IN high overspirituality it has long been advocated, in parts of Europe, to do away with our Solemn Feasts, but the general tenor of our Christian life in broader circles demanded that they continue to be kept.
Though some children of God, who in the even tenor of their lives have nothing that distracts them, meditate every day on the great acts of God, yea, that in times of spiritual tension such as our fathers saw, the remembrance of the mighty events of which Christ is the central figure, in broader circles remains even perennially fresh, with the great masses of believers, in ordinary times, every day business of life is too distracting for this, and spiritual life not sufficiently alert.
Without our Solemn Feast the grateful memories of the miracles of our salvation would perceptibly decrease. Every time again in the course of the year they concentrate anew the attention of all upon these miracles. Even by the large place which they occupy in the course of days they reflect the high significance which what is commemorated possesses for our life.
This is what these Solemn Feasts are for. Preaching on these days rejuvenates the happy memory of them to smallest historical particulars. On those days a heightened frame of mind is abroad. Festive songs are sung in our homes. And the fact of the feast itself—addresses old and young to rouse a festive frame of mind of their own.
And there is more to it than this.
Increasing apostacy attacks the sacred reality of Christian history. Unbelief extending itself hand over hand aims to have the crib of Bethlehem go up in legend, to explain the resurrection of the Savior as creation of apostolic imagination. Jesus did not ascend into heaven and could not so ascend. The Pentecost miracle is pure invention.
Therefore to him who fell away from the Christian religion it remains a rock of offence, that all the world still keeps her Christmas, her Easter, Ascension and Pentecost miracle feasts. That must no longer be. There must come an end to this. And to hasten this end, they impart to these Solemn Feast days a glimpse of an entirely different meaning.
Yet this avails them not.
Throughout all the world Christendom continues to keep her Solemn Feasts, and the very fact that these Solemn Feasts are masoned as it were with all the fixedness of a stone wall into our reckoning of time, makes them year by year renew their witness for the truth of God.
When Nahum the prophet, in his vision of salvation, on the mountains overheard from afar the footsteps of him who publishes good tidings, he charged Judah (1:15) saying: “Keep thy Solemn Feasts,” adding thereto: “Perform unto the Lord thy vows.”
To keep solemn feasts without making our offerings is semblance without reality.
And our offering is none other than that we do not withhold from our God what we have promised Him.
Kuyper.
The Hague, December 1, 1903.