A Time to Rejoice

Recently I was reading in the Book of Deuteronomy.  Now, Deuteronomy is not exactly the most popular book of the Bible.  A lot of it is a recap of what happened in the four books of the Bible that came before it.  What’s not a recap is mostly a listing of Old Testament law.  Reading current law books isn’t exactly thrilling.  Reading Old Testament law can be even less interesting.

But I was reading it anyway, and I saw something that struck me.  I’m going to quote a bit of it, from Deuteronomy Chapter Sixteen.  See if you can figure out what it was that struck me about it:

Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you. And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you.

Did you figure it out?  Well, here’s what it is.  Apparently, there was a specific time and place each year at which the people of Israel were supposed to rejoice before the Lord.

We don’t really think of “rejoicing” in that way, do we?  We think of rejoicing, of feeling joy, as something that needs to be spontaneous.  It has to come from the heart.  It has to be something we really feel.  But that’s not what the people of Israel were told.  They were told to plan their rejoicing.  They were told that it was to happen at a certain time and at a certain place.

I find that fascinating.  These laws, after all, came from God.  God was telling the people of Israel that every year, at a certain time, the people of Israel were supposed to plan their rejoicing.  They were supposed to come to a certain place at a certain time and rejoice.  There was nothing spontaneous about it.  God did not say “come and rejoice if you feel like it”.  God did not say “come and rejoice if you think you had a really good year”.  God said they were to come, and they were to rejoice.  Period.

Why would God do that?  Well, I don’t know God’s mind, but I can think of one reason.  What happens over and over again in the Old Testament?  God blesses the people of Israel.  The people of Israel prosper.  Then, the people of Israel take God’s blessings for granted.  They drift away from God.  God withdraws God’s blessings.  The people of Israel suffer.  They turn back to God and ask for forgiveness.  God forgives them and blesses them again.  And the cycle starts again.

I suspect one of the reasons the people of Israel were told to come together and rejoice was to try to break that cycle.  They were to take some time to really think about how God had blessed them over the past year.  It was an attempt to keep people from taking God for granted, and instead to be grateful for what God had done for them.  Even if it hadn’t been a perfect year--even if it hadn’t felt like a particularly good year--there were still things that God had done for them, ways that God had blessed them, and they were to take the time to think about it and be grateful for it.

That applies to us, too.  I don’t know how your year went.  For some of us it went better than for others of us.  Some of us had lots of good things happen.  Others of us suffered losses of various types.  For most of us, the year was a combination of good and bad, because that’s how life works.

But now, as we come to the end of the old year and the start of a new year, I encourage you to do what the people of Israel were told to do.  Rejoice!  Rejoice even if you don’t feel like it.  Rejoice even if you don’t think the year was all that good.  Because no matter how your year went, there are still things God did for you.  There are still ways God has blessed you.  After all, God does not owe it to us to do anything for us.  So anything positive that happened was a blessing from God.  Take time to think about those things, and be grateful for them.

That’s a good way to end the year.  It’s a good way to start the year, too.  No matter what’s going on in your life right now, think of ways God has blessed you.  Be grateful to God for that.  And rejoice!  God will appreciate it.  And I suspect you’ll feel better, too.