Most people know the origins of Easter aren’t exactly Christian (for example here). Also, as Cecil has noted, Easter used to be on Passover. But I was reading through the Bible and came across two passages that gave me pause for thought:
The second quote takes a little explaining on my part as to why this came up. Since Paul is berating the Corinthians for eating a meal like the Lord’s supper before showing up for Church, it sounds like they were trying to perform exactly what Jesus did on Passover (and Paul was telling them they shouldn’t do the feasting part, just the bread and wine part). Together with the first verse, this makes me think that the Corinthians were keeping the Passover “feast” (and even the week were they don’t eat bread).
And since the Corinthians were not Jewish (going off of memory here… apology if I’m wrong :)), this would leave me to believe that the Church as a whole was keeping Passover. Since the earliest Church was keeping Passover, shouldn’t Christians today keep it?
[Full Disclosure: I am a Christian, but can’t be pigeonholed beyond that. I basically threw out everything I grew up with and am trying to figure out what I believe.]
That alone does not hold, since Jesus lived well after that event, and he was a Jew. He therefore benefitted from the departure, and should celebrate it. And by extention, so should his followers.
But why don’t Christians celebrate any Jewish holidays? Is it not logical that since Jesus was born a Jew that the Christian faith would involve Jewish tradition? Or are there teachings of Christ which specifically instruct not to follow?
Okay, you didn’t even want to address any of the points I brought up?
Besides which, I have heard it said that in a figurative sense Jesus was leading people out of the figurative Egypt (sin). Sounds kinda iffy, I know. Regardless, if Jesus wants update Passover and ask all his followers to keep it, then shouldn’t they?
What I’m trying to say here, is that Passover isn’t an abstract holiday, celebrating “freedom” or something similar; it’s a feast commemorating a specific event in Jewish history, during which the descendants of slaves celebrate their anscestors’ release from captivity. It celebrates the most important event ever to happen to the Children of Israel, in which God showed his strength and proved that he will always look after them.
Now, Jesus, Peter and the rest of that crew definitely should have celebrated Passover; but why should their converts among the Gentiles? It wasn’t about their anscestors.
Oh, and Skott - I didn’t adress any of your points because they deal with Christian theology, something I know little about and would not dare comment on. That’s why my remarks are purely conjecture.
Jesus was celebrating the Passover with his disciples when he said this
Paul, reiterates the command in the passage you mentioned
First, Jesus commanded us whenever we eat and drink we should remember his sacrifice. This could be interpreted as eating and drinking the passover.
Second, Paul was NOT saying that we should not eat the Lord’s supper but that the Corinthians (Greeks, by and large) who were ostensibly obeying Christ’s command were making a party of it rather than respecting the importance of Jesus’ work on the cross. So Paul was NOT overturning Jesus’ command.
So, WAG, in response to Paul’s admonishment, the passover meal in Gentile transmogrifies to what is now known as Communion, where we strictly ownly drink the cup (wine, or grape juice) and eat the bread (or cracker.) Hence, Communion is greatly solemnified.
In a sense then, every time a Church holds communion, they are celebrating Passover. The Jews celebrate being physically lead from bondage. The Christians celebrate being spiritually lead from bondage (IANAJ {Jew} so I can’t say that they might not also celebrate a spiritual freedom in conjunction with this feast.)
Easter then, in some sense, is just the Christian Festival (communion) that happens to correspond to the time of year when Christ was crucified.
I think the answer has to do with Christians taking communion instead. When Jesus was eating the last supper I he was celebrating Passover. At passover the Jews were remembering when they killed a lamb and put its blood on their doors so the angel of death would pass over their houses and spare their sons. This was a foreshadowing of what happened to Jesus who was killed so people could be spared from spiritual death. So instead of celebrating Passover which commemorates the Jewish people being saved, Christians celebrate communion which commemorates all people being saved.
Tinker just said it better but I typed it so I am posting it.
because christ is the new passover. he passed over from death into life.
in the old test. the angel of death passed over the houses with the blood of the lamb. the first born son lived.
in the new test. christ (the sac. lamb) passed through death and returned to life. first born son lives.
therefore celebrating holy week and bright week is the christian passover.
in orthodox churches in the early service of great and holy saturday there are 15 old test. readings. one of them is passover. the morning service is very old testament. at the evening service the new testament is frount and center with the pascha of christ.
All those explainations are based on theology, church customs and religious exclusion. I personally believe that the early church wanted to distance itself from the Jews as much as possible. Why? Because of the Jewish Rebellion of 66 A.D. Judaea was the only province to have rebelled and in order to distance themselves from the Jews the Christians did everything conceivable, including rewriting some of history. From this came the idea of “who killed Jesus” and many of the other Anti-Semitic beliefs.
Skott’s point was that while Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, Jesus led his converts out of a metaphorical Egypt: the slavery of their sin. It’s kind of a groovy connection, actually, I dig it.
Anyway, the early Church did everything it could to distance itself from the remaining Jews while continuing to convert Pagans. That’s why we see the absence of traditional Jewish holidays and the appearance of things like Easter and Christmas.
To paraphrase, the celebration of Passover – the freeing of the Jews from enslavement by the Egyptians into the people of God (the specific God of the O.T., not a generic God-concept) – was a feast specific to their national identity. But the elements of being saved from the general destruction – the ten plagues, the certain slaughter at the Red Sea by the pursuing Egyptian army, that whole deal – parallel the idea of Jesus saving people from enslavement to sin to the freedom to love and follow God. (Grumpy atheists, I do not want to argue about whether the rule system that traditional Christianity has bound itself with mitigates against this “freedom in God” viewpoint – I’m describing how they understood it as a vivid, living metaphor at the time. Okay?) Further, the symbology of “the Passover lamb without blemish” and Jesus as "lamb of God (cf. John ch. 1), the cup of blessing, the sharing of unleavened bread, the transtemporal thing in which (a) today’s Jews feel themselves to be the ones led out of Egypt (by participation in the tradition and by descent from those who actually were) and today’s Christians feel themselves present at the Upper Room in metaphor at the Eucharist when the celebrant re-recites Jesus’s words instituting the celebration, are very clear parallels.
To quote a portion of an Easter hymn:
And several other Easter readings, hymns, and such play strongly on the parallels of the two feasts.
In short, we never gave up Passover; we just redefined it.
I guess I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that.
Since I’ve been trying to figure out what I believe, I basically took the dogma of the past 2000 years and threw it out the window as doctrines and ideas that were influenced not only by the desire to know God, but politics, greed, inhumanity, and the like. In other words, instead of trying to determine whether the different beliefs of different churches are valid, I figured if I could figure out what the original churches were doing, that would give me the best idea as to the best “dogma”.
I thought that I had read somewhere in one of Paul’s letters that the traditions he gave to church x were all that they needed and if anyone tried to change them or bring new ones that they should beware of him. However, doing a search the best that I could find was:
I should have figured out that transformation of the Passover into Easter myself. I figured that Easter was only something brought in to win over Pagan converts.
I do remember, along the lines of what friedo mentioned, a quote from one of the Councils that basically read, “Let us not be anything like the dispicable Jews”. But that arguement was in order to keep Sunday as the “Sabbath” instead of Saturday.
(On a side note, I once read an article by Catholic bishop that said that the non-Catholic Christians did not have the authority to keep the Sabbath on a Sunday, since it was a change made by the Catholic church. Since they had rejected the Catholic church’s authority, they should go back to keeping Saturday. I don’t have the link with me… I’ll try and find it when I get home.)
Well, strike another blow for ecumenism and understanding between Christians. :rolleyes: Protestants don’t “reject” the Church’s authority - they believe they are the true Church.
I eprsonally get more out of Passover than I do Communion. Being raised Southern Baptist, you tend to study more fo the New Testament than the Old. The story of Jesus, while fascinating, sometimes becomes old hat to me. (Oh, I’ve heard this story a gazillion times…)
But when I went to Passover with a friend back home, it got me thinking about the trials the Jews faced through the plagues and the exodus from Egypt. So, even though Communion may be a reminder of Passover, it doesn’t affect me the same way. Passover is much more meaningful to me.
When I was still serving my sentence in Catholic grade school we did celebrate Passover. As part of the general Easter celebration we made unleven bread ( I remember doing mine in the shape of a lamb) and discussed Passover and the Last Supper.
Can I get a receipt for my 2 cents now?
Only to a small extent (I’m looking for a cite, I know I’ve seen it somewhere recently): There was pagan worship of a goddess Eostre (goddess of spring, IIRC), and that’s how the name Easter came to be, the Easter eggs were a fertility symbol, etc., rather like the Yule log and other pagan rituals became part of Christmas celebrations.
I grew up Episcopalian, and we mark Passover (the priest changes the color of his robes and the altar hangings for various celebrations on the church calander, certain colors for Passover, Lent, Easter Sunday, the Christmas season, etc.). It’s not excluded, it’s just dealt with differently.
Don’t kill yourself. The fact is that most of our church holidays are the result of political moves within the church, right down to the earliest times. This is not a bad thing unless you wish to make it so. It just is.
One of the earliest conflicts within the Church was between Jews and Gentiles. Paul’s entire discussion of circumcision was oriented to this very conflict. The Easter celebration was designed to incorporate Passover to placate the Jews, but to be different from Passover to placate the Gentiles. It also (as many have observed) incorporated many pagan rituals, down through the ages (this was much later) in order to aid the conversion of whatever local people was being preached to as time went by; thus, we get eggs as a sign of rebirth.
Again, don’t let it kill you. Politics were a part of the earliest church (see the discussion of the “parties” of Paul and Appollos in the Epistles). Where there are people, there will be politics.
nod Specifically, I recall Paul writing about upbraiding Peter for removing himself from eating with the Gentiles when the Jewish circumcision party arrived. But that upbraiding was a rejection of the politics that Peter was succumbing to.
I think Paul was trying to put politics out of the Church, a noble goal. In the end, I have a problem incorporating anything who’s foundation was built for political reasons into my personal beliefs.