Festivals confront Christians at every turn. At home, their families observe them as part of their traditions. Some schools and workplaces officially celebrate them. Socially, their friends invite them to join in their festivities. Christians ought to know which festival they can participate in and which to keep away from. The guide is of course the Bible and here are the basic principles distilled from it.
There are two types of festivals: religious and cultural. Religious festivals are held in honour of deities or to perform religiously significant rituals. Cultural festivals commemorate momentous events or heroes of the community, or celebrate joyous occasions such as harvest-time and change to benign season.
God himself instituted seven religious festivals for the Israelites. They are laid down in Leviticus 23 as the (1) Feast of Passover, (2) Feast of Unleavened Bread, (3) Feast of First Fruits, (4) Feast of Pentecost (also called Feast of Harvest[1] and Feast of Weeks[2]), (5) Feast of Trumpets, (6) Day of Atonement, and (7) Feast of Tabernacles (also known as Feast of Ingathering[3] and Feast of Yahweh[4]). Christians are not bound to observe them. Romans 14:4-13 says:
“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand. One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. … Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God; … So each of us shall give account of himself to God. Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”
Colossians 2:16-17 confirms:
“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”
Galatians 4:8-11 adds:
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.”
Christianity has no festival as neither Jesus, nor the apostles, nor the New Testament established any.
Needless to say, Christians are strictly forbidden from participating in festivals dedicated to false gods. It is an abomination to God. God in Leviticus 18:3-30 issued this injunction:
“After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein you dwelt, shall you not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, where I bring you, shall you not do: neither shall you walk in their ordinances. … Therefore shall you keep Mine ordinance, that you commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that you defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God.”
Colossians 2:8 warns against being spoilt by the “tradition of men”. 1 Corinthians 10:18-22 goes to the extent of excluding those who participate in religious feasts of false gods from partaking the Lord’s Supper:
“Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?”
The command to Christians to separate themselves from the practices of other religions receives even stronger emphasis in 2 Corinthians 6:14:
“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Therefore, “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
However, people love festivals. If God has not provided any and celebrating a religious festival patently dedicated to a false god is wrong, it is very tempting to adopt a proscribed but popular religious festival and celebrate it in honour of the true God. In history, Aaron was the initiator of such assimilation. When the Israelites grew restless from waiting too long for Moses to descend from Mount Sinai with God’s laws, they revered a golden calf idol as the god who rescued them from Egypt. Then Exodus 32:5-6 records this innovative and masterful manoeuvre that would be copied by the Roman Catholic Church thousands of years later:
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD”. So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
Note that he was still faithful to the LORD (or Yahweh). His intention was to honour Yahweh; the entire shenanigan was a “festival to the LORD”! Only that he adopted a pagan celebratory format. But unlike the Roman Catholic Church, he knew of no other form of celebration for Moses had not yet returned with God’s blueprint of how the people ought to worship. Nonetheless God was not impressed. This is an understatement. God was incensed:
“I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.”[5]
In the face of this threat, Moses interceded forcefully. God relented and spared the Israelites. Otherwise the entire Hebrew race would have vanished in the sands of time.
So it is very clear that not only the celebration of paganistic festivals per se is prohibited, the celebration of paganistic festivals reinterpreted to honour the true God is also prohibited. This is because God not only detests the worship of false gods, God detests people worshipping him in the way of other religions. The form or manner of honouring God is important. In Deuteronomy 12:3-4 God commanded:
“Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. You must not worship the LORD your God in their way.”
And in Deuteronomy 12:29-32 he added:
“When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods . . . Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.“
Jeremiah 10:2 warns, “Learn not the way of the heathen, …” History has shown that God does not want his people to honour him in the way of the heathens. God is to be honoured only in the way he himself has set out. Therefore Christians are not allowed to adopt a pagan festival, mask it with a Christian name, force Christian meanings into its centuries-old customs and celebrations, and then celebrate it in honour of Christ.
As for cultural festivals, peoples of all races everywhere have their own. The Jews are no exception. They have two – Purim and Hanukkah[6].
Purim is celebrated on the thirteenth to fifteenth day of the month Adar (roughly March)[7]. It commemorates the deliverance of the Jews in the Persian Empire wrought by Esther[8] during the reign of Ahasuerus [probably Xerxes (486-465 B.C.) but possibly Artaxerxes II (404-359 B.C.)]. The name originated from the Hebrew word pur used in Esther 3:7; 9:24-26 as “lots”. It may also have been derived from the Assyrian word puru which means a pebble or small stone, which would be used for casting lots. Lots are associated with this festival because Haman the vizier who masterminded the plot to massacre all the Jews cast lots to find an auspicious day, as he was a superstitious man, to carry out the pogrom. Adar 13 is a day of fasting while Adar 14 and 15 are days of celebration. Purim is celebrated with the reading of the book of Esther in the synagogues which is traditionally interjected with taunts and boos and cursing from the congregations at every mention of the name Haman and climaxes with rejoicing. Food and presents are sent to friends.
Hanukkah (also known as the Feast of Dedication) is celebrated beginning from the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev (December) and lasts for eight days. It originally celebrates the winter solstice but later commemorates the dedication (or cleansing) of the temple and altar by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 B.C. following his victories over Antiochus Epiphanes who had desecrated them for three years[9]. Hence the name. Hanukkah in Hebrew means “dedication”. The prominent feature of this festival is the lighting of a candle on each of the eight nights of festivities. There is no partial or total abstention from occupation nor is there any holy convocation at the beginning or the end. In some ways its mode of celebration resembles the Feast of Tabernacles[10] except that it may be celebrated anywhere instead of just at Jerusalem.
Both these festivals were actively and widely celebrated in Jesus’ time. Jesus picked out many practices of the Jews in his time for criticism but never once questioned the propriety of celebrating Purim or Hanukkah. The gospel writer John mentioned Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, in John 10:22 without adverse comment. It may be inferred therefore that the celebration of cultural festivals is permitted.
[1] Ex 23:16.
[2] Ex 34:22; Deut 16:10, 16; 2 Chron 8:13.
[3] Ex 23:16; 34:22.
[4] Lev 23:39.
[5] Ex 32:9-10.
[6] See generally Tenny, M.C., The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976; The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Inter-Varsity Press, England, Leicester, 1980, 1994.
[7] Originally it was celebrated on the fourteenth day by those in villages and unwalled towns and on the fifteenth by those in fortified cities (Esth 9:18-19; Jos. Antiq. xi. 13). Around 161 BC a decree was made to celebrate annually the defeat of Nicanor, the Syrian general, by Judas Maccabaeus on the thirteenth day of Adar (1 Macc 7:49; 2 Maccabees 15:36). Incidentally the record in 2 Maccabees 15:36, believed to have been written by 50 BC, noted that Nicanor’ Day was the day before “Mordecai’s Day”, referring to Purim. The famous Jewish historian, Josephus, at the end of the first century AD, stated that Nicanor’s Day was kept on Adar 13 (Antiq. xii. 412) and Purim on Adar 14 and 15 (Antiq. xi. 295). After the 7th century AD, the observance of Nicanor’s Day faded and Purim extended itself forward to the thirteenth.
[8] Esth 9:16ff.
[9] 1 Macc 4:41-59; 2 Macc 10:6-8.
[10] 2 Macc 10:6.