My Easter tradition is to read the history of how Christianity came to observe Easter, a word that does not appear in the original language of the New Testament.
It doesn’t take but a few minutes of research (via Google) to find that the very first generations of Christians, those who would have gotten their faith first-hand from Our Lord Himself, observed the Passover and didn’t even know about Easter. It was only many years later that some Christians wanted to demonstrate their anti-semitism and change this tradition to something else.
This came to a head in the 325 AD when Emperor Constantine found common cause with the Roman Church to declare that all Christians under pain of death must cease to observe Passover and must from that point on observe Easter.
The history and scriptural evidence compels me to return to observing the things that the earliest Apostles observed and to reject what later leaders of the Church decreed when they colluded with the government of the day.
I find so many parallels today. It would be like asking Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg what the Second Amendment means, does it describe an individual right or a collective one. When she would tell you that all right-thinking people only view the RKBA as a collective right, that would be the final answer on the matter. Well, who are you going to believe, the original texts or what someone over 200 years later tells you what they really mean?
I am not alone. There are a surprising number of Christians who reject the government enforced doctrine of Easter and who have returned to the faith that Scripture plainly shows was passed from Jesus Himself to the Apostles.
see for example:
Are You a Quartodeciman? Should You Be?
http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/magazines/2013/march-april/are-you-a-quartodeciman-should-you-be
or:
Easter: The Rest of the Story
http://www.ucg.org/booklet/easter-rest-story/
Here in N.W. Mississippi I explained to my children why we don’t recognize Easter. We discussed its ancient pagan origins and why syncretism is wrong. We discussed Romans 12:2 and how that applies. This morning our congregation enjoyed a typical Sunday service. We do nothing different on Ishtar’s day than any other Sunday.
Here is what Charles Spurgeon said on the matter:
There is no ordinance in Scripture of any one Lord’s-day in the year being set apart to commemorate the rising of Christ from the dead, for this reason, that every Lord’s-day is the memorial of our Lord’s resurrection. Wake up any Lord’s-day you please, whether in the depth of winter, or in the warmth of summer, and you may sing.
“To day he rose and left the dead, And Satan’s empire fell; To day the saints his triumph spread, And all his wonders tell.”
To set apart an Easter Sunday for special memory of the resurrection is a human device, for which there is no Scriptural command, but to make every Lord’s-day an Easter Sunday is due to him who rose early on the first day of the week.
–C. H. Spurgeon, MTP #1530
“And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
—2 Corinthians 6:15