On the fourteenth day of the first month, you must celebrate the LORD’s Passover. On the following day—the fifteenth day of the month—a joyous, seven-day festival will begin, but no bread made with yeast may be eaten. The first day of the festival… (Numbers 28:16-29:40)I have been reading now for quite a while on what all the Israelites had to do in service to God. And a lot of it was tedious and arduous. It would not have been fun in my estimation. Of course, if I had lived then, my idea of fun would be different than it is today. But, still.
But what must their festivals have looked like? As a human and possessed of human nature, I recognize a couple of basic things about people in general. And one of them is the fact that if it is to be a joyous festival, people had to 1) look forward to it and 2) have a good time during it.
It’s hard for me to imagine God saying, Well, aren’t we having fun? while everyone is laboring under a “joyous” festival where they can’t even eat normal food.
It must have been a good time. So what would it have looked like?
Maybe there were games and a general relaxing of the work schedule. People would visit each other and bring little gifts of food of some kind, maybe little things, crocheted potholders or something. Were there games and singing, maybe a community sing where they sang old favorite Israelite songs. Games for the kids maybe, talent contests, food contests to see who could make the best unleavened bread.
There had to be something to make it joyous. I know that a lot of joy is in your mind. If you decide it will be fun, it will. And if you decide it will not be fun, it won’t, no matter how great it is.
Fun is a mindset. What is fun to one person is not necessarily fun to another. But there had to be something built in to this festival to make it joyous. It would not be joyous simply because someone announced it as such. Not even God.
God says, okay, have fun. And the people dutifully have fun. Okay, they say, yippee.
I am not sure what the point of this today is. For that matter, there may be no point to anything I write. But I was just wondering.
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