The Celebration of Jeroboam

I checked off facebook this week, as the debate about whether to celebrate Thanksgiving turned ugly.  When the "just unfriend me" starts, first I chuckle at how much like third graders some folks still sound, then I just move right along.  Okay, I don't move along immediately.  After I chuckle, I picture the individuals in a younger version of their profile pic with their arms crossed and stamping their foot, in an outfit appropriate to the trend of the time in which they were about 8 . . . then I move right along.

In this day of political correctness and anti-racism, I think we all need to really admit something.  We cannot see everything, the way everyone else does.  We do have our own perspective and that's simply where we are.  As I said in another article, I have white friends, but I did not grow up or live as a white American.  I've always identified as Native or Tribal or ethnic.  That's who I am, that's how I identify and although I can empathize, even sympathize with others, I can't in all honesty, fully understand how they feel.  I know people who are very proud of their European ancestry and that's fine for them, but I can't identify.  I'm not in agreement with everything Tribal, as in Casinos, etc. and I have no desire to get a check or an education based upon the color of my skin, or my gender for that matter.  Gender issues are a topic for another rant.  Back to a debated celebration.

Realizing Thanksgiving is only an American holiday and my effort to avoid opinions and racism, I chose to seek Scripture.  Thanksgiving is not a High Holy Day, a set apart Feast Day, or even a day of remembrance, Scripturally, so I knew if I didn't participate, I wasn't making my Creator angry.  That settled it for me and it seemed an easy solution, but . . . YHWH led me to something I wasn't expecting.  Since it doesn't apply this year, I feel this is definitely the time to share it.

I've heard Thanksgiving was copied from Sukkot . . . and it has indeed happened before, historically; in Scripture.  Basically, Jeroboam chose the eighth month, in which to "ordain a feast."  That means it was when and how he wanted it, but had "religious" sprinkled on top.  This year, as we know, Hanukkah is very early, so this year Thanksgiving falls in the 9th month of the Biblical calendar.  Usually the end of November does fall in the eighth month on the Biblical calendar.

  And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.    So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.  I Kings 12:32, 33