Holidays or Holy Days?
Everyone I know celebrates holidays. A holiday is a day we set aside to remember something special that has happened in our history. On the fourth of July we celebrate the birth of America. On Thanksgiving we remember the pilgrims coming together with the native residents of this land to give thanks for the blessings of the harvest. Celebrating holidays can be a good thing because our heritage is important to our future.
Who started the idea of holidays? Actually the word is holy days. This divergence came in the English language in the 1500s. The term in old English meant a “holy day, consecrated day, religious anniversary, or Sabbath.” (Online Etymology Dictionary www.etymonline.com). It has only been in the last few hundred years that our culture has changed the holy days into holidays.
Observing a special day of heritage is not necessarily a bad thing. Jesus kept a national holy day that the Jews set to remember a special event (John 10:22). Hanukkah remembers the priests who took back the Temple from the Greeks. They had only enough olive oil to light the Menorah for one day but that one-day supply lasted eight days until the priests had time to make more.
Keeping holidays may not be wrong but it becomes wrong when we replace the God ordered holy days with our holidays. God has ordained three holy feasts for all of His children to keep always: Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot), and Tabernacles (Sukkot). Passover recounts God’s deliverance of His people from bondage in Egypt. This feast pictures the Messiah that would come to deliver His people form bondage to sin. The feast of Pentecost remembers the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. It pictures the day God would write His commandments not on stone but on His children’s hearts. The feast of Tabernacles commemorates God’s provision for the Israelites in the wilderness. As they lived in tents God provided bread and water for them. This feast pictures the Messiah that would provide all God’s children need.
The holy days commemorate God’s working among His people. The holy days proclaim the Messiah, Jesus Christ! Keeping holidays may not be wrong but shame on us when we take the holy days out of the church and our lives and replace them with holidays that celebrate pagan figures like a fat man in a red suit or a rabbit with colored eggs!
© Dr. Steven L Smith 2017
Who started the idea of holidays? Actually the word is holy days. This divergence came in the English language in the 1500s. The term in old English meant a “holy day, consecrated day, religious anniversary, or Sabbath.” (Online Etymology Dictionary www.etymonline.com). It has only been in the last few hundred years that our culture has changed the holy days into holidays.
Observing a special day of heritage is not necessarily a bad thing. Jesus kept a national holy day that the Jews set to remember a special event (John 10:22). Hanukkah remembers the priests who took back the Temple from the Greeks. They had only enough olive oil to light the Menorah for one day but that one-day supply lasted eight days until the priests had time to make more.
Keeping holidays may not be wrong but it becomes wrong when we replace the God ordered holy days with our holidays. God has ordained three holy feasts for all of His children to keep always: Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot), and Tabernacles (Sukkot). Passover recounts God’s deliverance of His people from bondage in Egypt. This feast pictures the Messiah that would come to deliver His people form bondage to sin. The feast of Pentecost remembers the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. It pictures the day God would write His commandments not on stone but on His children’s hearts. The feast of Tabernacles commemorates God’s provision for the Israelites in the wilderness. As they lived in tents God provided bread and water for them. This feast pictures the Messiah that would provide all God’s children need.
The holy days commemorate God’s working among His people. The holy days proclaim the Messiah, Jesus Christ! Keeping holidays may not be wrong but shame on us when we take the holy days out of the church and our lives and replace them with holidays that celebrate pagan figures like a fat man in a red suit or a rabbit with colored eggs!
© Dr. Steven L Smith 2017