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17 May 2007
Ezra 6:19-22
The Jewish people who returned from captivity celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. The priests and Levites had made themselves clean. Then the Levites killed the Passover lambs for all the people who had returned from captivity, for their relatives the priests, and for themselves. So all the people of Israel who returned from captivity ate the Passover lamb. So did the people who had given up the unclean ways of their non-Jewish neighbours in order to worship the LORD, the God of Israel.
For seven days they celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread in a very joyful way. The LORD had made them happy by changing the mind of the king of Assyria so that he helped them in the work on the Temple of the God of Israel.
This was a party to end all parties. They hadn't been able to celebrate the Passover, the great ritual remembrance of what God had done for them, in its proper place in Jerusalem for 70 years, and even before that the celebrations had been pretty half-hearted. Now was the time to make up for it.
Do you remember the fall of the Berlin wall - the unbelieving faces and the intoxicating spirit of freedom after 50 years of repression? Can you imagine what it would be like in Lhasa if the Dalai Lama were to return to celebrate the freedom of his people after 70 years? Or if Preston North End revived their former glory by winning the FA cup out of the blue?
Do you have that spirit of joy when you worship God? Or are you jaded by apathy, familiarity and busyness? If you have lost it, think back to your great experiences of God in the past, or rewrite a great bible story into language fresh enough to entrance a seven-year-old.
Why are you downcast, o my soul? Why so disquieted within me? Trust in God, for even now I must praise him, my saviour and my God. (Psalm 42:5).
Written by James Archer
Ezra 6:19-22
The Jewish people who returned from captivity celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. The priests and Levites had made themselves clean. Then the Levites killed the Passover lambs for all the people who had returned from captivity, for their relatives the priests, and for themselves. So all the people of Israel who returned from captivity ate the Passover lamb. So did the people who had given up the unclean ways of their non-Jewish neighbours in order to worship the LORD, the God of Israel.
For seven days they celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread in a very joyful way. The LORD had made them happy by changing the mind of the king of Assyria so that he helped them in the work on the Temple of the God of Israel.
This was a party to end all parties. They hadn't been able to celebrate the Passover, the great ritual remembrance of what God had done for them, in its proper place in Jerusalem for 70 years, and even before that the celebrations had been pretty half-hearted. Now was the time to make up for it.
Do you remember the fall of the Berlin wall - the unbelieving faces and the intoxicating spirit of freedom after 50 years of repression? Can you imagine what it would be like in Lhasa if the Dalai Lama were to return to celebrate the freedom of his people after 70 years? Or if Preston North End revived their former glory by winning the FA cup out of the blue?
Do you have that spirit of joy when you worship God? Or are you jaded by apathy, familiarity and busyness? If you have lost it, think back to your great experiences of God in the past, or rewrite a great bible story into language fresh enough to entrance a seven-year-old.
Why are you downcast, o my soul? Why so disquieted within me? Trust in God, for even now I must praise him, my saviour and my God. (Psalm 42:5).
Written by James Archer
