Why around this time of the year, especially during Lent, do we often hear much about the approaching Easter and all its trappings such as eggs, bunnies, chocolate, hot cross buns, and yes, about the supreme sacrifice of Christ, Our LORD and Saviour? Yet, there is something about Christ we rarely, if ever at all, hear about.
Some people abstain from eating meat, and stick to fish, during this forty-day period leading up to Easter. Why? Here’s one explanation: “meat was at one point considered an indulgence, so abstaining from meat on certain days is intended as a form of penance and a way for Christians to honor Jesus’ sacrifice of his flesh on Good Friday. That means no meat from birds, cows, sheep, or pigs.” I’ve always wondered whether fish isn’t flesh, too.
Nevertheless, there is no biblical observance known as Lent or Easter for that matter. The observance of Lent is, “is connected with the 40-day fast that Jesus undergoes (Mark 1:13; Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13). Mark tells us that Jesus was tempted by Satan, but it is in Matthew and Luke that the details of the temptation are fleshed out. All three accounts say that Jesus went without food for the 40 days.”
In his book, The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop notes, “The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third and fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter…That festival [Passover] was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. ‘It ought to be known,’ said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive [New Testament] Church with the Church of his day, ‘that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.’”
We can see from church history that neither Easter nor Lent was observed in the primitive church. We also know from the Holy Bible that there was no such instruction for these observances. How unfortunate! The biblical observances are ignored and the non-biblical ones are embraced.
What we see in the Word of God is a description of the crucified Saviour that has been completely dropped and what we have in substitution are pagan fertility symbols that somehow are rooted in these observances. As with mainstream Christianity in the early development of Christian theology, which goes unchanged to this day, there was a zeal brought about by a number of factors, to depart from the Hebraic roots of the Christian Church and embrace pagan practices and beliefs. Some would argue that it was done to win pagan converts to Christianity. If that was so, how come the two biggest Christian festivals – Christmas and Easter – are pagan-rooted?
This brings us to that biblical description of our Saviour most befitting for this time of the year. It’s not something that has been devised by man’s own thinking or through the traditions of church fathers. It’s from the Bible! Let’s read it!
1 Cor. 5: 7–8, “Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” (my emphasis). CHRIST IS OUR PASSOVER. He has been described as the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth!
We cannot get around this, despite the obvious snub by Christians not to or to rarely use this term. Instead, they use Easter, a word with pagan origins and meanings, which is accompanied by the fertility symbols of eggs, bunnies, and the eating of hot cross buns. And what a paradox! The unleavened bread mentioned in 1 Cor. 5.7 is in reference to the annual spring festival commanded in Lev. 23 – the Days of Unleavened Bread. These are not Jewish festivals as Christendom would have you to believe. If you study God’s appointed times or moedim (Hebrew: translated seasons)) of Gen. 1:14 And Lev. 23, you will discover that these are God’s “appointed times” for festivals; they are His seven annual Holy Days when humanity should take the time to appear before him. They were given to Israel, yes, because God was only dealing with one nation back then – Israel. Psalms 147:20 He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.
But as you go into the scriptures further and right into the New Testament, you will see that Christ himself observed His appointed times, His disciples, His apostles, and the primitive church as well. Not only that, these appointed times which reveal the plan of God for humanity tells us of a time when ALL nations will be required to observe them when God establishes His glorious kingdom. If we have to do that in the future, why not now? Instead, Christendom prefers to observe its own “holy or sacred” days instead of God’s, often overlooking the fact that only God can make something holy.
Indeed, CHRIST OUR PASSOVER is sacrificed for our sins, so let us keep the festival – Passover/Days of Unleavened Bread. Not Easter! It didn’t say Christ is our Easter. No! CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. Christ is the sacrificial Lamb. Not the sacrificial bunny or egg! What do those symbols have to do with the Bible and Jesus’ sacrifice? Can you stop for a few seconds to digest what you have been observing? This year, the Church of God will observe the LORD’s Passover or the New Testament Passover on the evening of April 4, 2023, not Easter or Good Friday, which are basically man-made “holy days.” Why? Because CHRIST IS OUR PASSOVER!
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