity and a strong sense of unity.
In the rebuilding process, they discovered the scrolls of the Law that had been lost. As the Law was read at the city gate, the people stood and repented. Among other things, they learned that God had instructed them to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
III. Obedience to God's word restores a grateful heart
In Nehemiah 8, we read that they were so moved by the word of God that observed that feast for the first time since the days of captivity. Beginning with verse 13, the account reads:"On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to give attention to the words of the Law. They found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in booths during the feast of the seventh month and that they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem...So the people went out and brought back branches and built themselves booths on their own roofs, in their courtyards, and the courts of the house of God and in the square by the Water Gate and the one by the Gate of Ephraim. The whole company that had returned from exile built booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua, son of Nun, until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great."
The joy of obedience. Catch the poignancy of the moment. A thousand years have passed since God gave them the gift of this feast. For a period of time, especially when they were under the leadership of Joshua, the nation evidently did keep the feast. There had been a harvest festival, the crops had been brought in, they had set aside time for days of feasting. But the text suggests that after that, they lost contact with the word of God and apparently neglected to build the booths and live in them.
Now, after having been a broken nation, after spending seventy years in captivity and many decades to rebuild the temple and the wall, their homeland has been reestablished. With their hearts in repentance, they realize they are to build the booths and remember how the Lord God Almighty brought their forefathers out of slavery in Egypt and through the wilderness into the promised land.
So, they built the booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua, we read, they had never kept the feast quite like this; and their joy was great.
They had never kept the feast quite like this; and their joy IV. A grateful heart brings real joy
What, then, is the difference between grateful and ungrateful people?Grateful people have keen memories. They remember how wonderfully God has blessed them. And they are obedient; they do what the word of God tells them to do. And as a result, they experience great joy.
Do you remember that Christ died on the cross for your sins? Are you grateful that God has given you the gift of eternal life? Or are you so forgetful that all you do is complain and gripe and have negative thoughts?
Listen to what Habakkuk says: "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior" (3:17,18).
You see, no matter how bleak your current circumstances may be, if you remember God's goodness, you cannot help but be thankful; and when you have a grateful heart, you can indeed be joyful in the Lord Jesus Christ, your Savior. o
Rev. Paul Bubna is pastor of Long Hill Chapel, 525 Shunpike Road, Chatham, NJ 07928.