Now I invite the rest of you to open your Bibles to the book of Nehemiah as we dig again into this history of God's people during the days of Nehemiah and now after the wall has been built. We're looking at Nehemiah 8, verses 13 through 18. And this series, if you're not aware of what we're doing, we've been calling this series Rebuilding because we are looking back at God's history and remembering how even they needed to look back to the good things that God had done in their past and restore them so that they would have a better future. And we want to be doing a similar thing of looking to the good things that God has done here in the past, looking for what we must remember so that we together can anticipate and expect and work and build together a better future for our families, for our nations, for this world. but we're specifically gonna be looking here at the Feast of Booths, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, which that celebration itself was a remembering of the good things that God has done in the past and an anticipation of the future, and we'll unpack a little bit more of what that feast is as we go through this passage. But, as we specifically read this, these verses here, one of the things I want you to ask is what do we think of when we hear the word solemn? So you may, maybe this is not a word you use every day, but you've probably heard it before, solemn. What do you picture when you think of the word solemn? And what is intended here in this passage when it talks about the solemn assembly of the people of God? Consider that and consider it in the context that we're reading. But as we do prepare ourselves to come before his word, to make sure that his truth is being, what is celebrated, what is being revealed, let us offer this prayer. God, we do come again and humble ourselves before you. Because we are not a people who have earned the right to demand your truth. Because we, by our sinful nature, We're people who've turned from your truth. We are people who've rejected your truth, and yet you are a God of such rich grace and mercy, you have proclaimed your truth to us anyways, so that by seeing it, we would repent and believe in you, and that we would know your beauty. So God, thank you for this privilege that we did not earn. Let us use the right to come to you this morning so that we would be made complete in the understanding of all that you've done for us. Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name, whose name makes this possible for us. Amen. So friends, let's now stand in body and spirit honoring the Lord, looking together at his word revealed to us in Nehemiah chapter eight, starting with verse 13. Hear these words of the Lord. On the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the law. And they found it written in the law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem. go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths as it is written. So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God and in the square at the water gate and in the square at the gate of Ephraim. And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths. For from the days of Jeshua, the son of Nun, to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. And day by day, from the first day to the last, he read from the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days. And on the eighth day, there was a solemn assembly according to the rule. Brothers and sisters, the grass withers, the flower fades. But the Word of our God will stand forever. And you can be seated. So I asked that question of you, and we saw the phrase come up at the end, solemn, speaking of the solemn assembly that they held on that eighth day, but I want us to think for a moment. When we talk about solemn worship, that the Lord commands us to come and give him solemn worship, What is meant and what is intended by that? And there's some relevance to the timing of, this is very providential that we're thinking about this question this week because a week from now, Lord willing, we will be able to gather again and celebrate the Lord's Supper. A feast by which we can share with one another. And what we learn about the feasting that happened in the days of the Old Testament does point to a lot of what should be in our minds, what is being accomplished and fulfilled in the feast of the Lord's Supper that we are going to celebrate with one another. I think this understanding of what solemn means helps us to know how we are to use these six days between this Sunday and the next. What are we to be doing in these next six days so that we can be as solemn as possible when we come to the table of the Lord next week. Why, what is this that I'm worried about? What is there a temptation for us to misunderstand, to misinterpret? Well, I think about this in another context of a phrase and implications of that language. Who's Here had it before where you were invited to come and have a meeting with a boss or a teacher or somebody important and they invite you to their desk, to their table with the phrase, we need to talk. Anyone kind of get that type of phrase before? How many of us, when your boss or your teacher says, we need to talk, you think, great, that's awesome. Like, I love my boss, we get along so well. I love every time we get a chance to talk to each other. If your boss tells you, we need to talk, how do you respond? Do you think this is gonna be fun? Or do you think, we're gonna talk about some things that aren't a lot of fun to talk about. You know, what is our instinct? And I bring this example up because when we are invited to come to the table of the Lord for communion, some of us have been taught to come to the table with this attitude of this is the moment in which we need to have this uncomfortable conversation. This is the moment where we need to start bringing up all the unpleasant things that I've been doing, recognizing that I have fallen short of the glory of God. The table is the place for the unpleasant conversation. Yet, is that really what is intended for our gathering at the table of the Lord? when we hear the word solemn, I recognize that most of our traditions, when we think of solemn, it is interchangeable with a word like somber, like a word that we would use for thinking of going to a funeral. It's a time for an unpleasant conversation. It may not all be bad news, because at a funeral, if that brother or sister belongs to the Lord, we know that they're having a great day, but for us, when we're gonna come into this room, there's gonna be some uncomfortable things we need to recognize. And is that how we think about it when we come to the table of the Lord? That the table is a place for the unpleasant conversation. Now, have we done terrible things that we need to lament? Certainly so. Have we rebelled against the Lord and should that sin deeply grieve our hearts? Certainly so. But, when we come to the table of the Lord, There is something else that he has intended for us in that moment. He has an intention for us in that moment that is not one of self-flagellation, it's not one of beating ourselves up for all the evil things that we have done, but when we come to the moment at the table, the solemn worship that is being commanded for us is a moment of joy. The solemn worship of the table is the joy that comes after the grieving of our sins. So one of these principles we're gonna have to understand is that as long as we live in this world of sin, as long as we live in this world of misery and brokenness, much of it by our own design and doing, that we are going to be living in this balance of grief and joy. And a few of you after last week talking about the passage, bringing up this point of, yeah, Ezra told them, you need to stop grieving, but he's not telling us we need to stop all of our grieving as long as we live in this world and there's sin and there's pain. There is plenty of things for us to grieve in this life. that grief and joy, they're not mutually exclusive things. It's not that one cancels out the other. In fact, we need to be people, as long as we live in a world of sin, we need to be people who are both grieving and rejoicing at the same time. And we even see in some of the teachings of Jesus that the deeper our grief for our sin is, the greater our rejoicing, the greater our appreciation is for the mercy that God gives us. So there is, in our life, in this world, there is a tension of these two things that are being held against each other, one helping the other grow. But when it comes to the table of the Lord, They're going to argue for us this morning. When it comes time to come to the table of the Lord is a moment for us to set aside the grief and to remember that there is going to be a day when we come into the presence of God to His table in His house forever. And we will be a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come. In which there'll be no more room for sorrow or pain anymore. And so the intention of our hearts when we come to the table is a temporary living as if the pains of this world have disappeared and that it's a practicing and looking forward to that moment when there is nothing to restrain us or hold us back from delighting and celebrating all the good gifts that God has given to us. So why am I getting to this idea when we're talking about solemn worship, even if most of our modern traditions would say something very different about what it means to be solemn? Well, I'm getting this from looking at the word in its context. So let's unpack the context here of the solemn assembly that they held in their day. Verse 13, on the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the law. So last week we were talking about the Feast of Trumpets that was on the first day of the seventh month. This was a harvest festival. The hard work of the harvesting was done. This was a chance for them to rest, to relax, to say that one year's work is finally completed and they can look forward to a new year. But that new year starts with a rest, a time to delight with one another. So they had one day that all the people had gathered there in the city of Jerusalem, but now we're reading about what happened the day after, the second day, when the leaders of the people, they stuck around and they continued to study the words of God, to know his commandments better and how to serve him more faithfully. Verse 14. And they found it written in the law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month. So there is a second feast this month that they're supposed to celebrate. Some people call it the Feast of Booths, others call it the Feast of Tabernacles. What is a tabernacle? A tabernacle is a booth. It's just more of a Jewish way of thinking about the particular type of booths and tents that the people would have made in those days. But here we go, harvest month, the work is done, this is a time for celebration. And what do they do as a part of this celebration? Verse 15, and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written. So we see that the people were called to come and spend a week in the city of Jerusalem, and what they did was a little bit of cosplay. It was a little bit of play acting here, pretending as if they were participating in the wilderness wanderings of the book of Exodus. That they, like the people during the days of Moses, wandered through the wilderness, living in tabernacles and booths, and so they would, for a week, just kind of live together in these little ramshackle houses that they would make. And so there is, in this celebration, a remembering of some of the difficult days of the past. Because those days in the wilderness were not easy. It was a dry and arid place. And the only food and water that they had for them in those 40 years was the food that came from the bread of heaven, manna, and the water that came from the rock, the water that God had provided for them. And while they were in the wilderness for 40 years, it was a time of repentance for them. The reason that they had to spend 40 years in the wilderness is because they had rejected the commandments of God. And so there was a punishment. There was a pain that they were experiencing because of their rebellion against God. And so part of the memory here is one of grieving. And yet, there's also another imagery that's also woven in to this celebration. Because if it was just a remembering, hey, remember our great, great grandparents and the foolish things that they did? That wouldn't be much of a celebration, would it? No. And so woven in with this is that when they would make their huts, what were they to use? These green branches, branches from the trees that have just given this rich, lush harvest for them. Because not only were they remembering the difficult days of their past, it was also remembering how God had brought them through the wilderness to the land of Canaan, which was a land described as flowing with milk and honey. That great abundance, the harvest, the food, the feasting that they were able to do because God had kept his promise by bringing them into the land. And so what was the theme of that week? It was remembering a combination of grief and joy that God has brought them through until this moment. And this idea of a grief that leads to joy is reinforced by the fact that between the first feast and the second feast that we're reading about here, there was an additional holy day. Not a feast, but a holy day. Yom Kippur, this is the day of atonement in which The people would acknowledge their sins before the Lord, they would repent of their sins, they would bring their sacrifices to the Lord, and God would accept these sacrifices as a payment for the sins of the people. So that by the sacrifice made available by God, the people would be declared clean in His sight. And so, the sacrifices have been made, and what do they do five days later? They have a feast, a fabulous feast, being able to enjoy the privileges of being God's renewed and restored people. And this is a feast that was a seven-day feast plus one. It's not an eight-day feast. It is a seven-day feast plus one. Why am I making that distinction? You'll see that distinction in a little bit here. But let's see more of the description of that gathering. Verse 17, and all the assembly of those who had returned from captivity made booths and lived in the booths for some of, from the days of Jeshua, it's also another way of pronouncing the name Joshua, from the days of Jeshua, the son of Nun, to that day the people of Israel had not done so, and there was very great rejoicing. At first glance, and this would have been, this is my initial instinct by reading this, is that when I talk about the people had not done so, they had not celebrated this way since the days of Joshua when they first entered into the land, it would make me think that, oh, they have not kept the festival of booths at all between now and the days of Joshua. But then, this is where it's helpful to read the Bible in context. We see that there are several times mentioned in the Old Testament between these two dates in which they celebrated the Feast of Booths. So, is the passage wrong? Is this a mistake in the Bible? No, what it is saying is that this is the first time they have celebrated the Feast of Booths in this way, to this degree, since the days of Joshua. And what is the distinction? What has been lacking in the people's remembering of this feast since the original days? I think we're given a hint at what is distinct about this. And it was the great rejoicing. The people had not remembered this feast with this same degree and level of joy since the days of Joshua. It shouldn't be an entire surprise because in the days of Joshua, they were actually living out the fact that they had gone through the wilderness and they have now arrived in this land flowing with milk and honey and able to live off all the green, luscious, beautiful things that were growing there. So they were people who had been living in an exile of a sense, coming to their home. And what is happening during the days of Nehemiah and during the days of Ezra? the people of Israel, they had been made captives. They had been taken out of the land for many years and have recently returned back to this promised place that God had provided for them. And so in many ways, they were actually living out a similar story that resulted in the great joy that Joshua and the people of their day had. And so, what do we see? What did the people need to do to increase their faithfulness to God's commands here? They increased their joy. They increased their celebrations of the Lord. And let's just appreciate for a moment the kind of God that we have. A God who has many rules, many commandments that He calls us to follow. But so many of these commandments are commandments for us to be happy, for us to be satisfied, for us to rejoice and delight in His presence and His good gifts. Because what are the rhythms that we see in the Bible? There are many rhythms of seven. If six days were to work, on the seventh day, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to rest and celebrate and delight in the presence of God and his people, enjoying his good gifts that he has given to us. We see in the Old Testament that he had commanded a cycle of seven years, where they would work in their fields for six years, and on that seventh year, they would have a year of jubilee, where they would rest, and they would celebrate the greatness of God and the good gifts that he has given to them. And we also know that in this life, God has given us the days that we're gonna live here on earth. But when the days of this life are over, We're going to have another kind of Sabbath rest, another kind of seventh day in which we're going to be able to be in the presence of God. Again, rejoicing forever. There's a difference with that one. That is going to be a day in which it will not end, a celebration that will never cease. We have a God who commands us to be satisfied and delight in Him. What a great God we have! That is an essential part of His plan for us. Going on, looking more at the history here, we come to an important part of the conversation I started earlier this morning. Day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the book of the law. They kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day, there was a solemn assembly according to the rule. So, talks about first day to the last day, they read from the book of the law. First day to last day, what is the last day in this context? He's talking about the seventh day. But then there is a bonus day. There is an eighth day in which they were to hold a solemn assembly. So for seven days they read from the book of the law because they recognized that God is the one who preserved them in the wilderness in the days of Moses, and God is the one who has preserved them even in the days of Nehemiah and of Ezra. But on this eighth day, there was a solemn assembly. And so what is gonna be different about the eighth day from the first seven days? is the solemn assembly that's being described here. Is this God's way of saying, hey, I know you guys have had a chance to feast, you've had a chance to eat the food you wanted to eat, to drink the drinks you've wanted to drink, to sing songs, to play music, to dance, to celebrate. You guys have had way too much fun for seven days. It's time to pull it in and to restrain ourselves and be kind of sorry for all the fun that we've had for seven days. Is that what's intended by the seventh day? The idea of a solemn assembly. Is this a chance for us to feel really sorry for having too much fun the other seven days? Now I'm overgeneralizing some of the ways that people have interpreted a solemn assembly in the past to kind of make a point. But why would people think that a solemn assembly is going to be the sad day? You know, we had seven happy days, now is our sad day. Why might somebody think of it that way? Well, the Hebrew word that is used here, it's a single word that we interpret as a solemn assembly. The Hebrew word here is tzara, and tzara comes from the word to restrain. So what is being described here is the people are being restrained on this eighth day, which is why many people have interpreted in the past this idea that we need to restrain our joy, we need to restrain our emotions, we need to hold ourselves back. So this is what we see. There has been a long history, and I think a lot of this comes from some of the doctrinal differences of the Roman Catholic Church, where it's the idea that we have to be penitent people. We need to make payments of sorrow and grief in order to be able to earn the privileges of the joy of the Lord. And because there is a works righteousness that has unfortunately been a part of the church for many years, when they think about this idea of a restraining of the people, they go, oh, okay. If we want to be happy again, we have to spend a time. In sorrow, we have to spend a time in grief. So the eighth day was a day specifically for the grieving. But that's not actually how this word, sarah, is being used here in this context. Looking back at Jewish scholars, as they understand this restraining of the people, They're remembering just part of the Jewish culture and the rhythm that God set up. As I said earlier, God has set up many rhythms of seven. We work for six days, on the seventh day we rest. This came from God when he created the world. He worked for six days, on the seventh day he rested. And so on that seventh day things were completed. And so for them to use that word seven was symbolically often used as a number of completion. This is the whole package right here, from beginning to end. And so what were the expectations of the people to be on that week? God has described. He's given them a seven-day feast. So what happens on the eighth day? The eighth day, you go back to work. The time of celebration is over. The time of resting and relaxing with each other is over. And now it's time to get back to the work. That is what they would have expected. But what was the commandment here? The commandment given to the priest is, hey, when the people are ready to go home, you don't let them go home. You don't let them go to work. You restrain them. You say, stop. Don't you dare go home yet. God is not finished with you. God has a very important plan. You don't get to go home until he's done everything he wants to do with you. He's going to restrain you here in this place because The best is yet to come. He has been restraining his joy for you to save the best for the eighth day, the greatest of the celebrations he has restrained and held back for this one day when he is gonna pull out all of the stops. And so when we think of being reserved, sometimes we can think of being reserved as, okay, you know, I've been getting a little out of hand here. Maybe you think the pastor, you're getting a little wound up right now. You could use a little restraining right now, but. It's like, yeah, sometimes we use that. But when you think of being reserved in this context, I want you to think of, you know, if you go to a nice bar and they have that top shelf, the reserved shelf on the top right there. Some of you are like, oh, oh, Pastor, I have no idea. I've never been to a bar before. I don't know what you're talking about, right? Yeah, okay, okay, you know what I'm talking about. But that top shelf, what are the drinks that are on the top shelf? The reserved shelf. The reserved shelf is you don't drink these unless there is some kind of special celebration. You only drink these drinks when it is the best of days. And so when you think of the solemn assembly, the reserving of the people, I want you to think that this is the day when we have been reserving certain joys for only this day. I want you to think of that when you think of this kind of reserving. All right? What were these extra joys that were being celebrated on this day that were not celebrated on the other seven days? This is where it's great to read the Bible in its context, the full context of God's Word, because we actually get a description of the special joys reserved for that day in John. John chapter 7, John chapter 8, they're talking about the eighth day, which is referred to as the great day. And this is the day when the priests would come with jars and they would dip the jars in the pools of Siloam, bringing them up to the temple, pouring it over on the altar, so much water that the water that would flow from the altar would drip down the steps of the temple back into the pool of Siloam. So much so that it looked like a river of water that was flowing from that altar to remind them of the rock that God had split in the wilderness for water to pour out. But on this day, it would pour from the altar, saying that God has prepared a fountain for you. But this one comes from Mount Calvary. This mountain, or this, this, this, well, starting to mix my imagery jumping ahead here. So in their day, coming from the altars, God has prepared a sacrifice for you, that as the blood of this animal is poured out for you, You can put your faith in the Lord and He will save you. He will rescue you from your sins. But we know that this has been fulfilled through Jesus Christ, where I jumped ahead for a moment there. Jesus Christ is the one who is at sacrifice. That instead of Mount Zion, it's Mount Calvary where His blood was poured out for us as we were singing earlier on in our service. Now we see this being pointed to on the, this is John chapter 7 verse 37, on that last day of the feast, talking about the feast of booths or tabernacles, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Jesus was saying, you know, see this extravagant imagery of the priests pouring water over the altar? I'm that altar. I'm that sacrifice. And like he said to the woman at the well in Samaria, I offer you living waters. If you come and drink from me, you will never thirst again. So one of the great images, the joys that was being celebrated on this last day when pulling out the stops is the imagery of water. But there was also an imagery of fire. They would hold and they would reserve for that moment the biggest, greatest lamp stand that they had in the temple courts. So that on that eighth day, they would light that thing on fire and there was a blaze that was so bright, it filled the entire temple courts with light and with warmth and you can picture like that. You know, when the Olympics comes around and they light that giant basin torch, that bright light, they reserved and kept for that moment that light that would shine to remind them of the wilderness wanderings where God had made his presence known through a pillar of fire and smoke. That they, as they followed God through the wilderness, that they would never get lost. That they'd know that they would be safe and protected. But what did Jesus do when he, on that last and great day, as he looked at that light burning there in the temple court, John 8, verse 12, on that same day, it says, again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And so we see that Jesus He's pointed to himself being the fulfillment of what was being declared on that eighth day. But even the history of the Bible, it describes that great day as being one again of joy. The people were restrained and prevented from going to work so they could have the greatest day of joy held and prepared for them. There's an imagery here in the fact that this is seven days plus one that I want you to understand here. If seven days is the number of completion, thinking about the days of our life here on earth, then that eighth day is one of telling the people that when the days of your life here are over, your life is not over, there's another day coming. The end of this life is the beginning of a new one. And it is gonna be better than any feasting you have seen yet in this world. And so this is what we see, is that the eighth day is set apart as an anticipation of our future glory. The eighth day is a preparing and a practicing what it will be like to sit at the real table of God and the real kingdom of heaven resting and celebrating with Him forever. And so we see this beautiful imagery that's here, but as I've already highlighted, Jesus has become the fulfillment of these these Old Testament feasts, these Old Testament practices. This is the reason why you and I don't keep the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles today. You know, we think of the other feasts, and we think of, like, the Feasts of Passover. Like, we don't keep these feasts today. Why? Because Jesus has become the culmination. He's become the completion of all of the imagery of the feasts of the past. And so for us, The feast that you and I have been called to celebrate is communion, the Lord's Supper. It is a feast in which we come and understand that Jesus is the water that we drink, or in this case, we drink from the cup, the juice or the wine to remember the blood that has been poured out for us, because our salvation came at a price. Not the price of our good works, but the price of Jesus' good works. And we have the bread that nourishes, that fills us. But again, it points to the body of Christ. His body being broken for us. The Lord's Supper is not a new feast that replaces the old feasts. It is the completion, the culmination, all the imagery of the other feasts of the Old Testament being made centralized in this one gathering. So what does that mean then for us? The imagery of that eighth day is a thinking of the day in the future, when we are in the house of God, where our sins, our sorrows, our pains, our grief have all been washed away and have no more place, no more hold over us. And what that means is that when we come next week to celebrate the Lord's Supper, because it is indeed a celebration, When we begin this gathering, that's not the time for us to start thinking of our sins. That's not the time for us to start thinking of our grief. That's the moment for us to start thinking what it'll be like when our grief has no more claim over us. And so, when we come to the table of the Lord, there are many things that we should be picturing, but one of the things that we should be picturing is the joy that we're going to have in eternity. It's like we're in the presence of God when we gather together around the table. But, if we're going to do this celebrating well, then what's the rhythm that we talked about? Six days of work, one day of rest. Friends, it is providential for us to be thinking about this imagery here now because we're given six days to work. In this case, the work that we need to do to prepare ourselves to come to the table is that recognizing our grief, the way that we have rebelled against the Lord, the way that we have grieved his heart by our sins. and out of a love for him that we are grieved by our sins as well. That is a necessary and good thing for us to do. So that when the table is prepared, for a moment, as if that pain was no longer here with us. It is as if that grief had no longer claim over us. And in a sense that is true for us even now. If you have repented of your sins, if you do believe in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, we are a new creation. Our spirit has been renewed, it has been restored. Our bodies, yeah, they still need to catch up. They need to get with the program. Until it does, there is pain in this world. But the moment that we have at that table is a reserved moment. It is a restraining moment, not a restraining of our joy, not a restraining of our celebration, but it is a restraining that says, friends, don't leave this place yet. It is not over. The Lord is not done with you yet. He has something even better planned for you. So let's stay. Let us rejoice and remember that there is going to be a day in which He gathers us all into His house, into His place, and in that moment He will restrain us in His home forever. And we will never leave in the perfect joy, in the abundance of His house forever. Let's pray. God, thank You so much again being a God who lavishes us with every good thing. And we recognize that the good things of this world would have no lasting value if it was not for the good things of your throne. It was not for the good things of your glory. This world can only be a delight if it is a reflection of the delight that is rightly found in you. And yet if we let go of our claim of this world and take hold of you, not only do we receive you, but you will also give to us the joys of this world that you have created with all the good intentions you had made for it in the beginning, but more so. the Garden of Eden, but more, because you will be there. Jesus, God and man with us, feasting with us forever. God, thank you for forgiving us the privileges of being your sons and daughters. Let us rightfully thank you in the ways that you deserve. We pray this now in Jesus' name.