Sermons

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Walking by Faith: Celebration
January 27, 2002
Third in a series on “Walking By Faith”
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Exodus 15:1-21

Today we’re on the 3rd week of a series I’ve called “Walking By Faith,” looking at what it means to live our lives faithfully in Jesus Christ. We continue tracking the journey of the Israelite people in the Old Testament. Last week, they started on their journey out of Egypt and away from slavery. As they took their first steps, they were chased by an Egyptian army, but God did an amazing thing by rescuing them…giving them a way of escape through the Sea, and destroying their enemies.

Today we look at the next chapter, Chapter 15 of the book of Exodus, beginning with verse 1.

I’m going to tell you right up front, I am NOT a good golfer. I picked it up a bit later in life, and it’s a hard sport to do that with. Though I think I’m getting a little better, I have been known to hit trees, ponds, bushes…even a barn and a house! I’m not a good golfer. But occasionally, every once in a while, all of the stars in the universe line up, and I give it a good swing, and hit it solidly.

Now, golf is a funny game. You dress decently, there are lots of rules, lots of etiquette…written and unwritten. One of those rules is: Quiet on the golf course. Don’t disturb other golfers’ concentration.

Now, that rule really works against every fiber of your being when you finally whack a shot correctly. What you WANT to do, what you probably SHOULD be able to do…is to scream and shout and dance: Wahoo! Did you see that? I got it ALL! Straight down the middle, incredible! Tiger Woods couldn’t do that!

But of course, you can’t do that. What you are expected to do is rather nonchalantly walk back to your golf bag, slide the club calmly in, and wait for the next golfer to hit. Instead of celebrating, you stifle it.

Is it okay to celebrate? Not just in golf, but in life. Is it okay? Do you do it?

Down through the years, Christians have often acquired a reputation of being serious and sober-minded, walking through life with sort of a grim endurance. Is it ever okay to just stop and CELEBRATE? The Dictionary says to celebrate is to “mark an occasion or event, especially a joyous one, with ceremony or festivity.”

Moses and his sister Miriam seem to have no trouble doing exactly that.

They have come through the most amazing experience of their life. God has stepped forward and acted on their behalf in the most amazing way. One moment their lives seem to mean very little…and the next, God has acted in a way that says “Your lives are so important to me!” And Moses…in my minds’ eye at least, stands there in awe and wonder looking back over the Sea…and I imagine an absolutely silly grin beginning to appear on his face. ... He has just won the lottery. He’s standing on top of Mt. Rainier. He just hit a ½ court basketball shot to win a car. His fiancee just said “YES!” to his marriage proposal. And there he stands, with this silly grin…and he starts to SING.

Singing is, incidentally, one of the great ways to celebrate…to let your heart well up and be released. There’s not many places it happens, actually…not in our culture. Maybe you sing in the shower…or once in a while you spot someone singing in their car.

A few of us sing in community choirs…but really, the main place singing occurs in our world…is right here…when we come together to worship God.

Is celebrating okay? Moses things so. He starts into this very long song. And as I’ve looked at it over the last couple weeks, I’ve absolutely loved reading all the different Bible scholars talk about this passage…trying to chart this song, to classify it in a typology. One says it’s a hymn, one calls it an “enthronement psalm,” one calls it a litany, one says it is a “victory psalm,” another a “psalm of thanksgiving.” But it just doesn’t exactly fit any of the categories. The most honest scholar, Brevard Childs says:

“…No one form describes the entire song or does justice to the variety within the poem…” I like that! You see, I have my own theory: Moses is celebrating! When you celebrate, you don’t stop to think about the form your words take as much as you just let go, and let your heart well out into song. It’s pretty simple, really: God saves the people, the people believe in what He has done and who He is…and they start to celebrate.

It’s really a rather natural thing. The Westminster Catechism from the 1630’s, one of the formative documents in the Protestant faith, says it this way:

Q: What is the chief end and duty of man?
A: To love God and enjoy him forever.

Moses…is enjoying God! It’s okay to celebrate.

A couple weeks ago we talked about John Bunyan’s great work called Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory that shows the Christian life as a journey. When the character Christian has come towards heaven, he comes to the foot of the cross, and experiences the taking away of his burdens, his sin. And Bunyan writes “He stood still a while to look and wonder, for it surprised him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden.” Then Christian is visited by three “Shining Ones,” representing the trinity of God. One gives him peace, one forgiveness, and one the assurance of salvation. Then, it says, “Christian jumped for joy three times and went on his way, singing:

Thus far did I come laden with my sin;
Nor could aught ease that grief that I was in
Till I came hither: What a place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here the burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
Blest cross! Blest sepulcher! Blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!

Celebration is part of what we are about as Christians. I want to just mention four things that are important about celebrating:

1) If we are going to celebrate, we have to keep our eyes open!

We have to be aware of when God acts. We have to notice! I learned something living through the winters in Minnesota. Winters are usually long and hard there. And there gradually develops two kinds of people: There are those who, when winter first appears, pretty much disappear, and you don’t see them emerge much at all until the spring, like some sort of ground hog. They burrow in, and endure. But then there are others: who strap on their boots or skates, throw an extra layer of clothing on…and go outside to walk or run or ski or skate. These are the people who see the invigorating, intense beauty of the snow on the trees, the frozen lakes and streams, the frosted breath of walkers.

We have to be people who notice, who watch. We have to look around at our lives, sometimes the little things: the beauty of a bare tree silhouetted against the sky, the liveliness of kids playing, the blessings of time with good friends or family. We have to stop and look at the bigger things as well…to reflect on the fact that we are loved by God, that God is present as we walk, that we have tasted forgiveness. We have to notice in order to celebrate.

2) Real celebration…inevitably grows wider.

It starts with the recognition of a particular event, some THING that God has done…but then it expands to the God behind it.

Moses starts out celebrating the event -- the horse and rider thrown into the sea…but quickly moves to “God, my strength and might.” Moses talks about “the waters piling up,” but moves quickly to “Who is like you, O God?”

That seems to be the pattern. The New Testament story I’ve been working with, the one where Jesus tells Peter and the other fishermen to go out and cast their nets one more time, even when they just KNOW it won’t do any good. And they get this astonishing catch of fish. And as Peter contemplates what has just happened…he is driven to his knees as he realizes that in Jesus Christ, he is in the presence of God Himself.

Peter is astonished at the deed…and then overwhelmed by the Person. It happens to us as well. We see the cross, we say the words “In the cross of Christ, we have been forgiven, and set free.” Yet as we reflect…it comes home to us. This is not just a philosophy, or a strategy or a credo…it’s not even just an act done for “people out there.” It’s for ME. For MY forgiveness. WHY would God do that? God loves ME, too, Christ died for ME, too. G.K. Chesterton wrote a short poem, describing this grateful sense of “Why me?”:

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?

There’s a great picture of this again involving Moses, from a bit later in the story. As Moses speaks to the people Israel in Deuteronomy, listen to what he says: “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you- for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord LOVED you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought you out with a might hand, and (what?) redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” From the act, to God, to God’s heart…a heart of love.

3) Celebrating does not negate or ignore reality.

Moses knows, I think, that there will be hard times ahead. They have been saved, but there is a big wide desert in front of them. In fact, in the very next section, the struggles will begin. Moses knows they will come. But that doesn’t stop him from celebrating NOW. Celebrating does not mean everything in life is good or right or easy. It’s not…and it will not be until we join for that final celebration with Christ in heaven. Celebration does not ignore reality. But it means we celebrate in the midst of all that goes on. Celebration is one part of the rhythm of life that goes on, interspersed and woven together with struggle and joy, pain and endurance.

4) Finally…celebration is a discipline.

That sounds funny, I know. Twenty-four years ago, Richard Foster wrote his well-known book, “Celebration of Discipline.” The book is about the spiritual disciplines, the practices which cultivate our spiritual relationship with God. Most are things you would think of, like: prayer, fasting, study, solitude, confession. But the very last one mentioned is “celebration.” The practice of celebration refreshes our spirits, it helps to get us through the darker times and perhaps most importantly…it frees us from an inflated view of ourselves…if our eyes are open to what God is doing around us…then we will not be so focused on ourselves.

Tonight, actually, we’re going to get some practice in “celebrating.” When we gather for the annual meeting…the emphasis will be on remembering, on singing, on celebrating…what God has done in our midst, and therefore who God is in our lives. It’ll be fun.

Just one more thing. At the end of Moses’ Song of the Sea, his sister Miriam takes over. In verse 20 it says,

Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

At first glance, it seems that Miriam merely echoes Moses from the beginning of his song. But there is one small difference. Moses begins by saying “I will sing,” first person singular, “I will sing,” and it’s as though we then watch and listen as Moses and some others sing. But when Miriam starts, she says to them: “Sing to the Lord,” second person plural. YOU ALL sing to the Lord, second person plural AND it’s a command:

You all SING to the Lord! I think Miriam might have been a Southern Baptist! Ya’ll sing to the Lord. And so we sing. And so we praise. And so we celebrate.

Now, I feel like I would be remiss if I just stood up here and talked about this instead of us doing it. There’s a word which we may have come close to ruining in Christian circles… Hallelujah. It’s a complex word, but it’s meaning is essentially this: Praise YHWH. Praise God. Hallelujah means “Praise God.” Will you say it with me a few times? Hallelujah. You all say it to the Lord: Hallelujah. Ya’all say it to the Lord: Hallelujah. Ya’ll shout it out: Hallelujah. Amen. Let’s pray.