Thursday Evening Blog With Pastor Williams (April 2008)
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by TADCCBLOG
Pastor Williams will be active on this blog site THURSDAY from 8:30 to 9:30pm. Please suggest topics or questions for discussion.
Filed under: Discussion Topics, Live Blog on Thursday
One Response to “Thursday Evening Blog With Pastor Williams (April 2008)”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Easter was started to offset the Jewish influence. Emperor Constantine wanted to bring the different factions of Christianity together. This led to the first Ecumenical Council in 325 A.D. Before the first council Jewish Bishops from Jerusalem came to Pope (Bishop is what all the popes were called before the Catholic church influence of the faith) Silvester asking that Jerusalem become the center of Christianity since Jerusalem was the root of Christianity and also the relatives of Jesus served as Bishops of Jerusalem until 125 A.D.. Pope Silvester dismissed them. There was also one other thing that greatly spoke to the Jewishness of the Christian faith.
This was Passover. In some Bibles Acts 12:4 is translated as Easter. However the Greek word is Paschal which is translated from the Hebrew word Pesach which in the English is Passover. Since the time of Christ’s ressurection the church celebrated Passover. This was the greatest day of the year in Christendom. This is when Baptisms took place and all the people Baptized received new clothes. (Tradition carried on today of receiving new clothes.) This represented the new life in Christ Jesus. Whoever controlled this day in effect had the greatest influence in Christianity. Since most people did not have calendars they relied heavily on the church leaders to tell them when Passover would begin.
The Catholic Church (the word catholic means universal, which supposedly resulted from the ecumenical council whose purpose was to unite all the Christian factions.) wanted to wrest control of this day from the Jewish influence by changing the observance of Christ resurrection. The greatest observance of the year was changed to the formula of the first Sunday after the first full moon after the twenty first of March. This event was not known to the faithful before then. Now, Passover, an event that the church had observed since the resurrection of Christ Jesus declined in influence. Since the calendars days were different they backed into good Friday. Christ Jesus said He would be in the Body of the Earth for three days and three nights. Good Friday as the burial day does not give you three days and three nights — only two nights and two days. This now celebrated day was created to accomodate the new formula for celebrating the resurrection of Christ.
The sacred time of the Passover meal that Christ told us to do in remembrance lost its significance. It was now replaced by Rabbits and eggs which are symbols of fertility related to the fertility goddess Astarte.
Most of the references can be found in a book writte by Malachi Martin, The Fall of the Roman Church; The First Ecumenical Council.
Passover is an eight day holiday which begins on the evening before the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, and concludes at nightfall on the 22nd. The first two days and the last two days are major holidays and the middle four days are Chol Hamoed. [In Israel, the holiday ends a day earlier, on the 21st of Nissan. The first and last day are major holidays, and the five days in between are Chol Hamoed.]
For the year 2008, Passover starts when Shabbat concludes at nightfall, Saturday, April 19th, and ends at nightfall, Sunday, April 27th. [Click here for the exact times of sunset and nightfall for any location.]
Passover celebrates the Jewish Exodus from Egypt and our freedom to serve G-d.