Celebrating Kwanza

CBN.com - Kwanzaa, or Kwanza, is an adaptation of a traditional African festival of the harvest of the first crops and is celebrated from December 26 to January 1.

Maulana Karenga, a professor at California State University in Long Beach, created the holiday in 1966. Kwanzaa is part of a phrase that means "firstfruits" in Swahili.

Each day of the celebration focuses on one of the seven principles of black culture developed by Karenga: unity, self-determination, collective responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

In the evenings, the family gathers to light a candle and discuss the principle for that day. Near the end of the holiday, families join in a community feast called the "karamu."

The Jewish people celebrated a festival of firstfruits. God instructed them to bring the first bundle of grain from their harvest as an offering to Him. They were not allowed to sell or eat their grain until after they had made their offering of firstfruits. The firstfruits offering represented the promise of a harvest to come.

The Jewish festival pictured the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who later became the firstfruits of believers who had died. Although Jesus had raised Lazarus and others from the dead, He was the first to be raised with a permanent body, never to die again.

Jesus is the promise of a harvest to come -- a resurrection of all those who have believed in Him. Because of His resurrection, we will gain an immortal body someday too. Our assurance of this is what Paul referred to as the "first fruits of the Spirit" within believers (Romans 8:23, NASB).

The Spirit is a foretaste of the blessings and glory we will enjoy someday -- a promise of the harvest to come.

"Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20, NASB).

This Devotion is taken from The One Year On This Day Devotion.

(Tyndale House Publishers)
 © 2005 Dianne Neal Matthews

Dianne Neal Matthews’ publishing credits include magazine articles, Devotions, and newspaper features. Her work has won several awards, including the 2006 Writer of the Year Award at the Write-to-Publish Conference in Wheaton, Illinois. She and her husband, Richard, have been married thirty-two years and have three grown children and one granddaughter. Dianne is currently working on The One Year Women of the Bible Devotion scheduled for release by Tyndale in August 2007.

Send Dianne your comments

More Devotions from Dianne