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| Little Sarah with her Grammie enjoying Easter traditions |
Egg
Hunts for Easter; Christmas Trees in December and all of the holidays in
between. Are these examples of Christian
liberty or a shocking worldliness that must be addressed?
It
seems that every time there is a holiday, conservative Christians want to bring
up these issues and point to the fact that if you will simply take five hours
to research the subject on the internet, then you too will be convinced that
everything you are doing is pagan and must be avoided. But if you spent the same five hours studying the Bible you would never come away with such convictions.
It certainly
seems fastidious and religious, but without a focus on what God calls us to
emphasize, we are easily distracted and miss the point.
The
New Testament never tells Christians they need to celebrate any day. So any day we choose to celebrate (birthdays,
anniversaries, the Fourth of July, St. Patrick's Day, New Year’s Eve, Easter, Christmas and so on)
are under no more religious requirements than any other day on the calendar. We celebrate all things simply to the glory
of God.
Whoever
regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to
the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord
and gives thanks to God. Romans 14:6
Under
the Old Covenant, God instituted observing of new moons, holy days, Sabbaths
and so on, but those were fulfilled in Christ and have passed away.
Colossians
2:16-17 teaches that we should “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, in
drink, or in respect of an holyday or of the new moon or Sabbath days which are
shadows of these to come but the body is Christ.”
As
New Testament believers we observe the Lords supper (not on a specifically
assigned day), but beyond that we have liberty in accordance with our
conscience.
In
fact, in the book of Galatians Paul challenges the gentiles of his day not to
put themselves again under bondage with the Judaizers (Jewish legalists) to
keep certain days or requirements related to certain days. He called those beggarly elements to be
avoided.
We
also have the clear example of Christ when dealing with the folks that strained
out the minor things—which always leads to the avoidance of the major
things. Christ condemned these diligent
hoop jumpers saying:
You blind guides! You strain
out a gnat but swallow a camel.
-Matthew 23:24
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The Pharisees of Christ’s day were so very concerned about
keeping the laws that could be seen by men that they would strain their water
or wine with their teeth rather that gulping or sipping it the way we
would. That way if a gnat (the smallest
of the unclean animals, Leviticus 11:42) got into their drink during the wine
making process or while it sat at the table, it would be caught on their tooth
and they could remove it.
But Christ said they were so busy law keeping
(counting out herbs for their tithes and straining gnats) that they were
swallowing the largest unclean animal of all (Leviticus 11:4); the camel.
And what was this camel they were gulping down
according to Christ? It was the
weightier law: "You have omitted
the weightier elements of the divine law," implied divine, "justice,
mercy, and faith."
Isn’t that always the case? The more we work to strain out minor things, the
less grace we tend to give others. The
more minuscule we get in focusing on minor themes of Scripture the less time we
have for the things that God has put in the foreground.
So why do people worry so much about the
minor? Because it tends to make us feel
pious and righteous. It seems like the “extra” work
or dedication of abstaining (at least in the mind of the law keeper) demonstrates how really devoted we are. The fact that it might bring a greater
respect and approval from men doesn't hurt either. The
Pharisees of Jesus’ day and ours are usually really, really good at sacrifice in these visible areas. Really good at counting out dill seeds and
really bad at what God wanted even more: justice,
mercy, and faith.
John MacArthur in his sermon series, The Condemnation of False Spiritual Leaders
says:
Listen
the Pharisees and the scribes didn't do justly, they were inequitable. They
were unfair, unjust. And they were merciless, brutal, unforgiving, unkind,
ungenerous. They abuse the people. Piling, as it says in verse 4 of this
chapter, heavy burdens on them, grievous to be born and not even moving one
finger to help lighten the load. And they had no faith. They walked by sight.
They walked by works. They walked by law. They walked by their own efforts. And
so He says you're real great at counting out kitchen seeds used to flavor food
and you've missed the whole point of what is really important, justice, mercy,
and faith.
Those are not the words that we want describing us! If you are spending time focusing in on whether a Christian can wear green on St. Patrick's Day or can hunt eggs on Easter- just stop! Because chances are while you are straining that gnat you are missing what God calls greater or weightier.
These are areas of liberty before Christ and do not impact the world or the gospel- except in distracting us from doing the work we were called to do. Our unbelieving neighbors have no such questions or concerns rolling around in their minds and we do them a disservice if we teach them to strain out gnats even
if we have been taught to do so.
Just give grace and liberty to the Easter egg
hunter or the Christmas tree decorator and focus on those things that God desires more.
"He
hath shown thee oh man what is good and
what doth the Lord require of thee,
but
to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."
-Micah
6:8
In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty and in all things charity.
Blessings,
Posts
Great post. Thanks, RJ. /RH
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