November 24, 2022

Zechariah 7: 5, 6 (NIV)

“Ask all the people . . . ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves?’”

Just think how difficult it would be to share our faith during the holidays if “reason” didn’t rhyme with “season.”*

Christmas was approaching and my co-workers (all women) were stressing over how much they had to do to prepare for the holiday – shopping, baking, wrapping, decorating. I didn’t have much sympathy for them. “Who said you had to do all that stuff?” I asked. Turns out, they were doing it because they chose to.

Zechariah was instructed to have a similar conversation with the Jews who had returned to their homeland from exile in Babylon. They wanted to know if they should continue observing the days of fasting and mourning they had instituted in memory of Jerusalem’s defeat. Through Zechariah, God answered their question with more questions. “Did you fast and mourn for me?” and “Did you feast for me?” It seems their fasting and feasting had lost its meaning.

Does that sound familiar? While there is nothing wrong with getting together with family to eat turkey or exchange gifts or hide eggs, let’s not pretend we’re honoring God when we have left him out of the festivities. We may kid ourselves that Thanksgiving is about being thankful; Christmas is about Jesus’ birth; and Easter is about his resurrection; but seriously . . .

We may have become like Zechariah’s compatriots – turning a perfectly fine religious tradition into a meaningless version of its intended purpose – but our danger lies in how we observe the only mandatory “holiday” instituted for Christians: the Lord’s Supper, in which we commemorate Jesus’ death and resurrection. In I Corinthians 11: 17-32, we find instructions for the right way to participate and the warnings about what will happen if we allow it to become just another meaningless tradition.

God did finally respond to the people’s question with an answer. In 8: 19, we find the good news: their self-imposed fasts would become joyful and festive occasions. The same may be possible for our traditional holidays if we include God in our celebrations once more and if we heed his plea to “love truth and peace.”

It can be a deadly thing to come to God with unexamined lives.*