The Greatest Festival Day

The Greatest Festival Day

John 7:37-39

Today is the Day of Pentecost! It is one of the three great festivals in the church year; the others being Christmas and Easter. In the counting style of the ancient church, today is the 50th day since the resurrection of Jesus. In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Pentecost is the day when the Holy Spirit moves through the people as tongues of fire, as the people can all understand each other.

In some parts of the church, Pentecost is also known as the birthday of the church. So how do we celebrate our birthday? How do we teach the next generation about the gift of the Holy Spirit, and understanding each other, and what it means to be one in the Resurrected Jesus?

One of the things we do is we change the paraments, the altar cloths, to red. We hang red banners and we ask people to wear red to worship. Some churches will have processionals of children waving red streamers, or wearing headbands with a picture of flames on it. Some churches will serve cake after the services. Some churches will put cinnamon and red hots in their candy bowls.

With a little more production, some churches pass out red helium balloons to release after the service. Some drape red fabric from the cross, or have it flowing from the altar. A few churches turn their baptismal fonts into sterno-fueled flame pits. In some of the bigger churches, there might be wind machines and flame effects like you might see at a rock concert. Or, they might even drop rose petals like rain from the ceiling.

This progression on how to make the festival bigger, better, and more memorable reveals some of the age-old questions which the people of God have struggled with: how do you make the faith interesting for the masses? How do you teach the faith so that it engages the people?

We see this struggle in the Bible. The Chosen People were given the Law of Moses, the document which would both govern and define them as the Chosen People. The problem was how were the masses to learn the Law so they could observe it?

At first, the emphasis was on teaching the children. That is the wisdom we find in Proverbs 22:6 – “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” But how do you teach children something so that they will remember it?

Some of the early methods included writing the first law as a prayer, which would then be written over the door of your home. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” But kids don’t always stop to read something over a door, especially if they are in a hurry to go outside.

So, then they put that prayer on a tiny scroll, and they put the scrollin a tiny box on the side of the door, at a height where a child could reach it. The childwould have to touch the box, and recite the prayer out loud, every time they went through the door. And the parent could verify they did it, because you could see the action and hear the prayer being said.

But then the children might be rushing it, slapping the box as they ran out, saying the words without thinking about it. So, then you might try making them wear that scroll in a little box on their forehead. That would make them very conscious of the prayer, and the law the prayer was based on.

Each of those things would get the attention of the child, but after a while it might become just something we do. Parents might complain to the priests that their child thinks this is a waste of time, or a joke, and then a battle of wills might ensue.

Fighting with your children didn’t seem to be the best way to teach their children to love God and to love their neighbors. It certainly didn’t seem to help the children with the law to “honor your father and mother.” The priests would be consulted – what are we supposed to do now, so our child learns the faith? The usual recommendations were made again: write it over the door, touch it on the door, say it as you are going out into the world, wear it on your forehead to think about it throughout the day.

But to help the parents get the attention of their children again, the priests would be tempted to make teaching the Law bigger. Instead of an ordinary thing you do at home, teaching the Law could be associated with a festival. According to the Law, the people were gathering anyway – to pay their tithe, to celebrate the harvest, to remember the Passover. The priests decided that, while they were all together anyway, they would read the entirety of the Law to the crowd. That would make the Law bigger and more impressive.

Listening to the Word of God is exciting, humbling, inspiring – especially if it is tied to a holy festival. But after a while, standing around listening can start to feel like you are just standing around. So, the priests decided to make it more engaging. One person in the crowd could be chosen, at random, to read the last part of the Law. And after reading their passage, they would be carried out on the priests' shoulders to be the guest of honor at a banquet. It would be like winning the lottery, as the person and their family received honor and glory before the rest of the community.

That's pretty exciting, but after more years of not getting picked, people started to believe that they were never going to be picked – and the banquet isn't the draw it used to be. But the Law still needs to be taught to the people. So, the priests decided to make the festival, where the people were gathered, even bigger.

The Talmud, or the written-down oral tradition of the Chosen People, reports that, by the time of Jesus, when people went to the Temple for the festivals, there would be acrobats doing back flips and jugglers tossing lighted torches. There would be musicians playing from the Court of Israel, while the priests sang the 15 songs of ascent on the 15 steps to the Court of Women. Instead of the circus coming to town, the people came to the Temple for the circus. And while the people were there, the Law would be read so that all could hear it.

But even jugglers and acrobats and musicians, which was really impressive for the times, can get old after awhile. So, the priests came up with the biggest trick yet to impress the people. On the next-to-last day of the Festival of Shavuot, also known as the Festival of Weeks, after reading the Law the priests would lead the people out of the Temple and down to the Pool of Siloam. There, they would fill their buckets with water, which would then be taken up to the top of the Temple, to the Holy of Holies.

The next day, known as the Great Day, the 50th day after Passover, the day called Pentecost, the people would gather in the Courtyard of the Gentiles, the lowest level of the Temple complex. The priests would then pray for rain to fall during the summer in this desert land. They prayed for rain so there would be a fall harvest to bring in, and to celebrate, and to bring them all to the Temple to give thanks to God again.

And then they would look for the sign of God's blessing. They would wait for a sign that God has heard their prayer for rain. The people would turn their eyes towards the Holy of Holies, at the top of the Temple. And then it would happen: they would see water start to pour down the steps – down the steps to the Court of the Priests, down the steps to the Court of Israel, down the steps to the Court of Women, down the steps to the Court of the Gentiles.

And it wasn’t just a trickle of water. It was a living river of water, enough to cross the acres of the Court of the Gentiles and down the Temple Mount. And it wasn’t just for a few moments. It was a living river of water, washing the steps clean, flowing down to the pool of Siloam. There was more water coming down than seemed possible, even considering the buckets which had been carried up the day before. It was a sign of the abundance of God's blessing for the people who knew and kept God's law.

This is the setting for our reading today. “On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive.”

The water has come flowing down the steps of the Temple. The people are gathered to watch this impressive flow of blessing. And Jesus stands before the people and says, “You think that is impressive? You haven’t seen anything yet. If you want to know the Law, come to me. If you want to understand the Law, believe in me. If you want the Law to flow through you, then I will give you the Spirit of God, and the River of Life, the blessings of God, will flow through you. Believe in me, and you will never be thirsting for the Law again!”

How do you make the faith interesting for the masses? How do you teach the faith so that it engages the people?

Our temptation is to think, like the priests in the Bible, that the answer keeps changing because people keep changing. Our temptation is to think that the answer must keep changing or the people will get bored. After all, the youth group taffy pull doesn't bring them in like it used to do. The week-long family camp and revival would be tough to schedule with today’s busy families being pulled in multiple and more exciting directions. The Sunday organ recital can’t compete with the touring praise band concert.

Our temptation is to find the biggest, most exciting, most entertaining waysthat we can afford to keep the people engaged, in the hopes that we can transfer their excitement for the activity into excitement for Jesus. And those bigger, better, more exciting ways can be good things, they can be really good tools, for reaching out to more people. People who are bored with the church may enticed to try it again, and that can be a very good thing indeed.

But it doesn’t matter which tools we use, or how impressive we can be using them, if they are the ends and not the means for teaching people our faith. Even the best tools will be beside the point if we miss offering Jesus to the people.

When Elijah the Prophet was scared, he ran away to the mountain of God. He had won the contest with the priests of Baal by sacrificing his bull in a bigger, better, more impressive way, but it didn’t convince King Ahab and Queen Jezebel to give up their idolatrous life. If bigger and better wasn’t effective, then what hope did Elijah have in this world for teaching them the Law of God?

We know that while Elijah was on the mountain, that a mighty wind tore at the mountain, but God was not in the wind. There was a terrible earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. There was a fiery conflagration, but God was not in the fire. These were all bigger, better, more impressive thing sin nature, but God was not in them. Instead, God came to Elijah in a still, small voice – a whisper, as it is in some translations.

The point then, as it still is today, is that God doesn’t need something else impressive to get our attention. God is already more impressive than anything we can imagine or experience! God doesn’t need a big show to win over our hearts. God is the one, through Jesus, who can give us new hearts. God doesn’t have to make our life more exciting by entertaining us moment to moment. Life with God brings us joy, which is greater and eternal!

There is a prayer, set to music, which seeks this life with Jesus. If you know it, you can sing along with me:

In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus

Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
Give me Jesus

This morning, I offer you Jesus. He comes to us in the Holy Spirit. He comes to us in fiery moments which warm our hearts. He comes to us in the winds and breezes which stir us. He comes as a mighty living river of water to quench our thirst for God. And he comes to us simply, quietly, ordinarily, in the bread and wine of the sacrament.

The sacrament of communion is one of the ways we teach that Jesus is present with us, that Jesus is near us, that Jesus loves us. It may seem boring, or ordinary, or old fashioned, but it is offered so that we may receive Jesus – who is never boring, or ordinary, or old-fashioned. Today is the Day of Pentecost! May we prepare our hearts to receive this gift of God!

UMH 635 “Because Thou Hast Said”