Leviticus xxiii. v. 1, 2.—And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.
“These are my feasts,” said God to the nation He was educating; “keep these feasts, for they are mine.” Now, what was the nature of these feasts, my brethren, which God called his? The Bible leaves us in no doubt about them. They were certain seasons set apart in every year, and at longer intervals, during which the nation was “to rejoice before the Lord their God.” Each feast commemorated some event in the nation’s life; either a solemn act of national worship, such as the dedication of the[288] Temple; or some great national deliverance, such as the Exodus commemorated by the feast of Passover, or the defeat of Haman’s plot in the reign of Ahasuerus, commemorated by the feast Purim; or the daily care of God for his people, in giving them rain and fruitful seasons, the harvest and vintage, the increase of corn, and wine, and oil, commemorated by the feast of Pentecost.
They were to rejoice before the Lord their God at all these feasts. With what outward actions they were to rejoice we are not expressly told; probably it was left to each generation to express their joy in their own way. In the case of the Passover we know that they were to eat a lamb and unleavened bread; and we gather, I think, from many places, that both songs and dancing were freely used at the feasts; but further than this we do not know the outward form of their rejoicing.
But we do know the spirit in which they were to keep their feasts, the temper of mind in which God would have them rejoice before Him. This is most fully proclaimed. They were to keep alive in themselves and one another the memory of the great deliverances and blessings,[289] which had been, and were being wrought for them. They were to remember that these deliverances had been wrought for ignorant despised bondmen, that these blessings were being poured down on a stiffnecked sinful people. Remembering these things, they were to come to their feasts, and rejoice before Him, with humble open hearts, thanking Him for all they possessed, with love towards their brethren, ready to forgive debts, to help the poor to his right, and to acknowledge and glory in the bond which bound them all together in one nation.
Moreover, these feasts were to be feasts for the whole nation—for the rich and the poor, the free man and the slave, “for thee, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant;” for those who are in trouble and sorrow, as well as for the prosperous and happy; “for the stranger, and fatherless, and widow who are within thy gates.”
One thing more I wish you to notice about the Jewish feasts; they had all the same character, all were God’s feasts—not one or two religious feasts, as we should say, and the rest national, but all God’s feasts, and all national also. There is no hint in the Bible of any distinction;[290] all feasts ordained for the nation are God’s feasts, and their feasts also.
Now such feasts—such rejoicings before the Lord—as these, you can see at once must have had no slight influence on the nation which kept them. Accordingly we find them interwoven with every fibre of the national life: sometimes kept as God’s feasts—as He had said they were to be kept—in humbleness and thankfulness, in breaking bonds and forgiving debts; often, as though they had been not his but the devil’s feasts, in persecuting prophets and slaying righteous men; and no doubt also, as the natural consequence, in debauchery, gluttony, and hard and usurious dealings with one another; in oppression of man-servant and maid-servant, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. But in whatever way the feasts were kept they were always exercising a great power over generation after generation.
I have begun by talking to you about the Jewish feasts, my brethren, because I want to speak to you about our English feasts; and I think if we understand their feasts we shall very likely learn some lessons about our own which may do us good. Now we English, my brethren,[291] as a nation, have neglected this matter of feasts too much. We have very few days on which we rejoice as a nation—in fact the Queen’s birthday is almost our only national holiday, and this day we keep as Englishmen, and not as Christians; while the feasts which we keep as Christians, and not as Englishmen (such as Christmas, and Easter, and Whitsuntide), have for this very reason lost much of their worth for us; which we shall recover, when we begin to keep them again, not the less as Christians, but more as Englishmen.
It is my earnest hope and prayer that we may mend in this matter, and that the great Christian festivals and the Queen’s birthday may so become all, and more than all, to us and our children, which the Passover and Pentecost were to the Jews. But that it may be so, we must, in this as in all other matters, begin mending at home, in our own families, and our own parishes. And so, my brethren, let us to-day think about the feasts which we keep who live in this parish, in the Vale of White Horse, who worship in this church.
We all know well enough what these feasts are. First, there is our village feast, a day set[292] apart in every year which is specially the feast day of this parish, and of all who belong to it. Then there are our harvest homes, which are not parish but family festivals; when the farmer and those who have worked with him, rejoice together over the garnering in of the fruits which God has given. Lastly, there is the feast which does not come every year, but at longer intervals, the feast of Scouring the White Horse, which is not the feast of one parish, but of the whole country side.
A few words as to the meaning of these feasts of ours. The first is the commemoration of the opening of this parish church, and its dedication to the worship of God. Your harvest homes you know the meaning of as well as I. The third is the commemoration of a great victory, won a thousand years ago by the king of this country against an army of heathen invaders. I remind you of these things because they have been too much forgotten, and we never can rightly use our feasts till we remember them better.
Well, now, remember what I have told you about the Jewish feasts, or rather take your Bibles and look for yourselves, whether I tell[293] you the truth, when I say, that our feasts are just such feasts as those which you read of there. The feasts of the Jews were all either feasts in remembrance of the dedication of the Temple, or of thanksgiving for the good gifts of God, or of commemoration for some great national deliverance.
And ours are the very same. Do not think I am dealing unfairly with you in comparing our country feasts to the great national feasts of the Jews. It is not unfair to compare small things with great: families, parishes, nations, must stand or fall by the same laws. A society cannot do evil or good without reaping the fruits thereof, whether it be very small or very great. Do not think that I ought to speak of the great Christian festivals, Christmas and Easter; they are better understood and kept, though very badly as yet. I believe I am taking the right way to make you understand and keep these world-wide Christian feasts properly by bringing you down to these common insignificant feasts of ours, which we, the members of this parish and congregation, have power over; which we can make good or evil; for the use or abuse of which we shall be called to account by God.
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For “thus saith the Lord,” to us as He said to the Jews, “these are my feasts.” They are his, my brethren, whether we like it or not; they are his, though we may try to make them ours, and so make them the devil’s. There is no neutral ground, no escape from the hard fact. Let us see now if we cannot accept them, and use them as his. Let us see whether they will be less or more to us if we do so. We shall find the trial worth making, I think, in the end.
They are his feasts: how, then, can we come to them as his guests—guests who will be pleasing to him, who will use his feasts as he would have us? For if we go to a man’s feast, the first thing we have to do is to go in such a temper and such a dress as will make us acceptable guests; and shall we do less as the guests of God?
The first thing, then, we have to consider is the temper, the state of mind in which we should go to our feasts; and here, as I said before, the Bible tells us all we want to know. The temper which he required of the Jews, he will require of us. At his feasts we have specially two things to do, to remember and to rejoice.[295] To remember the loving-kindness which he has shown to our fathers and to us, in delivering us many a time from the hand of enemies who were stronger than we; in giving us a Church, where for many hundred years the prayers of generation after generation had gone up to him, the God of all truth; in giving us the rich increase of his earth, year after year. Remembering these things, then, we are to keep the feast in humility, for our own unworthiness; in thankfulness, for his tender care and unbounded love.
And we are also to rejoice before him, as members of a family, of a parish, of a country; thinking, therefore, of others, and not of ourselves; making up quarrels, exercising hospitality to all according to our means, seeking to do kindnesses to all who need them, to our debtors, to the oppressed and unfortunate amongst us, to the widows, the fatherless, and the stranger; and in all ways strengthening and deepening the bond which binds us to one another, and to him.
This, my brethren, is the temper and state of mind which he required of the Jews of old, and which he requires of us at these times[296] especially. Think what our feasts would be, what our whole lives would be, if we tried to remember and to rejoice before the Lord thus.
If we come to his feasts in this temper, my brethren, it matters comparatively little what our outward acts of rejoicing may be. If our hearts are right towards the Lord of the feast and to one another, our dress and actions are surely right also, or will soon become so. Nevertheless, this is a matter of plain, practical importance, and I am not going to shrink from it. I wish to consider with you, how we keep his feasts and our feasts now; whether our method of keeping them is a true expression of that temper and spirit in which they ought to be kept, whether any thing better can be suggested.
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