Preached on 11-26-98

REJOICING BEFORE THE LORD

A Family Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

"And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days." (Lev. 23:40)

EVERY YEAR THE ISRAELITES had three special holidays. One of these holidays was called the Passover. During the Passover, which was in the spring, about the same time that we have Easter, they remembered the time the Lord had led them out of the land of Egypt.

Later in the year, the Israelites had another holiday, another celebration. It was called the "Feast of Weeks" or "Feast of Firstfruits." After the Israelites had harvested the first crops from the field, they were told to wait seven weeks. Then, at the end of those seven weeks, they had a holiday -- they celebrated the beginning of the harvest.

Then, towards the end of the year, at the end of the harvest, after all the crops had been gathered in from the fields, and after all the fruit, and the grapes, and everything else had been picked, the Israelites had a very special holiday. It was called the "Festival of Ingathering." It was very similar, in many ways, to our own holiday of Thanksgiving. This holiday began with the Israelites bringing fruit before the Lord, just as you did this morning. Unlike you, though, the Israelites were also to bring palm leaves, branches from trees with lots of leaves, and also branches of willow trees. And then, for the next seven days, the Israelites were told by the Lord to do something very special. The Lord told them to be happy, because they were giving thanks to the Lord for giving them the harvest. The Israelites were told to rejoice and be happy for seven whole days.

Now it was very important for the Israelites to be happy when they thanked the Lord for all the food He had given them. And it is very important for you as well to be happy at Thanksgiving. In fact the Lord actually tells you to be happy when you say thankyou to Him. Being happy is part of saying thankyou.

This is why you should be happy and smile. Today is Thanksgiving Day. We are having our Thanksgiving Service. You have come to church today so that you can say thankyou to the Lord for all the wonderful things He gives you all year long. This is why you brought fruit up at the beginning of the service -- to say thankyou to the Lord. And when you thank the Lord, you need to be happy. You need to smile and to be glad.

It is not difficult to smile, is it, when you remember all the wonderful things the Lord gives you? Think of all the wonderful things the Lord gives you. He gives you food. He gives you clothes. He gives you a house to live in. He gives you your family and your friends. He gives you a country to live in. He gives you the Word, so that you can learn about Him and learn how to go to heaven. All these things, and many more, indeed everything good that you have, is a present from the Lord.

This is why you "rejoice before the Lord." This is why we sing happy songs to the Lord at Thanksgiving. It is why people have a holiday, and eat special food, and have a good time. Thanksgiving is a time to smile and to be happy. It is a time to praise the Lord and to give thanks to Him for all the good things He gives us. We give joyful thanks to Him for all His blessings, both natural and spiritual.

NOW IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE DO NOT FORGET that the greatest of the Lord's gifts are indeed His spiritual gifts, those blessings He brings to our spirits. The three festivals the Israelites celebrated each year were, on one level, a thanksgiving for natural benefits. They gave thanks for deliverance from natural slavery in Egypt. And, having been brought into the land of Canaan, they gave thanks for the natural harvest of food from their fields -- for the food they were able to grow in the promised land.

In the internal sense, though, these festivals do not simply represent liberation from Egypt and entrance into the land of Canaan. What is represented in the internal sense is the process of regeneration -- by which a person is liberated from hell and introduced into heaven.

And so, the Passover itself represented deliverance from evil. The feast of weeks, or firstfruits, represented the beginnings of heavenly life -- that stage in regeneration when a person is struggling to put into life the truth that he knows. The final feast, the feast of ingathering, or feast of tabernacles represented that time when the process of regeneration has borne fruit -- that time when he is gifted with a will or desire to do only that which is good. This desire to do good comes from a new will, and the whole process of regeneration has, as its end, that we might receive this new will. The new will, the regenerate state, the desire to do only what the Lord commands, is, as it were, the fruit, indeed the full harvest, of the process of regeneration.

And it is this state of regeneration which is represented by the feast of ingathering. Because this feast represented the culmination of regeneration, it was a time of rejoicing, indeed a time when the Israelites were commanded to rejoice. In the literal sense, it was the time when the work of the year was over. The hard work of the harvest, bringing in all the food, was completed. And it is similar with the process of regeneration. Regeneration, or our part in the work of regeneration, is hard work. We have to fight against evil and falsity. We have to force ourselves to do what the truth teaches us to do. In the end, though, we are blessed with a regenerate will. We no longer have to struggle to live the truth. The Lord fills our hearts with love, with love towards Him and love towards our fellow human beings. This is a happy state. It is a wonderful state. It is a state when heaven itself fills our hearts, our minds, and our lives. And so it was that the feast of ingathering, which represented this state of regeneration, was a time for rejoicing -- a time when the Israelites rejoiced for seven whole days.

And this is also why we give thanks and rejoice. We give thanks to the Lord, not simply for His many natural blessings, but also for the blessings of the human spirit. We give thanks because He has promised that if we obey His commandments, if we follow Him, then He will lead us also out of Egypt, out of the slavery of evil, and He will bring us also into the Promised Land. He will bless our souls and fill our spirits, with a spiritual harvest, with the happiness and the peace of heaven itself.

Amen.

Lessons: Lev. 23:33-44; AC 9296:1.

© 1998 by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose