Intelligent Quote of the Day: Celebrating Easter
I realize you and I hold different views on the observance of Easter and Christmas, and while I appreciate and respect why observing either would be repugnant and unthinkable to you, observing the day is no longer problematic to me.
Of course observing ANY day "unto the Lord" is a matter of personal conscience, and so it isn't my objective to persuade you that you are doing something wrong in terms of which days you observe (or do not observe). I believe that the matter of conscience includes more than my own view any particular activity -- part of what we do as brothers and sisters in Christ has to do with how it affects or impacts others, including unbelievers.
I Cor. 10: 23, speaks of that principle in a discussion of the conscience issues relating to eating with unbelievers. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. 24Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.
25Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it."
27If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake -- 29the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? 30If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
31So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
Paul's focus was to facilitate in the saving of souls, and he realized that while these matters were meaningless to him personally (had no power over him because of Christ Jesus), others might stumble over them, even Paul's Jewish brothers who would look upon Paul's worship of Jesus as idolatry. Paul had freedoms based on his conscience (that all things are God's creation, and that he could freely eat or not eat, again, according to the situation presented to him, and each situation would be judged not according to HIS personal conscience but the conscience of the person he was dealing with).
I'd like to say that were I to participate in an Easter sunrise service today (and I believe I have only done this once in my life when I was a child), I would be worshipping Jesus Christ. For me, it is a day of commemoration that I have chosen to participate in for that commemorative purpose. Before I came into contact with Herbert Armstrong's ministry, my mind was not under a cloud of doubt when observing Easter. After Herbert Armstrong introduced that the day of commemoration of Jesus' resurrection was "tainted by idolatry" then my mind doubted that the commemoration was "clean."
It would have seared my conscience to have observed Easter with the Armstrong mindset, which was born of the cog7 mindset. In preferring Paul's advice to Herbert's advice I see that all of the creation is God's -- he said all of his creation was "good." And surely there is no scripture in the holy bible that says Jesus should not be worshipped on a certain day (or to the point here, on Easter Sunday specifically at sunrise). And while I am fully aware of the Ishtar, I am reminded that ALL THINGS (and that includes Ishtar) are under Jesus' feet. Whatever link Easter has with Ishtar is destroyed in the presence of the only man worthy of worship -- Jesus.
Ishtar is nothing to me. For an idol to mean something to me, I have to believe it has power in my life, and Ishtar has none.
---Janey, a participant of Mark Tabladillo's Jesus Love Fellowship message board explaining to her friend, the reasons why she celebrates Easter in her post-WCG life and theology.
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