Posted on 03/22/2013 10:51:40 AM PDT by DouglasKC
Easter customs mix pagan myths, rituals, symbols and practices with just a little truth. What's wrong with this picture?
Link to YouTube video:
That is the basis of the entire travel industry!
He didn’t observe a passover meal.
He couldn’t because he had a prior appointment.
Okay then what do these verses mean?
Luk 22:8 And He sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat."
Luk 22:9 So they said to Him, "Where do You want us to prepare?"
Luk 22:10 And He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house which he enters.
Luk 22:11 Then you shall say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?" '
Luk 22:12 Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room; there make ready."
Luk 22:13 So they went and found it just as He had said to them, and they prepared the Passover.
Luk 22:14 When the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him.
Luk 22:15 Then He said to them, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
Luk 22:16 for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."
The other gospels confirm that he ate a Passover supper with his disciples before his sufferings.
He would have ate it on the evening of the 14th, just after sunset. This is my understanding...I'm wondering what you're seeing differently?
I've heard an interesting theory about this. From Adam on (it goes) peoples memories were pretty sharp and it was possible to transmit information verbatim verbally. However, the longer man went on the more things became corrupt including our minds and as a whole we lost the ability to have the kind of memories we were intended to have. So God had to institute written instructions via the Torah because people forget.
There are a few prominent examples in scripture that show the importance of this written word. In Nehemiah chapter 8 or example and in 2nd Kings 22 are the examples that come to mind. The people have forgotten what God had commanded and had instituted their own ways, their own (oral) traditions. But when they wanted to find out what was right and wrong they didn't think that any people had authority. They derived the authority from the Book of the Law.
It was the same with the Bereans in the new testament. They verified what was being told to them through the scriptures.
The there’s the case of Moses. He spent several periods of forty days in supernatural communion with God. Then he taught for nearly forty YEARS before he wrote Torah scrolls a month or so before his death.
Everything he taught in those forty years was written in those scrolls, that didn’t have vowels or punctuation?
There are always a few heretics, nutcases and weirdos who hate the Truth and attack the Church, especially during and approaching Holy Week.
They say goofy stuff like:
All of the Lent and Easter abomination is pagan and God clearly condemned it in scripture.
God doesnt smile down on people who celebrate Easter.
If you want, here is a chance to refute the nuttiness.
Thge gospel makes it clear that they ate the last supper at the beginning of the day before the “high day,” (just after sundown) he was arrested right after completing the meal, the charades went through the night, Peter denied him while warming at the fire, he was tried the next morning, tortured and abused thereafter, carried his cross to Golgotha, was crucified “at even” ( would be 3-4 pm by tradition) and was pierced with the sword at the time that the lambs were being slaughtered, and was taken down, still long enough before sundown and the beginning of the “high day” that they were able to get him in the tomb before it began. Then was in the tomb through the high day, and then on the next day which was a regular day Joseph was able to purchase the aloes and linen and go to the tomb and prepare his body properly, then sundown was the regular sabbath, and then through the entire regular sabbath, and at some time after dark he arose (we are not actually given the hour) and much later the women went to the tomb just before sunrise and he was not in the tomb so they began to panic, at which time he addressed Mary.
That resulted in a perfect three nights and three days, and he arose at the end of the third day. (or slightly thereafter)
All of this information is given in the gospel. The week of the passover is usually a two sabbath week, with anywhere from one to five days between them. On the crucifixion week, there could only have been one day between them. that was the day the aloe and linen were purchased.
I agree completely with this. Jesus clearly said, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matt. 12:40) Compared with Jonah 1:17, "Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.". There is NO way Jesus could have died on Friday afternoon and raised before dawn on the first day of the week (Sunday) and it meet the prophecy JESUS, himself, gave.
yeah. equates any symbolism with evil.
In psychiatry this is called “concrete thinking” and a sign of mental disease.
easter eggs, where a chicken emerges from an egg (that looks like a dead rock), represents Jesus coming from the tomb (a dead rock)...
Bunnies emerge from the ground in the spring, similarly a symbol of Christ’s resurrection.
Secularization is because the “secular city” of America tried to destroy the old fashioned Catholic celebration of God in these things, so people don’t reconize what they mean.
One thing I’ve learned long ago, is that while one walks in fellowship with God, we don’t have to know all the evil intended us by the hearts of those who hate Christ.
I understand that some missionarial spirit in past centuries, sought to associate pagan holidays celebrated by heathens, with Christian doctrines as a convenient mechanism to turn the culture away from false worship and back towards God through the Gospel.
I believe it has succeeded. I associate Xmas and Easter with glorifying our Lord Christ Jesus. Xmas in celebration of the First Incarnation, and Easter, in celebration of His work on the Cross and the Resurrection.
All the other stuff is just fluff.
I also see those who are antiChristian, attempting to demonize the periods we use to glorify Him, dwelling more on accusation of evil intention, than in worshiping Him.
Really? Neat! Should just disregard the parts of Scripture which prove you wrong? Such as
2 Thess 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
Easter is only the word that replaced Passover in Germanic nations.
In Italy, France, Spain, etc., the holiday is called some version, in their language, of Passover. In Spanish, for example, it is Pascua and derives from paschal, the time when the paschal lamb was sacrificed.
In Polish it is also Pascha, but Wielkanoc is an alternative that appears to mean some kind of burdensome night....a sacrifice and waiting for the resurrection.
So, in short those who try to put some kind of Ishtar religion onto Easter ignore that “east” is the root word. That “east” sounds similar in the Germanic languages. (Oest in German)
They ignore That the sun rises in the east. That “sun” is similarly sounding in the Germanic (including English)languages. (Sonne in German)
They ignore that “son” is similarly sounding also. Son is “sohn” in German.
Where does the sun rise? In the East.
Where does the SON rise? In the Easter. (We do this all over our own English language culture. You’ll find “SonRise Services” all over the place.
They ignore the simple wordplay that worked in all those nations that led to Pascha being nicknamed.
So, if there was some big Roman conspiracy to worship Ishtar, they forgot to do it in their own country and most of Europe where they celebrated the holiday involving the sacrifice of the paschal lamb.
I believe it has succeeded. I associate Xmas and Easter with glorifying our Lord Christ Jesus. Xmas in celebration of the First Incarnation, and Easter, in celebration of His work on the Cross and the Resurrection.
Every Christmas and Easter (and Im not even getting into how bobbing for apples, going to a harvest festival or letting your kids dress up and go trick or treating at Halloween is pure evil), this stuff gets trotted out about how its all pagan; paint Easter eggs, put up a Christmas tree, etc. and youre not a TRVE Christian and you are going to Hell, blah, blah, blah.
Next someone will tell me that setting off firecrackers and watching fireworks on the 4th of July is both un-American and un-Christian (and probably Communist too) because those were invented by the Chinese and are used in Chinese religious celebrations and the Chi-Coms .. (sarcasm)
All the other stuff is just fluff.
Yes and no.
How far would have Christianity gotten in Western Europe and for that matter other places in the world if those missionaries had said, From now on forget all about your past culture and traditions and live exactly like ancient nomadic dessert dwelling Semitic peoples i.e. exactly like the Jews of the Old Testament who lived a thousand years ago. From now on you will keep and eat only Kosher; follow all those Jewish customs and traditions, abandon everything you know and everything about how you lived your daily life; from now on you will celebrate only Old Testament Holidays and learn and start speaking in only in Hebrew? I doubt it would have gotten very far at all if not for recognizing that the cultures and ancient traditions of non-Semitic people, the Gentiles, even pagan traditions have cultural value too. In Christianity, the term catholic church means universal BTW and is not limited to just the Catholic Church.
The brilliance of the early Gentile Christians and the early Christian missionaries IMO was their ability to adapt and let non-Jews (the Jews who BTW mostly rejected Jesus as the Messiah), the formally pagan Gentiles, to retain and reinterpret their own ancient and important traditions and customs and make them and more importantly, give them a Christian meaning.
If I wanted to live just like an Orthodox or Hasidic Jew, Id become Jewish and move to Israel or New York or Central New Jersey : ). If I wanted to be a Jew + Jesus, I guess I could convert to become a Jew first and then convert to become a Jew + Christian + Jew. But that makes no sense. Im not descendent from Jews. My ancestors were German and Scandinavian with a little Welsh and Scots thrown in. And FWIW, Im going to have some very non-Kosher baked ham for Easter and help my great nieces color Easter Eggs.
If anyone wants to keep only to ancient and Semitic Jewish traditions as a Christian, fine, more power to them, but dont tell other Christians who dont live exactly like ancient desert dwelling nomadic tent dwelling Jews that they are not Christians because they retain some of their cultural European traditions.
FWIW, when my mothers family came to America from Germany several generations ago, they became Americans and embraced all things American (one of my great-great uncles served in the 7th Cavalry during the Indian Wars BTW and guarded Geronimo after he was captured) but my mothers German heritage meant we also carried with us some German traditions, or more precisely German PA Dutch traditions like pork and sauerkraut on New Years Day, which in my family is celebrated on January 1st and not on the Jewish New Years day and making Fasnachts on Shrove Tuesday and Sand Tart cookies at Christmas. My fathers Norwegian heritage gave our family the Christmas tradition of making marzipan candy and eating pickled herring on New Years Eve. My mother was also Catholic so we observed Lenten no red meat Fridays. All those things I would guess probably have some original pagan roots. But my family is Christian and American and not at all pagan, but our family traditions and cultural heritage is still important to us and in no way diminishes their Americanism or Christianity.
>> “Really? Neat! Should just disregard the parts of Scripture which prove you wrong? Such as
2 Thess 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” <<
.
Wow what powerful illogic!
So then when the author was with them in person, he could not speak the same truths that he would convey in his letters; he had to confine himself to speaking magical, mystical secret unwritable pagan mumbo-jumbo not found anywhere in the scriptures?
You must be a freemason, right?
Surely you realize that what you have proven is the total absurdity of your premise!
>> “Easter is only the word that replaced Passover in Germanic nations.
In Italy, France, Spain, etc., the holiday is called some version, in their language, of Passover. In Spanish, for example, it is Pascua and derives from paschal, the time when the paschal lamb was sacrificed.” <<
.
If that were so, why wouldn’t they celebrate it on the day, and in the manner prescribed in the scriptures?
It’s not just a day, it is a whole week, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with showing up at church with new cars and clothes, but a total clensing of sin (leven) from your house, that you might be found to be sanctified, and thus elligible for the Lamb’s forgiveness.
You are correct!
The Lamb is the main course of the "Feast of Unleavened" [Exodus 12:8]....along with the bread and bitter herbs? This Feast occurs on the 15th [Leviticus 23:6] The Lamb is killed on the 14th [Leviticus 23:5].
The Passover (day of the Supper, the arrest in the garden, the mock trial, the appearance before Pilate, the crucifixion, the death and the entombment)..... all occurred on this day....the 14th. According to the calendar it would have been Tuesday evening (at sunset) to Wednesday evening (at sunset). The Hebrew days began after the sunset of the Roman day.....so the Romans would still be calling it Tuesday evening as Yeshua and the disciples finished the meal. It was not a Passover Seder. It was a "last Supper". The Passover lambs would not be slaughtered until 21 hours later (3:00 P.M.) of the 14th at which time Yeshua would have already been on the stake for 6 hours.....and near death.
He would have been placed in the tomb by Joseph and Nicodemus as the sun was setting on the 14th and the Seders throughout Jerusalem would begin a few minutes later on the 15th [Leviticus 23:6]. The Passover lambs, slaughtered at about 3:00 P.M. in the temple would be the main course of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Yeshua would be dead, in the tomb...... as the lambs were being eaten throughout the city. He did not eat Himself [I Corinthians 5:7].
Not sure who you mean "they" is, but, without question, Almighty God has ALWAYS commanded "holy men of God" to write his word and they wrote what they were "moved along by the Holy Spirit" to write. Here is a word search on the word "write" from the Bible: http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=write&version1=9&searchtype=all.
God intended that we have a written form of his commandments as well as using the written word to proclaim the Messiah so we would know when he had come to earth and to know what Christ taught both while here and after he ascended. The men who were the writers of the New Testament were most certainly commanded by God to write down the revelation given by the Holy Spirit. I think when people say things that de-emphasize the Sacred Scriptures, they do so to place a human organization above the word of God. That would be a terrible mistake. When Jesus condemned the religious leaders for nullifying the word of God with their traditions, he gave us all an example to follow - whatever makes up the "rule of faith" for a Christian, MUST be what is taught by Scripture. It really is the only OBJECTIVE and infallible authority we have.
The resurrection IS a central truth of Christianity. Commemorating Christ's rising from the dead is why the first Christians began meeting on the first day of the week. According to Paul, the resurrection is the whole reason for our hope in Christ. In fact he says so many times:
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)
Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Corinthians 15:12-22)
Both Passover and the Feast of the Firstfruits tie into the time and fulfillment Christ made of those holy days. The Easter Bunny, Easter baskets hidden and filled with treats, Easter egg hunts, etc. are what the secular world has added to the righteous recognition of Christ's death and resurrection just like Santa Claus, reindeer and a sleigh, elves, decorated evergreen trees and Christmas presents were added to the celebration of Christ's birth. Some of these WERE part of pagan feasts before the rise of Christianity and converts continued to carry on their traditions because it was part of their heritage. Just like people today, who have no connection to Christianity, continue to celebrate Christmas. It's a family tradition and makes them feel good. The commercialization of both Easter and Christmas has slowly caused the loss of meaning for what these holidays (holy days) once stood for. It doesn't mean we Christians cannot enjoy them. As long as we remember and honor the times they represent, it is not wrong.
The problem is (always has been) is that the resurrection did not occur on the first day of the week. It occurred on the Sabbath......before sunrise.
He was placed in the tomb on the 14th before sundown and the Feast of Unleavened began a few minutes later on the 15th (the High Sabbath of [John 19:31]). He spent Wednesday night/Thursday, the first Sabbath of Unleavened Bread in the tomb. The next day after the Sabbath [Mark 16:1] was Thursday night/Friday....and the same day the women went out and purchased the spices and they then rested for the weekly Sabbath [Luke 23:56] after preparing them that non Sabbath day. They then went to the tomb early on the Sabbath [Matthew 28:1][Mark 16:2][Luke 24:1][John 20:1] finding the tomb empty.
Here is the Greek:
Matthew: Ὀψὲ late δὲ But also σαββάτων sabbaths (gen) , τῇ the (dat) ἐπιφωσκούσῃ while DAWN-ing (dat) εἰς into (+acc) μίαν one (acc) σαββάτων sabbaths (gen) , ἦλθεν he/she/it-COME-ed { Μαρία Mary (nom|voc) ἡ the (nom) ♦ Μαριὰμ Miriam (indecl) ἡ the (nom) } Μαγδαληνή Magdalene (nom|voc) , καὶ and/also ἡ the (nom) ἄλλη other (nom) Μαρία Mary (nom|voc) , θεωρῆσαι to-VIEW, be-you(sg)-VIEW-ed!, he/she/it-happens-to-VIEW (opt) τὸν the (acc) τάφον grave (acc) .
Mark: Καὶ and/also λίαν very πρωῒ early { τῆς the (gen) μιᾶς one (gen) ♦ τῇ the (dat) μιᾷ one (dat) τῶν the (gen) } σαββάτων sabbaths (gen) ἔρχονται they-are-being-COME-ed ἐπὶ upon/over (+acc,+gen,+dat) τὸ the (nom|acc) μνημεῖον tomb (nom|acc|voc) , ἀνατείλαντος upon TO RISE-ing (gen) τοῦ the (gen) ἡλίου Elijah (gen); sun (gen) .
Luke Τῇ the (dat) δὲ But also μιᾷ one (dat) τῶν the (gen) σαββάτων sabbaths (gen) , ὄρθρου dawn (gen) { βαθέος deep ([Adj] gen) , ἦλθον I-COME-ed, they-COME-ed ἐπὶ upon/over (+acc,+gen,+dat) τὸ the (nom|acc) μνῆμα tomb (nom|acc|voc) ♦ βαθέως ???; deep ([Adj] gen) ἐπὶ upon/over (+acc,+gen,+dat) τὸ the (nom|acc) μνῆμα tomb (nom|acc|voc) ἦλθον I-COME-ed, they-COME-ed } , φέρουσαι while BRING-ing (nom|voc) ἃ who/whom/which (nom|acc) ἡτοίμασαν they-READY-ed ἀρώματα aromatics (nom|acc|voc) , { καί and/also τινες some/any (nom) σὺν together with/including (+dat) αὐταῖς them/same (dat) ♦ - } .
John: Τῇ the (dat) δὲ But also μιᾷ one (dat) τῶν the (gen) σαββάτων sabbaths (gen) Μαρία Mary (nom|voc) ἡ the (nom) Μαγδαληνὴ Magdalene (nom|voc) ἔρχεται he/she/it-is-being-COME-ed πρωΐ early , σκοτίας darkness (gen) ἔτι yet/still οὔσης while being (gen) , εἰς into (+acc) τὸ the (nom|acc) μνημεῖον tomb (nom|acc|voc) , καὶ and/also βλέπει he/she/it-is-SEE-ing, you(sg)-are-being-SEE-ed (classical) τὸν the (acc) λίθον stone (acc) ἠρμένον having-been-TAKE UP-ed (acc, nom|acc|voc) ἐκ out of (+gen) τοῦ the (gen) μνημείου tomb (gen) .
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