When I began my spiritual direction training a few years ago, my supervisor asked each of us to commit to a new spiritual practice. I was going through a dark, claustrophobic time where I felt trapped by life and ministry. I was in the process of shaking off old “yokes” that had been laid on me by myself and others and receiving the “light yoke” spoken of by Christ. I knew I didn’t have the strength to take on some of the practices like fasting, silence or solitude. So out of desperation, almost as an act of defiance, I chose (or was given) the practice of celebration.
Nothing in my life felt very celebratory. I didn’t even know where to start. Then someone—I think it was Richard Foster—connected the dots for me. Laughter was a form of celebration. Maybe I couldn’t find anything about my own circumstances to celebrate, but others were finding laughter in the midst of darkness. Maybe I could laugh with them.
For two years the practical application of my spiritual practice of celebration was to watch late night comedy on television. It seemed counterproductive. Almost decadent. But there I sat every night and laughed. Slowly (so slowly!) I began to notice a change in myself. Where previously there had been only cynicism, there was now an openness to divine mystery. Where there had been only gnawing dread, I could imagine hope. I began to be able to laugh at myself, to take my mistakes and failures (and those of others) with a grain of salt. Celebration was taking root in my life and beginning to bear its fruit.
We humans can show a surprising resistance to celebration. We feel that it is foolish to celebrate in the face of so much hardship and brokenness in the world. We nurture a practical superstition which believes that enjoying what we have will lead to it being taken away. We fear that sinful impulses might get the upper hand if we allow ourselves to fully enjoy life. At the very least, celebration is perceived as a waste of resources—time, money, and emotion. There seem to be more efficient and productive ways to live.
So why celebrate? What’s the point? Celebration teaches us that joy is imminent. Sorrow and brokenness do not have the final word on human experience. When we practice rhythms of celebration we are training ourselves to view the world through a different lens. Hardships still exist, but we set them aside to engage in something bigger. As we practice celebration it is as though we begin to experience the world around us the way that God experiences it. We begin to feel God’s pleasure—to understand why the created world could be called “good.”
Celebration is not peripheral. It’s woven into the fabric of God’s interaction with the nation of Israel. Glancing through the Bible, it’s clear that God instituted a number of holidays for the Jewish people.
What was God’s intention behind these rhythms? The book of Nehemiah gives us some clues. On one of the holidays the priests were reading aloud and explaining the Book of the Law to all the people. As everyone listened they began to weep because they realized how far they had fallen short of God’s expectations. The priests had to step in and calm the people down, saying, “Be still, for this is a holy day. Do not grieve” (Neh. 8:11). And Nehemiah gave one of the most outrageous commands recorded in scripture: “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).
These times of celebration were an invitation to stop and enjoy. They were an act of trust—a defiant, worshipful decadence. It’s as if the people were proclaiming, “I may be a mess and this world may be a mess, but God’s got this!” It was a holy day. A holiday. A time for receiving God’s joy and being strengthened by it for all the messy days that were to follow.
I long for more of this joy in my life, for more of the fruit of celebration. Like any fruit, it takes time to grow and ripen. It takes cultivating. So I will continue to laugh in the face of the world’s darkness and trust instead in the God who cares. I will continue to choose, or be given, the gift of celebration.
Questions for Reflection
How do you feel about celebration?
What ways could God be inviting you to celebrate? What concrete practice might help?
Ask what gifts God may want to give you through celebration. Would you like to receive these things? Talk with God about this.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Melissa Mettler works with the ReNew team in ChurchNext as a spiritual formation associate to help pastors and ministry leaders discover God in the midst of their everyday lives. She loves living and laughing with her husband David and their two children in Portland, Oregon.