HouseCraft 5 - Session 1 FINAL
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[00:00:00] We are at battle. There is a real battle going on of good versus evil. Satan has entered the world, sin exists, and we are at battle. And then eventually we blow the horn and we say, , this is the coronation of a king. Jesus has come to set us free. And so we talk about Jesus is coming and being king.
And then at the end of the day, we blow the trumpet and we say, this is a victory celebration. This is what it's all about. One day Jesus wins. Like God wins.
[00:01:00]
All right, we are so thankful that you guys are here, that you've joined us. Um, we're really excited about tonight. Um, like, like Joe said, I'm Brent, this is Katie. We are the Kruhtoffs, and we have been married for 17 years, and we have four kids ages 11, 9, 7, and 3. You're probably thinking, they don't look old enough for that, but we are.
We got married when we were super young. Yeah, we live here in Loveland and we are, uh, we are really excited to share with you guys, um, about these annual rhythms. And, um, we were first exposed to the idea [00:02:00] behind, um, being intentional about your annual celebrations and the exposed to the idea of biblical festivals.
Back in 2012, uh, we did a, a Bible study called Story Form Life, and that really kind of gave us, uh, an insight into this. And we started in 2015. So, um, so we're just gonna walk you through some slides here, and, um, if you're here tonight, I think it's probably safe to assume that you guys have come here with a little bit of knowledge about what you're getting, and so you guys are parents, or you will be parents, if, if you're not yet, who, who want to train your kids in God's story.
You want to have kids that know and follow Jesus, and annual rhythms are awesome tools that allow you to train your kids to know and follow Jesus. So we're going to share some stories about how we do this, and these are not meant for you to, they're not meant for you guys to, to copy. You're welcome to borrow any of those ideas, but we're trying to inspire you and trying to spark [00:03:00] creativity.
So as you listen to these ideas, This is stuff that we've come up with, but you're welcome to kind of adapt and do what works for your family. Um, and you're also thinking, probably, that you've come here to learn about the Biblical festivals, and we'll get to that. But we're gonna start by just talking about the current annual rhythms that you're probably already celebrating, like Christmas or birthdays.
And, um, the annual celebrations that you guys are, are probably already celebrating in your homes are teaching your kids something. And so if we're not being intentional about it, culture will probably take over and they'll train them that these holidays are about them. And so it will be, um, Uh, very likely that what they'll hear out of these celebrations of Christmas and birthdays and whatnot will be that this is a holiday that's all about them.
It'll kind of train them in entitlement or train them in consumerism. And so, we had a dinner with, um, some friends back in January. And they had just come out of Christmas and they were like, Oh, [00:04:00] this Christmas didn't really go well. Grandparents went overboard with presents. Our kids were kind of all about, you know, consumerism and, and we just wish this holiday didn't exist.
And I understand that sentiment, but rather than wishing that maybe a holiday didn't exist, what if we could repackage it and purpose it in a way where it has value? What if we look forward to Christmas like, Oh, I can't wait for this holiday because our kids are gonna learn something. This is like an education for them.
So that's our goal. And so, before you go into any holiday, whether it's a biblical festival, or whether it's a current, you know, holiday that you're celebrating, the goal is to ask, what are we trying to accomplish, and how can we make this valuable? So here are some pictures of Kruthoff Christmases of past.
Um, we kind of focus on two main things during the Christmas season and crazy enough, neither of them are actually the birth of Jesus. So that is definitely covered throughout the season. But one of the things we like to go really big on is this. Promise Tree, which is on the bottom right picture next to the [00:05:00] nativity.
This is actually something my mom created. She spent years work shopping this and then pass it down to her four daughters to do with each of our families. So, um, it's like a lot of other advent trees or like a Jessie tree where. Each day in December, you go through an Old Testament story and you connect it with, like, how it, um, relates to Jesus.
But what I love about it is two things, really. One, I love any opportunity to paint the Bible as one great big story, and this does that really well. And two, I love how multi generational it is. Um, The kickoff is every December, the first day of December, my parents host it. They plan a wonderful day. All the cousins are there.
And it's just such a beautiful picture of this legacy of faith that my family is blessed to have being passed down. So the second main thing that we try to focus on during this Christmas season is we just want this to be a time where we build. these really strong uniting family memories and [00:06:00] traditions.
So Christmas is naturally a season that's full of a ton of sensory input. You have the songs you listen to every year, and food that's only like for this time of year, and the smell of the Christmas tree, and those things are all like. Amazing building blocks to create core memories. And so why not take advantage of those?
The goal that we see is we want our kids to be each other's best friends, and we want them to have this forever, super deep connection to their family. And these positive shared memories around a Christmas season are, goes such a long way in establishing that. So that's Christmas and what it might look like for us.
Here's a little glimpse into our birthday celebrations. So. I think this one is a really interesting one to go back to the question Brent was asking about like what are you trying to accomplish and it's probably not a question most people are actually taking the time to answer, but there's something subconscious happening in them that's shaping how they plan this day for their family.
So, for instance, [00:07:00] if I wanted a really Instagram worthy party that I'd hoped to put on social media and people would look at me and think, Oh, wow, she's really got it all together. I would plan, I would plan a certain kind of day, but if I was like, Oh, I really want my kids, my kids to feel super special on this day.
That day, the birthday party would look completely differently. Or if I went into it with the focus of, I hope this is a really missional day, it would affect who I invite and the conversations that I have. Brent and I, when we sat down with our, um, before our first born's first birthday, we were kind of like, let's get intentional about this.
The first question we asked was, do we even want to have Christmas parties, uh, birthday parties? Thank you. Just because everybody else is doing it doesn't mean we necessarily have to. And so we kind of thought through that and we were No, going back to that point, like holidays are tools. Like this is an opportunity where we get to pick what we want to speak into our kids lives.
And so what do we [00:08:00] want that to be? And what we ultimately landed on is we wanted this to be very family team oriented. So it's a day to go on and say, we are celebrating this day big because the day you were born, our family got that much stronger. And instead of just focusing on the individual for the sake of the individual, it's just a little bit of a twist where it's like, we're focusing on this individual because they're an asset to the family team.
A lot of that is just done through the language that we had used throughout the day. But another way we try to convey this as these birthday binders that are here that we started with our Firstborn, and we put out papers for our guests to write notes in at the party. There's usually two questions for each kid.
And one of them would be my favorite memory from the year with this child. And then, um, one word I would use to describe this child. And the goal here is to identify the individual strength this person brings to our team. Anything you'd add? It's awesome. Okay, so now the reality is [00:09:00] people, people here might not, not everyone here is going to go home and start implementing biblical holidays.
Um, so if we can get you to be more intentional to put a goal behind the celebrations that you're having and have purpose, then that's a win. But now it's time to kind of give credit to where credit is due. And that is these biblical holidays and the creator of holidays. And that is Jesus. And that's God.
These, the very first holiday that ever existed is what happened at creation on the seventh day when God rested. He gave us the first weekly holiday, and that is our Sabbath. And then, um, you know, holiday comes from holy days. These are, these are days made to celebrate and remember the story of God. Um, so now we're gonna kind of talk through what those have looked like for our family.
And we start all of our biblical festivals with this verse. This is Colossians 2:16-17 It says, therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink with regard to a religious festival, a new Moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. [00:10:00] These are a shadow of the things that are to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.
And so we want to, when we invite people into these holidays, we want them to feel no obligation, no pressure to have to follow these because Paul tells us in Colossians that it's not a requirement. Um, we also want to tell this to our kids and make them make sure that they have no feeling of superiority, that this makes us a better Christian by celebrating these.
This is just a fun thing that's become a tradition to our family. But then Paul makes this case in the last sentence that says, these are a shadow of the things to come and the reality is found in Jesus. So if we're wanting to learn more about what that historical context, how that historical context exists to point to a spiritual reality found in Jesus, then that's something that we can do through celebrating these biblical feasts.
So, what are these biblical feasts? Any brave person here think they can name all the seven annual feasts? Anyone? Or yeah, shout out some. Feast [00:11:00] Tabernacles. Very good. Feast of Weeks. Yep, Shavuot. Good. Feast of Trumpets. Good. Day of Atonement. Good. Passover. Yes.
Okay, so here they are. In order, uh, Passover, unleavened bread, first fruits, Shavuot, also called Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, or Feast of Tents. So yes, these are the seven biblical feasts, and they are found, best place to see them all is in Leviticus 23. Um, and we are going to dive deeper into them, but first we want to talk about the why.
Why, why is it worth celebrating these? So we're going to talk through some benefits of what we found as we were kind of looking at these for the first time. Yeah, so you guys, um, I don't know how many of you were able to get to the questions on your table during that appetizer part, but one of them was something along the lines of what's, what's one of your primary goals as parents?
And it would not surprise me if many people in [00:12:00] this room had an answer like, I just really want my kids to grow up loving and following Jesus. And, um, These biblical holidays give multiple points per year to work towards that goal. What I also love about all of them is they're very, um, naturally tell the gospel as a whole complete story.
So, um, I don't know if this is unique to me, but I feel like I grew up approaching the Bible, especially the Old Testament stories, as each one is its own little vignette that's designed to tell like a moral that I should get from that story. And it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized this is like a huge story that's unfolding and I'm actually part of it.
And so these biblical holidays are great tools to get that message across. And it's a way to associate spiritual life with something that's not dry or boring, but that's full of fun and joy and festivity. Yeah, another thing they do is they, uh, these traditions, these annual celebrations [00:13:00] create bonds that unite our family.
Um, kind of like we talked about with our goal behind Christmas. Um, this is something that our kids really enjoy celebrating. They also know that this is kind of not normal in our culture. We don't have a whole lot of other people that are celebrating these holidays. And so that's something that makes them a little different or makes them a little, um, you know, makes them unique.
It makes us as a, as a family unique. And when they feel different, they kind of, our kids kind of embrace that differentness, as this is part of our Krutofness. Um, and this is a small example, but one time we were going on a walk with another family, and we both had our dogs. We were hiking through the woods, and their dog was this little white dog, kind of tiptoeing along, trying not to get its feet dirty.
And then our dog was like, just running all over the place, jumping in the water and rolling in the mud. And like, my oldest at one point looks up to me and he's like, Our dog's a little bit weird, just like our family. And I was like, yeah, I, I get that. We, uh, we receive that the way that we, you know, choose to do education, the way we choose to do work, the way that we choose to do these annual [00:14:00] traditions is a little different than what the worldly culture sees.
And we, we think that makes us part of, you know, part of our family identity. The other thing I love about that, that we're a little bit weird, is there's going to be a lot of things that our kids have friends who do, and our family doesn't do, and that's just naturally going to be part of being separate from the world.
But we can kind of point to this as like, yeah, their family does that, but not all families do the same things. We do biblical holidays and it's like a swap there. Okay, so the next one is, um, these holidays are a great opportunity to share God's story with others. So Brent had done the math in his math minded head and he said we've done something like 35 of these over the years and I don't think we've ever done one alone.
The closest we came was Passover and COVID, but Joy was living with us, my sister. And so we had a guest for that one too, but it's a great opportunity to invite believers or non believers. Right. And just like earlier when I was talking [00:15:00] about how it creates this, uh, bond within our family, it also connects us to the family that we've been adopted into.
And as Gentile believers, which we are, and most, if you are in this room and it's a Gentile believer. We are adopted into Abraham's family, and this connects us to millions of people over the course of thousands of years that have celebrated these holidays. And this is part of, um, who we, how we want to identify ourselves as being sons, uh, you know, adopted into God's family, sons and daughters adopted into God's family.
The last one that we have here is that these holidays counteract culture's skewed view of God. So I believe that one of the primary things that was broken during the fall was humanity's perspective of who God is. And this started with the enemy's lies to Eve in that garden when he was like, God's not good.
You can't trust him. Is that really what he said? He's just holding out on you. And this has just snowballed through the [00:16:00] generations where now there's this general perspective of God as somebody who's just a list of rules, who's telling you, you can't do any of the fun things in life. And these biblical holidays directly like cut that where it's like, no, he's actually the author of fun and celebration.
He's the one who came up with that. He's full of goodness and abundance. And that's the view we want to pass on to our kids. Okay, so maybe you hear some of these benefits and you're like, okay, I'm starting to get it. This, this sounds like something I might be interested, but where do we start? Okay, so this is our four step process for how we got started in observing these biblical feasts.
First thing we did was we started with scripture. We went and read through all that we could find in scripture in the Bible about what it says about these biblical feasts. And then we wanted to see what culture, or what the customs and traditions that have been created through Jewish culture, um, have been.
So we got a book called The Family's Guide to Biblical Holidays, and we read through the traditions that [00:17:00] were created in the Bible, and then the man made traditions, and kind of tried to unpack, um, the value in each of those. And then, we prayed over this. Um, whenever we're doing something weird with our family that we need guidance in, we always pray James 1 verse 5, which is, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
And so we're like, God, we, we don't have any wisdom on this, but you do, and you promised to give us some, so Lord, please guide this conversation. And then we just start brainstorming ideas, like coming up with menus, and coming up with games and activities. And, um, trying to think, what are the key themes, and how can we convey them to our family?
And we just trust that these ideas are ones that are, that God's giving us. And, um, yeah, so that's, that's kind of how we went about doing it, and that's been really helpful for us. Um, so now, high level overview of these seven biblical holidays. There are the spring holidays. The first four are the spring holidays, Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Shavuot.
And then there's the three fall [00:18:00] holidays, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles. And these first four spring holidays have historically been fulfilled during Jesus's first coming. And what I mean by that is like, these were, um, sel these were calendar days where the Israelite people were celebrating a holiday and something significant happened through Jesus's time on earth during those holidays.
So during Passover was when Jesus was crucified. Um, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which all three of the These first three all fall, fall within a short like eight day succession. Um, during the feast of unleavened bread was Jesus' burial, his first day in the tomb during first fruits. This is when Jesus was resurrected.
So this is like significant. It's not a coincidence that on these holidays something very significant happened in Jesus' life. And then Chavo 50 days after Passover, we see, um. Shavuot is, or the Pentecost, the disciples were celebrating Pentecost, and that's when they receive the Holy Spirit. [00:19:00] So those are no coincidence that those overlap.
And likewise, these fall holidays, we believe that they will be fulfilled in Jesus's second coming. So trumpets represents when we think it's a celebration of when Jesus is going to return, and there's a lot of signs, a lot of people who are smarter than myself, who studied, and they think this is the time when Jesus is going to return.
We don't know the year, but it's going to happen at this holiday. And there's verses Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4 says when the trumpet sounds, Jesus will return. And so, you may be thinking, but Jesus says, no man knows the time or the hour, the day or the hour at which he will return. Um, but that is actually, we've learned, that's a, like a, a Hebrew figure of speech idiom that, that can refer to this holiday because of all the holidays, The Feast of Trumpets is the only one that happens on the first of the month, which means it's a new moon celebration.
And the new moon celebrations are a little bit harder to predict because you might go out at night and think, Is it gonna be a new moon tonight or is there gonna be a small crescent? So they would say, No man [00:20:00] knows the day or the hour that we're gonna celebrate this Feast of Trumpets. So, that's a, that's a really interesting one.
Yeah, so when we celebrate that, we're like, Hey! Maybe this will be the year where Jesus comes back. Day of Atonement represents when Jesus comes, when God cleanses the earth in order to dwell with his, with his people and that is what Tabernacles is about when we get to dwell with God. All right. Yeah All right.
So now we're gonna get into the details a little bit about some of the ideas that we felt like were helpful for us in celebrating these. So, Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits, like I said, these are all real close together, so it, and they all share a similar theme, so it's real easy to package them together into one day, one celebration.
Um, the origin for each of these kind of have, like, two meanings. They've got the origin, the historical context, and then they've got, like, the connection to Jesus. Um, as believers in Jesus, we see a [00:21:00] much deeper fullness, richness of these holidays that a traditional Jew may not see. So, um, the, the origin of Passover, of course, is the first Passover, the tenth plague, when the Israelites were in slavery in Egypt, and they put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts.
And then, um, the, the feast of unleavened bread, leaven represented sin, so being unleavened is being removed, having sin removed to you, from you, being sanctified from sin, being made righteous. Um, having that sin buried with Jesus is what we see in that connection with Jesus. And then, um, the, uh, Feast of Firstfruits is a, a commitment and an offering of firstfruits to, to Yahweh for our rescue from slavery.
And so, What we, our goal behind Passover, is we really want our kids to understand this story of, uh, of Passover. Like, of the Israelites set, being set free from slavery in Egypt through the [00:22:00] death of the Lamb, through the blood of the Lamb. And we really want our kids to understand and know the story of Jesus death and resurrection.
burial and resurrection on the cross. But the biggest and best goal is to see the parallelism between the two of them because both of them become so much more richer when you see the connections, um, of, of the two parallel stories. Like one small example that I like to point to is the hyssop branch. The hyssop branch is the branch that, uh, the Israelites were told to use to put, to dip into the blood of the lamb and paint on their doorposts.
And so the hyssop branch has some significance. And then we see in the gospel of John when Jesus is on the cross and he's there and he says, you know, he's thirsty, John tells us they dip a hyssop branch in the vinegar and they put it on Jesus on the cross. So this is no coincidence that these are happening on the same day and the same, the hyssop branch, the same branch that was put, that puts the blood on the door frames is the same branch that they put on Jesus on the cross.
So here are some pictures of our family celebrating Passover. Um, first of all, that banner is a big part [00:23:00] of like what our day looks like. And it's a lot of sitting and listening compared to some of these other holidays. So we had been doing that banner for a couple of years and we noticed that this was not one of the holidays that our kids most looked forward to.
And so we were like, okay, let's, let's celebrate. Kind of rework this a little bit. What can we do to add some of that, like fun, like I'm, I'm, this is one of my, um, highlights of the year. And so, uh. We decided to do Passover baskets, which you see in the top, right? We're actually not fancy enough for baskets.
We use, um, grocery bags or whatever we have laying around. But the idea was Passover and Easter are super close to each other on the calendar. And so why don't we just. Take those Easter baskets and move them over to Passover and make that one a little bit more fun. So that's what we did, and it's definitely added some of that like, oh, anticipation for Passover.
A big part of our day is this modified Seder plate, which corresponds with that banner. So each column would have a different action that we're doing. Um. [00:24:00] Some of them directly line up with the traditional Seder plate, like the bitter herbs, which Gio is eating in that bottom right picture. And then some are completely not traditional, just ways we wanted to engage our kids, like Decker wearing the handcuffs over here to represent the Israelites bondage to the Egyptians and our bondage to sin.
Anything I'm missing? Only other thing I'd say is our first meal we tried it made like a traditional roast lamb and our kids didn't love that so now we eat gyros because there's lamb meat and gyros and we have, I should have said this at the beginning, um, our, our biblical festivals are very much gentile style which is to say like very different and we don't, yeah, we have freedom in that so that's great.
Yeah, so the handcuffs, the idea is, and depending on the kid's attention span, sometimes we'll have them eat the whole meal in their handcuffs, um, which is a fun challenge. Um, but yeah, it represents, they get the understanding. It really isn't fun. That's right. Although they do enjoy that. [00:25:00] Uh,
Um, okay, so that brings us to the last of the spring festivals, Shavuot, um, the origin of Shavuot, it's a day of remembrance of when, um, so there was their first Passover when they put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and then 50 days after that, Moses It was led through the Red Sea up to the top of Mount Sinai and he received the law.
And the connection to Jesus is, we see that the disciples are celebrating this Shavuot, also called Pentecost, uh, celebration when they received the Holy Spirit. So again, there are, there's two laws. There is the original law written on stone tablets given to Moses, and then there is the new law that Jeremiah 31 says is written on our hearts.
And this is the law that we see here that we celebrate at Shavuot, the, the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost. And here are pictures of Shavuot with the Kiritaphs, which is definitely one of the highlights of everyone's year. And so, one of the key themes is just [00:26:00] how God speaks to us. So at some point during the day, Brent makes the analogy of, if you're a loving father who wants to train and teaches kids.
There's two ways you can go about that. You can write like a directions book with a bunch of guidelines and rules and wisdom and hands to them and say, here, here's what you should do. Read this. Or you can walk right beside them and whisper in their ear, go that way, or say this thing. And we have a heavenly father who does both for us.
And so the first we focused on that, the giving of the law and during our meal, during this day, we play this really funny, silly game. It's got 10. Um, ridiculous rules that everybody at dinner, kids and adults have to follow. And there are things like every time you use a napkin, you have to say napkin time, or you have to end every question with a, or, um, you have to whisper people's names and you can't say like, and you have to ask permission before sitting up on the table.
So it's. Very hard things to remember. And each person is given a [00:27:00] sticker sheet of ten little lambs. And if you are busted breaking one of the rules, you have to sacrifice the lamb on the board. So, that is what we are conveying there. And it's always a competition. Who has the most? Lambs, which then gets into like, oh, Pharisee mentality, you know, like we could, we can make all kinds of comparisons with this, but , um, that's kind of the, the 10 Commandments part.
And then we switch gears and we start talking about, um, the giving of the Holy Spirit. And so it says, when that happened, it was like a rushing wind and we tell our kids you can't usually. Um, and so we do a huge color war on these days. And, um, it's basically like everybody just gets a bag and you just try to get as much of your color on other people as you can.
Um, and everybody fully embraces this obviously. And we end the day with fireworks and sparklers to represent the fire when Moses received the 10 commandments and then the fire over the disciples heads when they got the Holy Spirit. All right. [00:28:00] That's right. Okay, that brings us to the first of the fall festivals, which is the Feast of Trumpets.
And the Feast of Trumpets is a fun one because it's the least amount of context given. It tells us that we should rest, that we should make a sacrifice, and that we should blow the trumpet in remembrance. But it's like, we're not sure in remembrance of what. So, Um, this was fun. We got creative and we said, well, in the Bible, what do they, what's the reasons why they would blow a trumpet?
And so we found four reasons if they're making an announcement, they might blow the shofar, the trumpet, they might, uh, they would do it. If there's a battle cry, get ready for a battle. They might blow the trumpet. If there's a court for the coronation of a King, um, or they might blow the trumpet when there is a victory celebration.
So we were like, okay, well, let's try to incorporate all of these, um, into it. And we. do, we do like the whole story from creation through revelation, through Jesus second return, second coming. And so we, um, we blow the horn and we say, we have an announcement to make. [00:29:00] There is a birthday. We have a birthday for the creation of the world, and we start by celebrating the creation, and then we, shortly after that, we blow the trumpet, and we say, Hey, this is a battle cry.
We are at battle. There is a real battle going on of good versus evil. Satan has entered the world. Sin exists, and we are at battle, and then, eventually, we blow the horn, and we say, Hey. This is the coronation of a king. Jesus has come to set us free. And so we, um, we, we talk about Jesus is coming and being, being king.
And then at the end of the day, we blow the trumpet and we say, this is a victory celebration. This is what it's all about. One day Jesus wins, like God wins. This is all going to be made right? Um, and, and that's the connection to Jesus. This represents Jesus's second coming, coming. So here's how we might go about this.
We definitely start with like a birthday party for creation and we have party hats and decorations. And, uh, one of the first years, the kids [00:30:00] and I cut out magazine clippings of, um, what was created on each day. And we got those laminated. So we hang those up every year and there's plastic trumpets and we make the same coffee cake every year and sing happy birthday to creation.
And we play party games, like Uh, Feast of Trumpets, uh, and then have a prize table. So it's definitely like this feeling of like, Ooh, we're at a party. And then we move them into the living room and there's this like. big blanket that says the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the mood changes a little bit and you know Brent usually has some kids reenact this like eating of the apple and when that happens you pull off the blanket and all these big black balloons float up and they're a representation of like when world.
And of course the running around and all th just like pulling them do sitting back and like mak that's what sin is like. to play with. But then yo [00:31:00] Snared in it. And uh, it's just fun to like kind of like realize there's like this presence over us. And actually last year was the first year we made the kids all tape the black balloons to them, which you can see in that picture.
And it was like you're carrying this sin on you and it's cumbersome and it's not. easy to sit down and like do your life with this. It's holding you back. And we get to the point where it's like, but a king has come, he's rescued us. And we take the balloons off, but they're still all around us. Like this presence of sin is still all over the room.
And, um, we're walking among it, even though it's not on us anymore. So the final part of the day is we work with each kid and have them write down on a little piece of paper, something they're looking forward to being free from when Jesus comes back. So that could be. a personal thing that they struggle with, or it could be something like war, or sickness, or poverty, and they tape that to a black balloon, and then they each take turns throwing darts at it until it [00:32:00] pops, and that's representing like, when Jesus comes back, it's all this sin, all this darkness, all the bad things are gone, and that's what the final like, the final trumpet will be.
That's right. Alright, so that moves us into the Day of Atonement, and this is one that, um, is, uh, the idea behind this is it's a day, um, where the Jews would make, or the Israelites would make a sacrifice for the atonement of the nation of Israel, the sins of Israel. They would use a stick. Scapegoat, they would cleanse the, the nation of Israel of their sin.
And it's a day of affliction. It's a day of sacrifice for the sins of the people. And it represents, um, the cleansing of the earth that will happen so that God can dwell with his people. And this is one that we are still where it's not the most fun one. This is one, it's a day of affliction. It's a day of fasting, and it's a day of reflecting on the sin.
that we have, um, in our lives. And so, uh, we, for what this looks like for us is it's a simple dad fast. I, I fast and we talk to our kids about what that means. We read some [00:33:00] scripture and, um, as we grow in it, we plan to have kids participate that when that as well. I wish I had a picture of you fasting right here, but you just looking hungry.
We didn't have one. Yeah, that one doesn't get documented as well, so it's just like clip art, uh. Okay, so then the Feast of Tabernacles, this is the, the, this is the one we asked our kids, what's your favorite biblical holiday? Unanimously, they all agreed, it is Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot. The historical context, the origin behind this is they remember The Israelites living in temporary dwellings after they're, um, uh, after being freed through, from slavery in Egypt as they await the promised land.
And our connection to Jesus is we remind our kids that this earth is temporary and we are awaiting our promised land. Like we, we want to remember that this earth is not our forever home and one day we will dwell with God forever. And so that's what Sukkot is all about. [00:34:00] So part of our tradition is every year we cut up cardboard boxes and our kids.
Family members and then any visitors that come in and join us, get to, um, draw a picture on there. And then we use it, um, to hang up around our suka. And the idea is these cardboard boxes represent our homelessness. And you might see somebody on the corner of a street with a cardboard. With a cardboard box.
Exactly. Um. So most of them are new ones that we create each year, but we have a handful that are like the original cardboards that we've saved over the years. And so this is one of them. And it just says, this is our annual Krutaw family Sukkot. We think there is something to learn and some fun to be had in following this holy day established by God for his children.
Children. Romans chapter 11 says that Gentile believers are a wild olive shoot grafted into the nation of Israel. We just so happened to be very wild. We are excited to remember the Israelites exodus from Egypt and how we are wanderers in this temporary home. [00:35:00] So here's a couple more pictures. We do know a couple other families who celebrate, um, this holiday and they actually do make beautiful sukkahs that are in their front yard or backyard.
And We love that, but we decided to take the lazy route and just turn our front porch into our sukkah for the week and um, gentile style, gentile style. And so the goal is to spend as much time outside as possible this week. You kind of want to be stepped away from your house so you can look back and be like, that is not my home.
And so it's really when you don't have to twist my arm because it's during fall, it's this beautiful time of year where you're like, I get to do a whole week outside and we eat all of our meals o the high chair out there. our work out there. We pl are very first to coat. U kind of outside activities I was trying to do to fill up the days with my young kids.
[00:36:00] And, um, they still ask to do them every year. So we make nature soup every year and, um, we make a car wash for their matchbox cars and shaving cream. And it's like silly little things that it's like, it's become part of the code and they're like, when are we doing this? Um, but probably everybody's favorite part of the code is all the fun food and drinks.
And so, um, We've tried to train our family, like whenever throughout the year we're experiencing something good, we're like, this is a taste of the kingdom. And since that's what Sakota is representing, we want to fill this with a ton of good things. So, you know how usually you take your kids to the grocery store and they're like, can we have that?
Can we have that? And you're like, no, no. The week before Sukkot, you take the family to the grocery store and they're like, can we get that? And you're like, yes, put it in the car. And they're like, can we get that? And you're like, yes, it's Sukkot. And so like, you're like filling it with all this goodness, sugar.
And, and then like, we feel like this mini fridge on the [00:37:00] porch full of fun, adult drinks and kids drinks. And as soon as the guests there, it's like, go to the mini fridge, pick out a drink. Like, we want this to be like full of so many tastes of the kingdom. Anything to add there? No, that's good. Okay, so that's kind of how we do our celebrations.
And again, these were meant for you to see the fun that can be had and to see the traditions that can be built and the themes that you're that you can train your kids in the stories that you can train your kids in. And so I think that as I as I was thinking through these, it kind of popped in my head.
These are a lot like an anniversary. Okay, so Katie and I are gonna be celebrating our 18th anniversary in December. And we could, we could choose not to celebrate that. And it wouldn't make us any less married. Like, we're still married whether or not we observe our anniversary or not. But, if we do celebrate it, we get to remember, uh, the fun that we had at our wedding.
We get to remember the vows that we made to each other. We get to, um, you know, go on a date and dress up and get a nice meal and have some fun celebrating this anniversary. So it's something, it's a [00:38:00] privilege and it's a great thing to be able to celebrate this anniversary. But it's not required. Um, so yeah, I think that that's kind of how I liken these biblical feasts.
Um, but what else did you say? Yeah, I would just say the word that keeps coming out of my mouth is opportunity. There's no obligation, but it's just like, whether you choose one, whether you choose all of them, whether you just choose one. choose to learn about them and not celebrate them. They're just opportunities to go deeper into God's story.
And so I mentioned these cardboard boxes. We've been doing them since um, Gio was two and that very first Sakote, every single one he did had the alphabet on it. He was just obsessed with ABCs. And then this last year, all the ones he made had these really sweet things that were associated with like the key themes we're trying to teach about Sakote.
And I was like, It's amazing, like, you start this with these young kids and you're like, I'm not sure if they're getting any of this, really. They're having fun, but are they actually even learning anything? And then, you know, you've been doing it eight years and you're like, they're getting something. They, and each bit a little bit more each time you do it.
And so it really has been such a blessing for our [00:39:00] family, which is why we just love being able to share this with you guys. [00:40:00]
