Easter Celebration

EDITOR: If you are in any way interested in religion, you are virtually a unique person in our society today. If you are reading the Bible regularly, proving its veracity to yourself, that it means what it says, that its message is consistent from Genesis to Revelation, and if you are trying to obey it to the best of your ability, you are really a most exceptional, or unusual, person indeed. You might even be characterized as quite a rare specimen!

When we read the Bible, it is quite difficult at first to let go of our past ideas. We usually find ourselves reading some established concept into the biblical message. Why is it that plain statements directly from the Scriptures are ignored, while concepts which are NOT TAUGHT in its pages seems to be proof-texted and preached from almost every pulpits?

For instance, take the subject of the annual holy days that are commanded in the inspired Scriptures, versus the days which are commonly observed by most people of the world today.

For example, did you know that, in the only instance where the word Easter is mentioned in the Bible, it should have been translated “PASSOVER”? This passage is found in Act 12:4. Most Bibles merely offer the correction in the margin. In the Creek text, the word that appears is Pascha, and it is derived from the Hebrew word Pasach, meaning the Passover.

In the note on the word Easter, found in the Companion Bible, the compiler Dr. E. W. Bullinger has written the following in the margin. “Easter. Greek ‘to Pascha’, the Passover. Easter is a heathen term, derived from the Saxon g-ddess ‘Easter,’ the same as Astarte, THE SYRIAN VENUS, called ASHTORETH in the Old Testament.”

Have you ever checked dictionaries and encyclopedias for the term Easter? Here is the etymology of the term that appears in the Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition. “ME. Ester < OE. Eastre, pl, estron, spring, Easter; org., name of pagan vernal festival almost coincident in date with paschal festival of the ch-rch < Eastre, dawn g-ddess < PGmc. “Austro (whence G. Ostern); see East”.

Have you ever wondered why the world uses eggs, bunnies, and hot cross buns at Easter? Nowhere in the Bible can anyone find that these articles were used or commanded as symbols by the Saviour or His resurrection, nor did the Apostles ever engaged in such practices. At no time did the Apostles ever observe Easter sunrise services.

Yahweh warned the children of Israel not to worship the sun in Deuteronomy 17:2-5.

Deuteronomy 4:19. In Ezekiel 8:16-18 25 persons were worshipping the sun.

The prophet Jeremiah, in the second chapter of his prophecy, speaks about the worship of the queen of heaven. Also, in chapter 7 verses 17- 19, we read, See you not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gathered the wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, to pour out drink – offerings to other elohim, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? says Yahweh; Do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”

In Acts 20: 6, we find an additional reference wherein the Apostles are observing the feast of Unleavened Bread which is eaten for seven days. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:16 says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of the Messiah? The bread which we BREAK [hard bread, not soft leavened bread] is it not the body of the Messiah?

However, some religious groups continue to mislead their followers into believing that the death of the Messiah is celebrated in the observation of the Easter festival.

Can anyone in his right mind not acknowledge in the affirmative that the Bible is correct, that Almighty Yahweh is condemning sin with concrete reasons, and that something went wrong somewhere with Chr-stian theology? It is time that you, as a thinking person, begin to open your eyes, (and mind), and do some general research at the public library, and in the Bible, and, then reach a reasoned decision.

Sheldon Govia