“The Lessons of Traditions”
Does anyone have a “New year’s resolution?”
Party, P-a-r-r-r-t-y!
It’s “New Year’s Eve!” let’s go celebrate the end of 2006 and bring in 2007 with the biggest bang ever!
That’s what my parents did every New Years. Someone would host the party and the food and drinks would start to flow sometime around 8 o’clock and would not stop until way after mid-night, year after year.
I remember one year when I was about 5; my uncle Tony hosted the annual celebration. My dad got so drunk that he started to throw up.
We lived 15 miles up in the hills of Washington state.
My dad had his head out the window in 20 degree weather, for the entire trip. He was heaving his guts out and yelling mom ma, mom ma.
My sister was terrified and was crying the entire trip up the mountain. She didn’t know what was wrong with her father.
I was watching my mother drive up this crooked road. She was so mad at my dad for getting so drunk and she was about to kill my sister because she would not stop her crying.
We finally arrived home around 2 a.m., my sister was pretty well cried out and my dad was hanging on to the door handle and he was some shade of green.
The next day, I asked mom what happened to dad, she said that he drank too much.
So I asked Dad why he drank so much on New Year’s Eve. He just said, “That’s what we do”.
His mother and father had been giving New Year’s Eve parties for as long as he could remember.
That’s what they did and that’s what we did. Every New Year’s Eve we went to a party.
What the grand-parents taught my parents, they taught us and we continued the same tradition to our children.
We were taken to the parties and when we were old enough we started to have our own parties.
And the tradition goes on and on and on.
We can take these traditions in a different direction,
what about the SEMI-ANNUAL trip to church at Christmas and Easter?
1. Work habits
2. Eating and drinking habits
3. Weekly church attendance
4. Tithing and Missionary giving.
5. Our attitude towards others.
All of these are passed down to our children and our families.
Luke 2:41-52, (41-47)
Every year they went to Jerusalem for the Passover, Every year. They were teaching Jesus the importance of this celebration.
When Jesus was 12, the parents who had earlier carried Him now led Him.
At 12 He wasn’t left alone to figure it out by His self.
At 12 He was still right there with His parents, they had an influence on His life. They were teaching Him the traditions and customs of His people.
When the celebration was over, Mary and Joseph were on their way out of the city when they could have ran into some friends from Nazareth and started visiting as they walked.
The country was not a safe place to travel. So when possible they tried to travel in groups. The women walked up front with the men in back to protect them from the criminal element.
At the age of 12 Jesus was between the apron strings of Mary and the carpentry shop of Joseph.
He was at the age where He could be with His mother or His father, a child or an adult. Both Mary and Joseph thought that their son was with the other one.
They were nearly a day’s journey away when they realized Jesus wasn’t with them. They searched for Him all the way back to the city where they found Him at the temple, and when they did, they knew. He got it. He understood.
He went from being taken as a baby, to wanting to go so he could learn the importance of the message and customs that were being taught.
Then He started teaching others the message.
We must up hold the traditions that God has placed in our lives.
What are some of the things, the traditions that we have been asked to do?
1. To honor our fathers and mothers’
2. To obey the laws of the land.
3. To pray and learn the Word of God.
4. To love your neighbor as you’re self.
5. To remember Him in taking Communion.
Colossians 3:12-17:
We need to change the traditions in your life so others can learn from us, so they will change their way of life also.
Proverbs 22:6
Jesus wasn’t in the temple because His parents made Him go. He was there because He wanted to be. He understood and made it a part of His life.
That’s what I pray all the time for myself, and for you. I pray that we get it, that WE come to complete faith in Christ, so we can be spared all the heartache that comes with living apart from God.
A tradition, a celebration that Jesus has asked us to do is to remember Him as we take the Bread and the Juice, Communion.
1 Corinthians 11:23-25
1 John 3:1
