Clear As Mud

So, my question still stands. As believers in Jesus, why do we celebrate Easter and not Passover? Easter isn’t mentioned in the Bible. If you haven’t read yesterday’s blog, I encourage you to do so in order to understand what’s happening.

I found a site full of church history that explains a lot. I feel my questions have been answered and put to rest for good. I cannot express enough in words how relieved I feel!

The Reader’s Digest Version from the above mentioned site goes something like this: During the Council of Nicea, in the year 325, the Roman Catholic church decided that Easter should now be the Christian Passover and be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Because that was the actual DAY of the year that Jesus rose from the grave. Yes, the Roman Catholic bishops of that time had the authority to banish Passover and steal a pagan festival called Easter and ‘church it up’. (Yes, I went there)

Before this, Easter, which was a fertility festival, that was held ON the vernal equinox, so they changed the date of the original Easter in order to call it their own. However, many of the symbols carried over, but they got ‘churched up’, too.

{What is the equinox? I wanted to be sure that I was telling you the right information, so I researched it. The equinox happens twice a year. It’s when the sun shines directly on the equator in such a way that the length of day and night is nearly equal in all parts of the world. It happens in the spring (marking the beginning of spring) and the fall (marking the beginning of autumn).}

The churches of that time didn’t change their practices all of a sudden; actually many didn’t accept this until around 50 years later, when a Roman Emperor decreed that anyone who didn’t abide by it was put to death. That event was called the “Edicts of Theodosius against the heretics”. I guess that would be as good of a reason as any to change from Passover to Easter.

So we can understand now why the whole mess happened, right? Clear as mud?

In Cee’s Thots terms, the last 1,700 years, give or take a century, Christians have celebrated Resurrection Sunday on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the sun shines equally on the whole earth, in the spring, because that’s the exact Sunday of the year that Jesus rose from the dead after He died on the cross for our sins.

Since nobody has burst into flames for observing Easter as  Resurrection Sunday, I believe it’s safe to say God is ok with it. After all, it’s really a matter of the heart, because we are to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth as Jesus says in John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post when I ask the question why can’t we infuse Christian and Jewish holidays???