American Holidays

The word “holiday” in a combination of two words being jammed together:  holy and day.  When you put them together, you get holi-day, although we eliminate the hyphen.  In our American culture, we have a lot of holidays.  Some are really BIG, like Christmas and Thanksgiving.  We get a day off work and most people celebrate those holidays with family.  Other holidays are less of a big deal, although still significant.  Days like Memorial Day and Labor and Independence Day(usually referred to as the Fourth of July) are important, but not as important.  Then there are holidays that a lot people miss entirely, unless you work for the government or a bank, and you get the day off.  Days like President’s Day and Columbus Day pass by most people without even a thought.  But are there holidays in the Bible?

Old Testament

The Law of Moses had several holidays.  Every Saturday was a Sabbath, and as such, it was a holy day(Ex. 20:8), a day different from normal or common days.    The fact that it was holy meant that it was to be set apart from common days; things were different on that day(Saturday).  In addition to the Sabbath, the Law of Moses also set aside 7 feasts each year:  Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles/Booths(Lev. 23).  Some lasted only one day(Passover, Day of Atonement), while others lasted longer(Feast of Unleavened Bread and Feast of Tabernacles).  Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment for these seven festivals, some being mentioned specifically in the New Testament:  In I Cor. 5:7, Paul states that Jesus is our Passover lamb.  Later in I Cor. 15:20, Paul states that Jesus was raised from the dead as the firstfruits of those who died. 

Jews also had other special days like Purim(see Esther 9, specifically verse 26).  And by the first century AD, the Festival of Dedication was being observed(John 10:22); it is known as Hanukkah today, but it was a memorial of the cleansing of the temple in 164 BC by Judas Maccabeus.  Purim and the Feast of Dedication were not part of the Law of Moses, but rather were holidays that Jews celebrated as memorials of important events when the Jewish people and the Temple were saved.  But what about Christians today?

Holy Days in the New Testament

Based on how many holy days there were under the Law of Moses in the Old Testament, you could understandably think that the same would be true in the New Testament.  Do followers of Jesus, Christians, just continue to observe all the holy days from the Law of Moses?  In Col. 2:14, Moses states that Jesus nailed the Law of Moses and everything against people based on the Law of Moses to the cross when He was crucified.  The writer of Hebrews states Jesus is superior in every way to the Law of Moses.  Jesus is superior to Moses(Heb. 3).  There is a better rest for believers of Jesus than for followers of the Law of Moses(Heb. 4).  Jesus is superior to the Levitical priesthood that served God under the Law of Moses (Heb. 8).  The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was superior to the sacrifices made under the Law of Moses(Heb. 9:23-28).  And because Jesus is superior to the Law of Moses, why would we follow it and not Him?  That is the argument that the book of Hebrews makes to Jewish Christians.  He asks them why the continue to follow the things in the Law of Moses, when they had Jesus.  It is a rhetorical question, in a sense, because why would you?  You wouldn’t.  So, if we are not supposed to follow the holy days from the Law of Moses, which would include the Sabbath, are there any holy days or memorials in the New Testament?

What Did Jesus Say?

Jesus said surprisingly little about things that His followers should remember in terms of actual days.  In fact, the only memorial He told His disciples to remember was His death on the cross.  In Luke 22:19, Jesus gave His disciples bread(it was unleavened as part of the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread), and He told them to do this(eating the bread) in remembrance of Him.  This is what is generally referred to as the Lord’s Supper.  This is the only memorial or holiday that Jesus told His disciples to remember.  He didn’t even tell them when to celebrate it.  However, we do see later in the New Testament that the church was celebrating that memorial on the first day of the week.  In Acts 20:7, Paul had been travelling and stopped in Troas on the first day of the week(Sunday) to “break bread” with them, a reference to eating the Lord’s Supper.  The passage even states that the disciples would meet on the first day of the week specifically for the purchase of “breaking bread.”  They no doubt did other things, but the reason they met on that day specifically was to “break bread.”

Man Made Holidays

There are certainly other religious holidays that people celebrate, but none are days that either Jesus or any of the writers of the New Testament told us to celebrate.  I can’t point to any specific verse, because there are none.  And if we are told to celebrate something as a part of our faith, we should not be doing that.  We are not supposed to add to what we have been given, and we are not supposed to take away anything that has been given to us.  This is exactly why Nadab and Abihu were killed by God(Lev. 10:1-20).  They added something that God did not specifically tell them to do.  Some might think the punishment did not fit the crime, or even that there was no crime.  But in God’s eyes, there was a crime.  He wanted His people to understand that they needed to regard Him as holy and they needed to honor Him(Lev. 10:3).  When we do not do as He says, exactly as He says, no adding and no taking away, we do not honor Him.  And death comes to those who do not honor Him.  That is the lesson we are supposed to learn from their deaths.  Let’s make sure that we honor God, not just when it comes to holidays, but everything.  He is holy; let’s view Him as holy and treat Him as holy.