Christmas and Easter

• Messages sorted by:[ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1



>Dave responds:
>Well, this brings up a question I have. Are Christians to celebrate
>Christmas and Easter since both of these had "pagan origins"? I know
>of some Holy Ghost filled people who celebrate Christmas and exchange
>presents. So it is either right or wrong since it has pagan origins.
>It's one thing to compare the Catholic Church with paganism, but what
>about Apostolics who celebrate Christmas?


Yes indeed Dave:

Christmas and Easter are without question, part of our contemporary
Apostolic heritage.  Our heritage draws these two holidays from  Roman
Catholicism.  It's only part of the baggage our movement carried out
of Catholicism, and ultimately, paganism.  Aside from our view on the
rightness of observing these holidays, we inherited them from Roman
Catholicism.  It's part of our spiritual "DNA" code that most
Christians take for granted; its written deeply into our assumptions
of what it means to practice Christianity.    Yes, Oneness
Pentecostals owe  Catholicism for Christmas and Easter.  

So what about Christmas and Easter?  Most Apostolics I know observe
both with a zeal not unlike other Christians.  God was manifest in the
flesh, and we usually hear that story at Christmas.  He purchased His
church with His own blood and rose again; and we hear of that at
Easter.   But the first apostles observed neither of them. The first
apostles had never heard of Christmas or Easter.    Nearly 1,600 years
after the Lord's execution, the editors of the King James Bible 
substituted the term "Easter" in Acts 12, for what is still there in
the Greek: The Passover.   It is the Passover the first apostles
observed:  " For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. 
Therefore let us keep the feast..." (1 Cor. 5)

Do the historical origins of Christmas and Easter negate the meanings
we pour into these holidays as Apostolics?  No.  I was gloriously
baptized in the Holy Spirit on Easter Sunday in 1978, after the
proclamation of the gospel story:  the death and resurrection of the
Lord Jesus.   

Do the historical origins of Christmas and Easter dilute our bold,
fundamentalist-like claims to experience and practice Christianity as
the first apostles?  Possibly so.    Today, practitioners of "Earth
Religions" also known as wicca and witchcraft, openly boast THEY are
the real origins to the familiar customs of Christmas, Easter, and
Halloween.  Your web browser and search engine will lead you to the
proof rather quickly.    The witches "wheel of the year" gave us many,
if not all, the customs of Yule (Christmas), Ostara (Easter), and
Samhain (Halloween).  Modern witches speak with pride, of how
Catholicism took their holidays, and "Christianized" them.   The
Catholic church poured new meanings into the familiar customs of the
pagan holidays.   A witch recently asked all Christians;  she knows
why she uses the familiar decorations to celebrate the holidays....WHY
DO YOU? (Christians).    Unlike Christmas and Easter,  I haven't heard
anyone blaming Jesus for Samhain. (Halloween)      

Imagine yourself for a moment as a practitioner of wicca.   You may be
the nice 16 year old girl down the street, or you may be the
20-something D.I.N.K.'s couple in suburbia.   And the folks down the
street have no idea you are a practicing witch.   You're something
different, but you are part of middle America.  Very likely, you are a
spiritual young person.  You celebrate darkness as light. You know the
power of occultic spiritual gifts.  You know how Catholicism has taken
your truly ancient ways and "Christianized" them.   You know  of the
burning times, when witches and anyone in their way were executed by
the "church".  But your neighbors are Christians.  They celebrate some
of your holidays; they even use your pagan symbols and decorations.  
They claim to be the "real thing", like the "original" Christians,
followers of the apostles.   To you, how valid are these Christian's
ardent claims to be "Apostle like" of the Bible?  (Assuming you even
know anything from the Christian Bible.)

Beloved, my points are as follows:
1) Part of our spiritual heritage, our "DNA", our church economy,
comes from Roman Catholicism in the form of Christmas and Easter.  
Christmas and Easter do not come from the Bible.   Christmas and
Easter are not Biblically Apostolic.    Jesus really is not the reason
for the season; we only blame it on Him.   

2) Observing Christmas and Easter as a modern Apostolic Pentecostal
does not make one a Roman Catholic.   Nor does having a Christmas
tree, et. al., make one a pagan witch.  However, willfully continuing
to practice the usual and customary ways of these holidays may detract
 from our claims to be "Biblically Apostle-like".    Our society is
increasingly pagan.   If we continue to claim Apostolic power and
authority, but cling to pagan tradition for tradition's sake, the
pagan will see us as counterfeit.

3) Of all groups, it's ironic that Oneness Pentecostals would allow
the story of Matthew 1&2, and Luke 1 & 2 to become entangled with
pagan culture. The story of Matthew and Luke is that of the
incarnation;  it's an extremely powerful story;  God himself comes to
us as a man;  prophetic gifts are involved in the story;  real angels
appear in huge numbers;  et. al.....God was manifest in the flesh!  
Mixing this story with the festival of the winter solstice serves to
reduce the incarnation in the minds of popular culture, to level of a
fairy tale.    

4) This is not a call to abandon Christmas or Easter on legalistic
grounds.  It is a call to take spiritual and historical inventory of
who we say we are.   And this is not a call to a new litmus test of
orthodoxy;  many false religions (cults) do not observe Christmas or
Easter.  It is a personal decision of reflection and evaluation.   My
family has not abandoned the Yule season.  Some of our close
associates have done so, and I have great respect for them because of
it.  

Yes indeed, the first Apostles did have "holidays", which God himself
instituted, which teach of things to come.  Just as God had an
appointed time or "holiday" for His Spirit to be poured out upon all
flesh ("And when the day of Pentecost was fully come") He had an
appointed time or holiday for when Christ was offered as our
sacrifice.  It's called Passover.   The Passover story teaches us
about the very death of Christ into which we are baptized.  The blood,
...the atonement, ...who is saved from the passing of the death
angel,...all of deadly serious events central to our faith, are
addressed in the Passover story.  

In contrast, Easter mixes the central elements of Christianity with
pagan fables.   These are the same fables and traditions that pagan
spirituality embraces to this day.  The witches of today still
celebrate their season of rebirth with colored eggs.  It is a fact of
history, that Roman Catholicism sought, with great violence and
bloodshed, to stamp out the Lord's Passover, and replace it with
Easter.  Furthermore, Easter is man's celebration of the resurrection.
 Passover is the Lord's way to "shew the Lord's DEATH till he come."  
The Passover story is the story of our Lords death:  "...Christ our
Passover is sacrificed for us.  Therefore let us keep the feast..." 
However, there was problem in mixing the elements of the Passover
story into the pagan spring holiday, and thereby "Christianize" it.   
Paganism's Spring holiday of Ostara is a time of rebirth, rebuilding,
and the earth coming back to life.  The resurrection of Jesus fits
rather well.    The problem with Passover is the DEATH, the sacrifice,
the atonement, the blood being applied, the leaving in haste, the
remembering of the bondage of sin in Egypt, et. al.....NONE of these
elements of Passover fit into the pagan spring fertility rites, and
rebirth.   Passover falls on the appointed day in the Biblical
calendar.  Easter is the first Sunday, after the first full moon,
after the Spring equinox.

Oneness Pentecostals of all people, should note the significance of
any subtle de-emphasizing of the death, the sacrifice, the atonement,
the blood being applied at the altar of sacrifice, the leaving Egypt
in haste, et. al...  Is this part of the reason Passover was so
violently stripped out of the church in history?   Passover's main
theme is the teaching that "without the shedding of blood, there is no
remission of sin".  Easter's main theme is rising from the dead.   
Yes, we as Apostolics are likely to observe the Lord's Supper at
Easter.  We likely recount His death and atonement at Easter.   This
is not a legalistic call to abandon Easter.  This is not a call to put
a new bondage of Passover Observance on God's church.  This is not a
call to become Jewish wanna-bees.  It is an invitation for further
study.  More importantly, It is a call to examine WHO WE SAY WE ARE.  
 And it is something else, which is a bit beyond the scope of this
article....:

The Lord's Passover is less than three weeks away.  What would happen
if you and your close associates came together at home under the full
Passover moon  (yes, that's part of God's clock)  for prayer,
fellowship, bread and wine?   You will know that this is the very
night, THE very night that the cry went out of Egypt.   This is the
very night the Lord last ate the meal with his disciples.  This is the
very night the crucifixion begins to unfold.  And there is something
ancient and deadly serious in the substance surrounding all this, and
you may very likely sense that in your Spirit.  And may the Lord give
you and the church with you, a special visitation!

Lord, give us a fresh edge for the next generation!

That's enough for now brothers, until next time, I am
Sincerely yours,

Glenn Turner
gturner@im3.com


 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5

iQA/AwUBNup0OUYUYflwXF5YEQJGHQCg1xRgSPGO1xoVRuN52l/t7qjLEx8An2Oa
BYONqfsZmyYzMMCQRSNJDl9V
=n7BS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----