PAST COLUMN #15

From the West Meadow
By Pastor Wesley Higgins

My wife and I have just returned from a very uplifting, joy filled, yet at the same time stress filled gathering of some 500 fellow Christians. We met with them for eight days in Grand Junction, CO, to celebrate God’s fall festival, the Feast of Tabernacles (see Leviticus 23:33-44).

As I said, it was a joy filled time: a time of fellowship, of dining together, of laughter. It was a time of getting together for activities–everything from a senior luncheon to a kids’ day with pizza and wall climbing, to a family chicken barbecue at a living history museum. And it was a time of worship. Worship in song and praise, and prayer, with a fair share of the worship music provided by our local Christian band, Northern Lights.

But at the same time, what made this Feast most uplifting and unusual was the stress. Normally, we don’t think of God’s festival as a time of stress, but most of the attendees went with the knowledge that some of the speakers would not agree with them on some very basic doctrine. What this difference of opinion spawned was not disagreeableness or anger, but some interesting debate, lots of prayer and Bible study, and many conversations.

What I saw reminded me of what Luke wrote about in the book of Acts concerning the Christians at Berea. “These were more fair minded...in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.” (Acts 17:11) Men and women spent time discussing the sermons and seminars, sometimes standing in small groups, sometimes over dinner, often with open Bibles; and even though agreement wasn’t always reached, there was joy and laughter to be heard.
As I heard the laughter in the discussions, and as I participated myself, I was reminded of what the prophet Malachi said: “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to another, and the Lord listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and meditate on His name” (Malachi 3:16).

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles....some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints...for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith...to a perfect man, to...the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13). Sometimes this “unity”, this “fullness of Christ”, this “perfect man” can not be achieved without some discord, without some sparks flying. “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend” (Proverbs 27:17).

This was a very interesting Feast of Tabernacles--through the joy and happiness and strife many irons were sharpened.

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