Highway of Life said:
Ok, so you all DONT celebrate the BIRTH of our Savior?
Or the resurrection of our Savior?
Sure we do!! Absolutely -- however Messianics celebrate the birth of Yeshua at the appropriate time, when He was actually born: during the feast of Sukkot/Succot aka Tabernacles --the feast commemorating when G-d tabernacled with His people in the wilderness AND finding it's FILLING full in Yeshua's coming to earth to live among men. And most Messianics indeed celebrate Resurrection Day, but not "Easter" complete with all of its pagan trappings (and no, I'm not referring only to the "bunny" and the baskets etc.)
HoL, did you carefully read any of the links provided on this thread and a few others here lately, regarding the paganism inherant in man's "holidays"? Paganism (both pagan theology and pagan practice) was incorporated into the "Church's" worship practices, and whitewashed over to look like the are holy practices and days, when they are really nothing but clean-on-the-outside tombs.
Birth: When Christ came to this earth on a mission: To save his people. (Christmas)
Nope. Yeshua was not born on Dec 25th. Nor anywhere near. The choosing of the Dec 25th date was entirely due to paganism incorporated into the church... it was long considered the birthdate of several "gods" that were already being worshipped by the pagans who were forcibly "converted" into the church in droves when Constantine decided it was a grand idea to make Christianity the formal, recognized religion, and he made all the pagan "high priests" and vestal virgins into the "priests" of Christianity and responsible for the "worship" of the "church faithful" body; Constantine also converted (rather than destroy) a huge number of filthy "temples" where horrid, unholy acts were committed in worship of other "gods", into places of "worship" for those pagan high priests of his paganized "Christianity. The winter solstice was generally "celebrated" at this "god's" birthday of Dec 25th and the date was adopted and rationalized away as being reasonable for any number of reasons, such as "well, this Jesus is the Sun of Righteousness, right? Well then of course His birth should be celebrated at the time of the sun's rebirth! Why NOT have His birthday be at (on, or at just the day after winter solstice) the re-waxing of the sun's light? And after all, we all know that such and such god was born on Dec. 25th, and since we know that's really Jesus -- well, hey why NOT?! There's no way people will give up their revelling at solstice so let's let them have their fun and say it's all for the King! (insert party whoop. here.)"
Death: When Christ died for our sins: To save his people. (Good Friday)
Nope. Yeshua died on a Wednesday afternoon just before sunset and lay in the tomb from Wed. eve to Thurs. eve (1 full day), Thurs. eve to Fri. eve (second full day), Fri. eve to Sat eve (third full day, resting over... of course... the Shabbat rest day) and rose (I believe) "between the evenings" on late Sabbath when Shabbat was over and the day was technically dawning unto the first day of the week, according to G-d's description of "day" (evening to evening). Others here have different opinions on the exact hour of His rising, however Messianics generally hold to this basic timeline, as far as I know... and there's room for disagreement, of course
. Yeshua died in connection with the Passover feast, and Messianics and Jews keep Passover, Messianics acknowledging Yeshua's death at this time. The Messianic significance of Pesach (Passover) is incredible, powerful, moving and undeniable. And it is a G-d-mandated feast... not a man-mandated feast -- so all the more reason to celebrate it, and in the light of Messiah's death!
Resurrection: When Christ defeated death and rose from the dead: To save his people. (Easter)
Yeshua's resurrection has not ONE thing to do with "Easter". I have given you a link showing you that Easter and most of its practices are entirely based and steeped in paganism and idolatry. Why would you -- or anyone -- want to worship our G-d in ways that pagans worshipped theirs??!
Why do you not want to celebrate that?
When I can celebrate what G-d gave us to celebrate, according to His Word, and also acknowledge the marvellous, matchless, miraculous events of my Savior's life in ways that don't violate G-d's Word, I have to ask you... why WOULD I want to celebrate Christmas and Easter complete with idolatry and pagan practices, as the church does (and Christians do) year in and year out? I tell you now, G-d is not mocked. He is NOT pleased. He is not pleased, as Christians want to hope and believe He is, by the mixing of paganism into the worship of Him. He is not pleased by "Christmas" and "Eostara", not to mention a plethora of other common, every-day practices in the church. I ask you again, please read Ezekiel chapter 8, and also these links:
http://www.eaec.org/bibleanswers/easter.htm (at the top of this page you will see a link for "The Truth About Christmas" which is the page that this NEXT link below is supposed to take you to, so if the link below doesn't work for some reason, simply click "The Truth About Christmas" on the easter page and read that article, as well.)
http://www.eaec.org/bibleanswers/christmas.htm
http://www.eliyah.com/idolatry.html
Especially read the first link I posted there. Halfway down the page, you will find information that deals specifically with the portion of scripture found in Ezekiel 8. Allow me to quote some of it here:
eaec.org said:
On the other hand, there was a type of sunrise service that was a part of old pagan customs connected with sun-worship! Now we do not mean to imply that Christian people today literally worship the sun in their Easter sunrise services. Nor do we say that the Catholic who bows before the monstrance sun-image and worships the round, sun-shaped host, is literally worshipping the sun. But what we are saying is that such practices are an obvious mixture of paganism with Christianity.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, God's people went into Babylonian captivity because they mixed sun-worship rites into their worship. God showed this to the prophet Ezekiel. "And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house," said the prophet, "and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the EAST; and they worshipped the sun toward the EAST." (Ezekiel 8:16) Here then were people that had known God, yet they allowed this mixture of sun-worship to enter in and defile them.
But was this worship conducted at SUNRISE? Yes. It was definitely a sunrise service, for the scriptures declare that they worshipped the sun toward the EAST. And of course the sun is in the east at early morning -- at sunrise!
It was also to the east that the prophets of Baal looked in the days of Elijah! As we have already seen, the sun was regarded as the representative of Baal (the deified Nimrod). Therefore, when Elijah challenged the false prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel with the words: "The God that answers by FIRE, let him be God", he was meeting Baal worship on its own grounds -- fire being regarded as the representation of the sun-god. And at what time of the day was it that these false prophets of Baal started calling on him? It was as Baal (the SUN) made his first appearance over the eastern horizon; for it was at "morning", that is, DAWN (I Kings 18:26) Of course no answer came from the sun-god Baal, so they continued until noon and the rest of the day.
Rites connected with the dawning sun (in one form or another) were known in many ancient nations. Those who made the Sphinx in Egypt, built it to watch for the rising sun in the east. From Mount Fuji-yama, Japan, prayers are made to the rising sun: "The pilgrims pray to their rising sun while climbing the mountain sides...sometimes one may see several hundreds of Shinto pilgrims in their white robes turning out from their shelters, and joing their chants tot he rising sun." And the pagan Mithrists of Rome (whom we have already mentioned) met together at dawn in honor of the sun god.
Now turning again to the Eighth Chapter of Ezekiel in which the prophet saw 25 men looking to the east at sunrise, we notice that they didn't seem to think it mattered much if such an observance was mixed in with their worship. They evidently thought it was a "light thing." But concerning this, God spoke to Ezekiel: "Hast thou seen this, O Son of man? Is it a light thing...that they commit the abominations which they commit here?...and, lo, they put the branch to their nose" (Verse 17) This rite of putting the branch to the nose was also associated with the dawn of the sun in the east. This was an idolatrous ritual of holding up a branch of tamarisk (called barsom) to the nose at daybreak while they sang hymns to the rising sun.
It is evident that such sunrise services were RELIGIOUS gatherings. But is there any indication that these services were conducted at the "Easter" season, in the spring of that year? Yes, there is! Actually, as we already briefly mentioned, the very name "Easter" comes from the name of the pagan goddess of SPRING and this was the time of her festival. She was regarded as the goddess of the rising light in the east, as the very word "East-er" shows. "The English EASTER...is at all events connected with the east and sunrise..." Thus the dawn of the sun in the "east", the name "easter", and the Spring season season are all connected.
But to further see the connection between the sunrise services, the goddess Easter, and the Spring season, let us consider the following: In the old fables of the Mystery cults, their "savior", Tammuz, was worshipped with various rites at the Spring season. According to the legends, after he was slain, he went into the underworld. But through the weeping of his "MOTHER", Ishtar (Easter), he mystically was revived. And the sign of his supposed coming to life again, was represented in the springing forth of the vegetation in Spring!
Each year a spring festival dramatically represented this supposed "resurrection" from the underworld: "The resurrection of Tammuz through Ishtar's grief was dramatically represented ANNUALLY in order to insure the success of the crops and the fertility of the people...Each year men and women had to grieve with Ishtar over the death of Tammuz and celebrate the god's return, in order to win anew her favor and her benefits!" When the new vegetation began to come forth, those ancient people saw in this a symbol that their "savior" had come from the underworld, and this coming forth was supposed to be the thing that ended winter and caused Spring to begin.
Now turning once again to Ezekiel Eight, we find that along with the worship of the sun toward the east, the practice of weeping with Ishtar for Tammuz was also observed. As we read in verse 14: "Behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz"! And then in the verses that follow, Ezekiel saw the sun-worship rites. So here, even the people that had known God, had mixed the Babylonian religion into their worship -- weeping with Ishtar the "Mother" for the dead Tammuz. This was a part of the Spring Festival (the spring forth of new life, new vegetation, etc., supposedly representing the coming forth of Tammuz from the underworld.) And closely connected with these SPRING festivities were the rites in which men looked to the east, to the rising sun at dawn!
Now since the true Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, in reality did rise (not merely in nature, plants, etc.); and since His resurrection was in the spring of the year (though slightly earlier than the pagan festival of olden times) it was not too hard for the church of the fourth century (now greatly departed from the true faith anyway) to merge the pagan spring festival into Christianity, attaching the various phases of it to Christ. In this way, it would appear to be a Christian Festival, yet at the same time, it would retain many of its ancient customs. In this way, both sides were coaxed into the professing "church." In speaking of this merger, the Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Christianity...incorporated in its celebration of the great Christian feast day many of the heathen rites and customs of the Spring festival" -- the ancient pagan festival!
HoL said:
Personally, I think we should celebrate what God has done for us. I love him that much, it is the least I can do.
Messianics agree -- and we love Him so much for Who He is and also all He has done for us that we take it to the point where we want to make sure to celebrate what He has done for us
in ways that will not be a mixing of worship-practices, which He forbid, Himself. Messianics seek and strive to adhere to the very Word of G-d in all things, and any "extra" Biblical things we practice, we scrupulously compare to the whole of the Word to determine whether those extra things might in any way be contrary to the Word of G-d in any thing. To be a Messianic means to seek to be utterly conformed to the Word and the Ways and the Will of G-d for us in all things, in every aspect of life, in every worship-practice, in our entire faith-walk.
The Secular world will do what they will, practice the pagan beliefs that they do. But, when I celebrate Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter, what I am celebrating is what Christ Jesus, our Savior has done for us. Is this wrong?
If you do it in ways that incorporate the world's idolatry, even into Christianity's very practices and theology -- whether you realize they are paganism yet, or you don't -- then... yes. Read the articles with more than a cursory scanning through them... really take the time to read them. Continue to ask your questions -- no one here minds, I'm sure. When you get to know WHAT Messianics celebrate, and HOW and WHY Messianics celebrate what we do the way we do, and when you begin to see that Messiah is written all over every single feast Jews and Messianics celebrate, perhaps you will begin to see 1) where paganism is alive and well, and entrenched, in Christian practices you never remotely thought had anything to do with anything idolatrous whatsoever, and 2) that one can celebrate each and every part of Yeshua's life, death and resurrection WITHOUT any of the pagan trappings and idoltrous mixing of unholy practices into our worship of the One True G-d, by choosing to follow His feasts, which
DON'T mix in any pagan practices.
Shabbat Shalom,
~Z~
