The Joyful Multitude Feasting

“These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.” - Psalm 42:4

Easter is the best day of the year. It is the centering message of every other day of the year: Jesus is alive! He is risen! He has defeated death!

And every year we celebrate that together, I’m reminded how good God is to us. The breakfast is such a wonderful time of feasting and fellowship. The music is especially lively, blasting the triumphant hope of Christ’s resurrection. Your voices become angelic combined into one faithful choir. Families put on their best new outfits to mark the occasion. The sun shines in the tall windows warming us with its presence.

These experiences stick in our minds as memorials of God’s goodness to remember in tough days. When the monotony of ordinary life feels uninspiring, we can recall the festivals full of “glad shouts and songs of praise” as the prize at the end of a season of hard work.

Memories of joyful corporate worship are weaved throughout the Psalms. They inspire the worshiper to endure hardship until he can return to that place of peace, joy, and comfort. The festivals provide the seasonal rhythms of rest that encourage daily faithfulness.

And ultimately these feasts point us forward to the day when our feasting will be completely without pain or sorrow. One day the feast will never end. We won’t fall back into doldrums of despair that we need to dig deep into our memory stores to find encouragement. Those days will be gone forever as we dwell permanently in the house of the LORD.

Brothers and sisters, make much of these days that they may stick in your mind as memorials of God’s grace toward you and motivate you to persevere until the day that joy is made our forever existence.

Rejoicing with you always,

Adam and the elders