Traditions

As I recently mentioned, Easter candy was a regular tradition in my house. That got me thinking about traditions and how inexplicable some of them are but how we love them anyway. For instance, Christmas trees are absurd. If I decided to drag a 6-foot birch tree into my living room in the middle of April and decorate it with purple lights and packs of gum, I’m quite sure you would all question my sanity. However, if it were December, a pine tree, white lights and candy canes, no one would bat an eye. None of us loves the Happy Birthday song for the tune itself, but what would a birthday be without it? That’s what’s so lovely about traditions! There is no explanation for them and yet they are ingrained in us to the deepest level. They are a part of who we are.

We were created to love tradition. I firmly believe that. God made us in such a way that we need the stability of predicable change. He gave us day and night, summer and winter. And, He said that it was very good. It was good that our lives have a rhythm and an order. Not only did He establish days and seasons, but He also gave His people traditions. Just read the first 5 books of the Old Testament—it’s teeming with traditions. They’re beautiful and they were a blessing to the people of God. The traditions reminded them of important things in their past and promises for the future. The traditions reminded them that they were God’s, that they were different and unique.

And, we have traditions today that remind us of the same thing. Every Sunday we gather together to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s a reminder to us of what was accomplished and what will someday be accomplished. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We celebrate baptism. They remind us that God made us His people, we who were once not a people at all!

And, of course, we have other traditions that bind us to a particular family, a particular nation, a particular culture. We have our family birthday joke, our 4th of July parades, our Christmas Trees, our wedding cake. They are fun, even laughable at times, but necessary. They are more meaningful than we may realize.

So, may I be the first to wish you a basket full of malted milk eggs and stale marshmallow peeps! May they remind you that not only are you part of a sugar-loving family, but by His sovereign grace, you are part of God’s family as well.