Hello Kenya! Did you know that this year, 7 weeks after Resurrection Sunday will be your Madaraka Day? Seeing as this Resurrection weekend and Passover have been quite unique, the coincidence was fascinating. But you could be wondering what is the interest with 7 weeks after resurrection?
"Seven weeks had gone by since Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the Day of Pentecost had now arrived. The disciples were all with one accord in one place, suddenly........ everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in languages they didn’t know,for the Holy Spirit gave them this ability." (Acts 2:1-3) Pentecost is also known as the Feast of Weeks,which was celebrated 7 weeks after the first crop of harvest of wheat every year, after the Passover. The instruction was to come together as a nation(from wherever they were in the globe), and each person was to come with a gift. Then they would celebrate by eating together.
“You shall count seven weeks for yourself; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the grain.Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are among you, at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. (Deut 16:9-11)
When Jesus resurrected, he became the firstfruit of the new creation. Remember his analogy about a grain of wheat that has to die to produce a harvest? So he is the fulfillment of the feast of Firstfruits but the church would be born on the day of Pentecost, the feast of harvests. This was marked by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; they received power, a different language and of course the gifts of the Spirit. Another incident of infilling would occur in Acts 4:31 among others. Communion with the Godhead thanks to the infillings of the Holy Spirit.
But this was precipitated by the Passover, the very first one in Egypt when the first-borns of the land died, to signify the death of God's firstborn later on.The Passover in Egypt was preceded by a series of plagues of which the last two were; the plague of locusts and the plague where the firstborns of the land died 'starting from the oldest'. This caught my attention recently as I saw an article in the nationalgeographic.com dated 14th February that carried an article titled, 'A plague of locusts has descended on East Africa. Climate change may be to blame.' Deutsche Welle also had a similar article with the headline 'Billions of locusts swarm over East Africa' dated 24th Jan 2020. Although there has not been much mention of the locusts since the Covid 19 menace entered the scene.And no mention of a migration of the billions of locusts to an alternate location either, but I digress.
After the Passover week in Egypt, the children of Israel would leave in a hurry, decked with gold and silver, which their women borrowed from the Egyptians. 'Borrowed' may not be the correct term though because there was no intent of returning the items. How come this was so successful? Was it back-pay for all the years of slave labor? But they knew their first order of business was to worship God.
'Let my people go so that they may worship me'
Ex 9:1
Which begs the question, could they have built an idol of gold thinking that the worship of YHWH was similar to the worship of the Egytian gods?
With that background let us look at Madaraka day. Madaraka is Swahili for 'power or authority or promotion'. With regard to the national holiday, the day is a celebration of 'freedom or independence'. It marks the day Kenya received the authority to self-govern its internal affairs in 1963 from the British government. The word 'madarak' is also Hungarian for 'bird'. Isn't that interesting? So I was just thinking, what if this Madaraka day is a real day of promotion and empowerment for you Kenya? Would you be ready for your day of visitation? Would you receive this precious gift that is unparalleled with the reverence it deserves? We know that God is both macro and micro in his dealing with humanity. He fathers the whole world but knows how to customize his gift in a personal way. So just in case this is a special birthday for you Kenya, please remember to bring your gift of praise remembering to lift up Jesus as a wave offering in one accord.
Finally, Kenya as you celebrate this Madaraka day, if it happens to be a day of promotion for you, I wonder what you will use your bounty for? Will you also build an idol to worship as you have done over the years or will you turn your heart to incubate the mind and heart of the Father?
Ps. I recognise that the official Pentecost for the Jews will be celebrated on the 28th May because they count from the Passover, but if we acknowledge the resurrected Christ as the first fruit, then we count from the 12th/13th
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