After the Wilderness

United Korean Presbyterian Church/Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
11.18.07; Rev. John An and Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lesson John 7:10-18
Delivered in English and Korean; Watch it here: Part 1; Part 2

Did you listen to the beginning of that passage from John’s Gospel?

Well, did you?

If you did, you should have two questions.

First, how exactly did Jesus go about in secret?

Did he wear a disguise?

Maybe a big hat and dark glasses?

We don’t know the answer to that one

Although it might make for an interesting sermon if we did.

Fortunately, there’s a second question.

What’s the festival that Jesus is going to?

It’s not a carnival.

It’s not a revival meeting.

What is it?

Just a few verses earlier, what does John’s Gospel sayIt says this was the “Festival of Booths.”

Booths?

What are booths?

Are they talking about phone booths?

Maybe they’re talking about office cubicles.

But back in ancient Judea

They didn’t subject people to such terrible working conditions.

So that can’t be it.

What is the Festival of Booths?

It’s a Harvest Festival.

It’s like Thanksgiving for the Hebrew people.

Why is it called booths?

It’s not because you get as big as a phone booth afterwards

During that celebration

Hebrew people built little tents.

They were…and are…called Sukkoth.

That’s why the name of that Jewish holiday today is Sukkoth.

Why did they build those tents?

To remind them of their time wandering in the wilderness.

As they gave thanks for the bounty of their land

The riches of the land of promise that God had given them

They remembered the times that had been harder.

They remembered when they fled from Pharoah

They remembered when they’d journeyed in the desert

They remembered when they’d known hunger.

They remembered when they’d known thirst.

That memory gave them a powerful foundation.

It was the foundation of their thankfulness

For the bounty in the land of God’s promise.

As we enter into this Thanksgiving week

We are often reminded to be thankful.

But what are we thankful for?

Are we thankful for what God has given us?

We should be.

We need to be thankful for the meals on our tables.

We need to be grateful for the blessings of family and friends.

We need to be filled with gratitude for the blessings of freedom

Freedom to worship

Freedom to speak our minds,

Freedom to live without fear of oppression.

But we have to think for a moment.

In John 7:18, Jesus warns us.

He warns us about those who seek their own glory.

Are we thankful for the goodness of God’s creation

Or are we thankful that we’re fat and happy?

Are we thankful because God is good

Or are we thankful because we are doing well?

Is it our own glory that causes us to celebrate

Or is it the glory of the one who made us?

We have to try to remember to be thankful

In a way that is not selfish.

We have to remember what God’s intent is for his children.

From the prophet Isaiah this morning

We hear what God seeks for all of us.

In that glorious vision

Of a new heaven

And a new earth

God shows us the great bounty he desires to give

Not just to us

But to all of his people

God desires a day when weeping is no more

God desires a day when suffering have ceased

God desires that we leave the wilderness of oppression

And live in a land of peace

“They shall not hurt or destroy on all my Holy Mountain.”

As we give thanks today

As we give thanks this week

We have to remember to give thanks not just for ourselves

We have to let our thanks flow

But not from our own sense of pleasure.

We have to let our thanks rise

But not from our pride.

We should give thanks, instead, with a servant’s heart.

Let us give thanks to God who calls us to serve those who struggle.

To relieve the suffering of the thousands rendered homeless

By the cyclone that devastated Bangladesh.

Let us give thanks to God who calls us to serve those who weep

In the Chinese internment camps for North Korean refugees.

Let us give thanks to God who calls us to serve those whose hearts hunger

By sharing with them the grace of Christ

and the goodness of His Gospel

If we act to serve them

Those actions will stand like tents in our lives

Booths of righteousness

Sukkot of justice

Reminding us of our own wilderness struggle

And allowing us to be truly thankful

Unselfishly, joyously thankful

For all that God has given us.