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Blue laws. |
So why did Christians change it to Sunday?
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Blue laws. |
Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Thus it quickly became "the Lord's Day."
"Which is why the Sabbath, in the Bible and in Jewish practice, falls on Saturday."
"So why did Christians change it to Sunday?"
Because Jesus was resurrected from the dead on Easter Sunday, and that was the single most astonishing event in all of human history, the day that everything that everyone believed about the world changed for all of those who witnessed the Resurrection and for everyone that came after in their footsteps. The early Christians were as astonished and shaken by the event as everyone since. The difference is that today we can ignore it or dispute its historicity, but they were standing with the living, risen man, come back from the dead.
They called Sunday "The Lord's Day" from this event, and met on that day from the time of the Apostles forward.
There was no conscious, reasoned out debate about celebrating the Christian holy day on Sunday versus the old Jewish Saturday Sabbath, at least none that has come down to us in any of the records.
The fact of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday was enough to cause the early Christians to gravitate to that day as the day that death was conquered, and the day that the tentative good news of the Kingdom of Heaven preached by Jesus in his lifetime (but not really wholeheartedly believed by anybody, really: the apostles fell away with the crucifixion) was dramatically proven by the literal coming back from the dead of the crucified Jesus.
Christianity as such didn't really START until Eastern Sunday. Jesus walk around and preached, and had a following, but with his arrest, torture, crucifixion and death, even his closest followers fell away on the Friday. That was the end of the religion of Jesus the prophet. An abject failure.
But then on the following Sunday he walked out of the tomb, alive, resurrected, transformed, and was seen by the women, and then by some of the Apostles. And THAT'S where Christianity began, when the failed prophet came back from the dead and demonstrated that he was actually GOD.
That's why the Christians immediately gravitated to Sunday. It was the day that the whole universe and everything they believed in it changed forever. The day Christianity well and truly began.
It's a fascinating story, whether it's really true or not.
And what's particularly fascinating about it is the historicity, and the particular fact that we apparently have two relics of the actual event that inspired this most dramatic and unlikely of all religions: the Sudarium cloth and the Shroud of Turin.
I have been told that it has to do with the Roman tradition of honoring Caesar on the day of His ascension to the throne... It was called the King's day... Therefore, because Christ rose and ascended on the first day of the week, it was His King's day, and they worshipped on that day accordingly.
And it would have also to do with the celebration of First Fruits, which occurs on the day after the Sabbath following the Passover...
"So why did Christians change it to Sunday?"
TV is better on Saturday night and they didn't want to feel guilty about watching it. Also, more shops are open and they have an eye for a bargain.
[sorry, curious Brit humour]
