A Festival Everyday

I wrote earlier about eating with good intentions. I talked about eating in a more regimented way that makes the focus of eating a method to thank God.

It seems to me that the many festivals in the old testament did this sort of thing. Think of the Passover. There were very specific items on the menu, even down to the spices. Everything at the table had meaning. The bitter herbs were to remind the eater of the hard toil in Egypt, for example. The people participating in the festival were not supposed to eat blindly, merely to get to the next thing in the day. The were meant to eat and remember, to eat and think.

There are two interesting things that I want to talk about. One is how the menu is not just oriented around what will taste good. There is the unleavened bread. That sounds tasty. But even a bitter taste has a purpose in the meal. It is important in learning a lesson. What bitter food do I have that I could eat to remind me of some hard thing that the Lord has delivered me from? Maybe I could then eat something sweet to remember God’s forgiveness.

The second is, the bitter herbs were meant to remind the eater of the hard life in Egypt. Yet when the nation of Israel was wandering in the wilderness they kept saying things like, “We would be better off in Egypt. At least we had melon and other foods there.” The Lord gave the nation a tool to help themselves avoid this attitude. Durning the Passover, the eating of the bitter herbs was supposed to remind them of how bad Egypt was and to not go back that way, not to mention that the whole Passover festival was meant to remind of how bad Egypt was and of God’s miraculous rescue. I feel astonished at the nation’s actions. Not only did they have this tool, but they were eating bread from heaven, manna. They didn’t even have to work for it.

Although I feel astonished, I am a human too. I act like this. I let my mind tell me that things in the past that were bad (like sin) aren’t that bad. I also get calloused and forget to recognize the wonderful things that the Lord gives me. I also forget that the Lord gives me wonderful tools like the bitter herbs to help me live rightly. Like the nation of Israel I forget to use these tools. I want to learn. I want to change I want to use the tools and have a festival every day.