"Festival
of Booths"
International
Sunday School Lesson for August 4, 2013
Scripture
Text: Nehemiah 8:13-18
Purpose:
To remember in worship that
although the past may involve pain, celebrating our heritage brings
joy
Bible
Lesson
Background
Nehemiah 7:73b-8:18
Nehemiah
8:13-18 (CEB)
13
On the second day, the heads of the families of all the people, along
with the priests and the Levites, gathered together around Ezra the
scribe in order to study the words of the Instruction. 14 And
they found written in the Instruction that the Lord had
commanded through Moses that the Israelites should live in booths
during the festival of the seventh month.
15
They also found that they should make the following proclamation and
announce it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem: "Go out to
the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and
other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written."
16
So the people went out and brought them, and made booths for
themselves, each on the roofs of their houses or their
courtyards, in the courtyards of God’s house, in the area by the
Water Gate, or in the area by the Gate of Ephraim.
17
The whole assembly of those who had returned from captivity made
booths and lived in them. This was something that the people of
Israel hadn’t done since the days of Joshua, Nun’s son, and
there was very great rejoicing.
18
He read from God’s Instruction scroll every day, from the first
until the last day of the festival. They kept the festival for
seven days and held a solemn assembly on the eighth day, just as the
Instruction required.
My
Thoughts by Burgess Walter
Today's
lesson is about keeping in touch with our past, in order to
appreciate and celebrate our heritage.
I
love an old story that is told about what happened in Switzerland at
the end of the 18th
and
early 19th century. The industrial revolution was in its
infancy in Europe, and things were changing. In the large cities of
Switzerland they were building factories that used water and steam
power. These new factories needed workers, and so many of the Swiss
people that lived on farms up in the mountains came down to the
cities to work. After some time had passed a strange phenomena
starting happening, those workers became ill, they could not perform
the task that was expected and no one had any idea what the problem
was or what was causing this illness. German experts were called in
to see if they could identify the cause of the illness. After months
and months of testing and research they finally identified the cause
for the illness among the workers. And the name that was given to
this mysterious disease was called “nostalgia,” today we call it
being “homesick.” The workers and mercenaries simply wanted to
go home, back to the mountains and meadows, back to living the way
they used to live in the mountains.
The
people of Judah had spent almost 70 years in captivity, they had been
deprived of worshiping as they once did in Jerusalem. Now, with the
leadership of Ezra in rebuilding the temple and Nehemiah in
rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem they were finally able to
worship in the way they wanted. They had a desire to find out about
their heritage and they wanted to learn and they wanted their worship
to have meaning.
They
had sacrificed and struggled in order for this to become a reality.
In prior times it was the Prophets that taught shared with the people
what God was revealing to them. But Ezra had meticulously copied the
Torah and all the Books of the Prophets and of the Writings and for
the first time the written word was used, rather than the word of the
Prophets.
The
Festival of Booths was an old celebration that had been lost over
time. It occurs at the end of the month when Rosh-Hashanah and day of
atonement are celebrated, which would be our September. Ezra read
from the Torah, (Leviticus 23:33-43) how they were to prepare and
celebrate. They built the booths and lived in them during this week
following the “Day of Atonement” (Yom-Kippur) celebration. It
was probably a carnival like atmosphere.
I
think back to our own heritage, I was raised in the Evangelical
United Brethren Church, now a part of the United Methodist. I
remember how important it was for my grandparents to attend an annual
conference every year, the conference was held at a campsite and
several families would bunk together in a rustic old cabin for a
week. It was an unique time of celebrating the heritage, with a week
of devotions, preaching and singing along with renewing old friends and establishing new ones and of course there was always some business that required voting. I
can still remember how much my grandparents looked forward to
attending that week, and the friends that they would see, or the
former pastors that would be there.
Today
we meet in large auditoriums and pretty nice hotel rooms, but I doubt
we can recreate the atmosphere that was there in northern Indiana on
Lake Wawasee near Syracuse, Indiana.
It
is always good to recall the past and appreciate our heritage, but
most importantly we need to make certain our present does not loose
sight of the past, and what God has brought us through.
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