Remember, Celebrate

Exodus 13:6-8 “For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord. 7 Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. 8 On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’”  
 
THE first year I was a pastor, I was naïve enough to believe people in the church would want to celebrate Jesus. I thought, “We don’t have enough joy in church. We are saved by the blood of Jesus; yet, we act as if it’s a chore to go to church, to serve our Lord, to stand and sing, to sit and pray, and to read God’s Holy Word.”
      I further reflected, “The Jews were a celebrating people. They worshiped on their feet with arms lifted to heaven in prayer. They bowed with face down to the ground in humble submission and adoration. They sang such songs as Psalms 150:1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. 2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness…6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”
      Indeed, what would happen If we model this worship and begin to praise and honor Jesus’ love? We would truly love God and others more deeply. We would rejoice in the Father’s high and wide love, the Son’s incomparable sacrifice and the Spirit’s overwhelming power. We would more eagerly and diligently obey the Great Commandments: Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”  How do we come to that kind of love and worship?
      The answer is in the word, “remember”. In today’s scripture, God is commanding his people to take seven days a year to remember his amazing grace, love and power to deliver them from Egypt’s pagan slave-based culture. Remembering must be for more than one day or for a family meal for an hour at church. The remembering must be for enough time to allow the truth of God’s saving power to truly settle into our hearts. God knew if his people remembered his salvation from slavery, if they would remember his promises to deliver an everlasting kingdom, they would celebrate and love him!
      Sadly, too many Hebrews would neglect the remembering. Then they neglected their God. Their worship became meaningless religion with the chains of “I have to.” because they forgot, “I get to.”
      Jesus, too, commanded you to
remember his sacrifice: 1 Corinthians 11:25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” When you remember the Lord’s love, how can you not celebrate?
      I pray your heart and your church remembers Jesus’ gospel. And you celebrate God’s love for you forever.
 
LIFE Link: Time each day to remember Jesus—then celebrate, be joyful in him always.