…I’m still not into following the “church calendar.” I’m not into Lent, Easter, Christmas, etc. as religious celebrations. Not that I’m dogmatic about it. I don’t mind if people want to spend some extra time thinking about Jesus this week; I’m always for that. I just don’t see it fitting into the way things were set up in the New Testament.
God knows how to tell his people to celebrate something, when to to do it, and how to do it. If you don’t believe me, read Leviticus 23, for example. Or any of the other chapters that talk about religious feasts. I don’t see anything remotely similar in the New Testament. Not a verse, let alone a complete chapter. “But doesn’t Romans 14 say we can observe special days?” Sure, can being the operative word. We can abstain from eating meat, too, but somehow that one hasn’t been nearly as popular. (Except at Lent, but that gets back to the special days)
To me, we have to find the happy medium between walking around condemning everyone around us and trying to imitate everyone around us. I think the traditional church of Christ statement that “We celebrate Easter every Sunday” is true. Unfortunately, some people are only able to “get into it” once a year. That might be something we need to work on.
Hope you enjoy your Easter weekend. I’ve actually got today off, when I was supposed to be working. (Weather cancelled my trip to Nashville) I hope that you find something this weekend that brings you closer to God.
And I hope the same for next weekend, too.
{Photo by Ryan Smart, sxc.hu}
You have stated my feelings exactly. Thanks for stating this so well.
If I was convinced that these days made people think less about Jesus the other days then I would say they are a bad idea. I just can’t prove that. So in my opinion, the more we can focus on Christ and find ways to remember what he has done the better. I don’t think in any way, shape or form does it detract from what we do “every Sunday.” I think if we ignore it and have a sermon on some random topic at Easter time it makes us seem dramatically out of touch. I also wonder why some people wouldn’t dare celebrate Easter in church but think that hiding eggs and talking to their children about a magical bunny is fine. This is a tremendous teaching opportunity to teach children and many other people about what Jesus has done for us!
I do respect both sides of this and am not attempting to call anyone’s faith into question here. Thanks for your thoughts.
Hmmmm…. I’m thinking about this issue, and I really think a whole lot of my family’s Church of Christ non-Easter-ish-ness was because OTHER people calling themselves Christians celebrated it (cf. Christmas). It seems to me we in the CoC should LOVE Easter; we can’t object, the way we do about Christmas not being really on Dec. 25th, to the date, since the date’s actually correct, as I understand it (Easter’s the first Sunday after the Passover after the Vernal Equinox, or something like that). But you and I (and jillions of folks like us) grew up with the bunnies and the chicks instead of Jesus. And, in my case, it colored my view, more than the eggs we dyed to celebrate the resurrection.
Thanks Jeanne.
Matt, I agree for the most part. What I see, though, is that the same arguments many use now for celebrating Easter are the same arguments they use for only celebrating the Lord’s Supper once a quarter, that it becomes more special that way. I’d rather we work on making the Lord’s Supper special every time we do it. And I’m not preaching a random topic on Sunday; we have enough visitors and new members with a Catholic background that I’d be foolish not to take advantage of that.
Karen, I just think we’re on our usual pendulum ride. We have to go from rejecting Easter to outdoing everyone else in embracing it. Hopefully our kids’ generation can get back to a reasonable position.
Your post reminded me of last Easter. In the worship assembly, my then 5 year old son was asked by our youth minister, “What happened on Easter?” He responded, “The Easter Bunny came!” It threw off the youth minister, because he was expecting, “Jesus came back to life.”
I understand that some people would be horrified at his answer, but I was amused by it. Our son sees us participate in Communion services every week. He hears about Jesus and the resurrection every day. The only thing different about Easter to him is the Easter Bunny.
However, I’m glad that we have visitors on Easter Sunday. I’m glad that they hear about Jesus and the resurrection on that day. They may not have the same exposure to the message that my son has had, but it’s good that they receive some exposure to it.
Did you notice the Vatican distributed chocolate Easter eggs to earthquake victims in Italy this week?
Tim,
I see your point about the Supper but I don’t think it invalidates the point about having Easter. If someone wants to or doesn’t want to have Easter I don’t really care…let them decide that for themselves. Now, take the Lord’s Supper out of the assembly on a weekly basis and I will kindly pitch a fit!
Which was the intended point of my post, about letting people celebrate Easter. I’m just not fond of the less-holy-than-thou feeling I get when I’m talking with some that choose to celebrate. I’m also concerned about our inability to focus on the resurrection at other times.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Tim I like what you wrote:We celebrate Easter every Sunday.
That is as it should be! Good thoughts; happy Easter
Bobby
Thanks, Bobby, Happy Easter to you as well.
lol *SOB*
If we focused on Easter every Sunday, we’d be a far more joyful brotherhood.
The fact is, even though we meet on the first day of the week — Resurrection Day — New Creation Day 1 — we still fixate our gatherings on six hours one Friday.
While this is changing in several places, my reading and conversations tell me that it is still the general tenor of worship around the brotherhood. And of course I’m not saying we shouldn’t preach the crucifixion (although we do a lot more preaching about the common elements of crucifixion – the whips and nails, etc – rather than the unique aspect of Jesus’ death – he didn’t have to be there!).
But without the joyous and incredible resurrection, Jesus is just another crucified wanna-be Messiah! Maybe he had some better social ideas than his fellow messianic aspirants, but if he wasn’t raised, so what?
Since he was raised, let us rejoice! At least other groups celebrate once a year. We hardly celebrate at all.
That’s a good point Nick. John Mark Hicks wrote about that very topic yesterday, I believe.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
I´M FROM ARGENTINA, WANNA SAY HI TO EVERYONE. ABOUT THE EASTER POST I AGREE, 100%. I THINK WE NEED TO STOP DOING WHAT SOME PEOPLE TELL US TO DO AND START DOING WHAT OUR HEART TELL US TO DO. TRADITIONS ARE TRADITIONS, I KNOW THAT, I´M CATHOLIC BUT SOME TRADITIONS ARE BREAKING OUR HEARTS IN TWO, BECAUSE SOME “DOGMAS” WERE NOT DICTATED BY GOD, WERE DICTATED BY THE MAN, AND THEIR INTERESTS. WE NEED TO FEED OUR SOULS, FEED OUR MIND TO BREAK FREE FROM STEREOTIPES AND BE FREE, GOD WANTS US FREE, NOT ATTACHED TO ONE CHURCH AS IF WE WERE FANS OF A FOOTBALL TEAM.
CONGRATULATIONS TIM FOR THIS SPACE
MY BEST REGARDS
PETER
Thanks Peter. Good to hear from you.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
. “Be Ye HOLY as I AM HOLY. ” We have taken the WORD “HOLY” from HOLY SCRIPTURES. How many leave out Holy in the Holy Bible. “When you Think in the Spirit of God, You will walk in the Spirit of God.” Spiritual intellect comes from God, as Jesus once said to Peter: “You could not have known that, unless my Father in heaven had told you.”
Easter? Not in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not a WORD of GOD. THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD dwells in us (unless we choose not to obey his paths of righteousness). The days are Holy, be whatever “title” that man has given the calendar date. (Seek Psalm 46:10 and Psalm 33:12.). (In Unity)
( Rabbits is a mere deceivement as Santa Claus deceives many for the value of the dollar. Yet, the choice is indeed ours, to be lukewarm or serve wholeheartedly or continue to study to show ourselves approved of Our LORD. (Today we met an elderly woman who had never heard of Moses. She never knew the names of Jesus’ parents). Monday, she learned about the Resurrection.
(I KNOW THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU DECLARES THE LORD). Jeremiah 29:11
PEACE BE TO YOU ALL, IN CHRISTIAN LOVE.