The secular components of Easter (clearly a result of conflation with celebrations of Spring) are no worse than the secular aspects of Christmas.
Ishtar alert!
>> The justification for the Lenten 40-day preparation for Easter is traditionally based on Jesus’ 40-day wilderness fast before His temptation by Satan (Harper’s Bible Dictionary, “Lent”; Matthew 4:1-2; Mark 1:13). The problem with this explanation is that this incident is not connected in any way with Jesus’ supposed observance of Easter. The 40-day pre-Easter practice of fasting and penance did not originate in the Bible. <<
Absolutely true, and absolutely meaningless.
I don’t think the time or the actual place effects mankind. Our Lord could have died and risen from the dead anywhere. To raise any questions now would be like the Pharisees of His time. All technical!
And the Pharisees of His time as well as today were/are oblivious to the most important event in history.
The death and Resurrection of our Lord to save our souls.
“Jesus’ resurrection could not have been
on a Sunday morning because John 20:1-2 shows that He had already risen before Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, arriving “while it was still dark.””
It’s still dark at 5:30 am right now. Jesus could have risen at 5 am. I don’t see the discrepancy.
He rose the following day--the First Day of the week, the First Day of a New Creation.
It's unfortunate that this central event in our salvation is called in English "Easter" since it leads to misunderstanding. I wonder if these agruments over semantics are avoided in these countries where the name of this Sunday clearly states what it is--our Passover Feast.
Greek - Paskha
Bulgarian - Paskha
Danish - Paaske
Dutch - Pasen
Finnish - Pääsiäinen
French - Pâques
Indonesian - Paskah
Irish - Cáisc
Italian - Pasqua
Lower Rhine German - Paisken
Norwegian - Påske
Portuguese - Páscoa
Romanian - Pasti
Russian - Paskha
Scottish Gaelic - Càisg
Spanish - Pascua
Swedish - Påsk
Welsh - Pasg
I believe Christ established a Church (Ekklesia) and on His return to the Father promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide it until His return.
Incidently, the name for this Sunday in the Catholic Church is Dominica Resurrectionis.
A very happy Easter to everyone!
How many years does this make?
We’ve always believed that Christ was crucified on Wednesday. Jonah as a Type of Christ — three days and three night; the three Sabbaths in that week; etc. Friday is some tradition, most likely started by Roman Catholic church. And Lent... what’s up with that? Chapter and verse?
Third, the word Easter is not found in the Greek New Testament. Nor is there biblical mention of or instruction to observe Lent.What more needs to be said? Maroons think "Easter" is the Word. Folks with ANY degree of sophistication get that the Paschal Feast is not called 'Easter' anywhere but in english speaking lands. The Pasch is though found almost everywhere else. What a series of odd strawmen set here.
I wonder if you could clarify some points that may not be clear to many readers.
First, Passover as the fifteenth day of Nisan would automatically fall on the day after the full moon as determined by the religious scholars. Presumably these calendars were issued months or years in advance even in Biblical times, such was the predictability of the lunar orbit even to sages of that era.
So, would the calendar year being used by the Jews at that time have a regular flow of weeks with seven days of which every seventh day was a sabbath? I think I understand that Passover would be “a sabbath” in addition to these regular sabbaths. But was the calendar somehow regulated from a starting point that would make Passover an automatic regular sabbath, if you follow my drift?
And if not, why (if for any reason) does the Christian church remember the Passover of the crucifixion as a Friday? If Passover was not automatically a Friday with a sabbath to follow, then how do we know what day of the week it fell in the year in question, because as I understand it, we don’t know the year in question with precision. I have read that it was probably 33 AD and possibly 30 AD. This would help to identify what day of the week Jesus was crucified. Then if we knew that, and we assumed that the Resurrection was on a Sunday (the day after the Jewish sabbath) then we would have some basis for assessing how long it was from death to resurrection. Otherwise, we are basing all this speculation on the unknown reason for locating the date of the crucifixion on a Friday. Is it not possible that in the year in question, it was on a Wednesday or Thursday, making this whole discussion unnecessary?
This thread keeps popping up. In time you will find out, it is not about religion, it is about relationship with Christ. Thru communion of your soul with Him, you will be able to shuck off the religion and focus on relationship, every moment of every day. At first it’s a hard discipline and then you slowly thirst for it, then you just can’t take a breath without knowing He is with you through this difficult life. I go to Church on Easter Sunday and Christmas and every chance I get because communion with the saints is awesome. I am sorry some folks see it as a burden.
I ran across this thread some time ago and found it immensely helpful.
I thought it might be a good idea to resurrect it, so to speak, for this Easter season.
I’ve been asked by atheists and skeptics how to reconcile the three days and three nights that Jesus said He would spend in the tomb and based on our calendar and timeline for celebrating Easter, there was no good reasonable explanation.
This article provides it.
So, for your consideration......
Oh man, not this again! Every year the same thing and the same thing debunked. Reminds me of what Bishop Horne said 180 years ago....
“Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer, and when this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again next year, as if nothing had ever been written on the subject”.
-—Bishop Horne 1831
We already agree that our calendar is wrong, off by anywhere from 2 to 16 years, depending on who's doing the reckoning, and further in error because of the absence of a year zero.
The more fundamental point is that God did not intend us to mark His years by the birth of Jesus.
If He had intended this we would have a Biblical fixing of the date.
Further, the day of Jesus' birth is unremarkable as all men are born.
However, very few return from the dead, that event is remarkable, and it is the defining moment of Christianity, the very moment of proof that his sacrifice was not in vain. And the Bible gives a precise reference for when this happened!
Clearly this was the date the calender was supposed to start!
For extra points, this makes our calender off by anywhere from 17 to 33 years. That makes this something like Holy Year 2000 to Holy Year 1983, giving us anywhere from 1 to 17 years to get our affairs in order before the real end of the millennium...
Ping to an older thread what with Easter coming up.....