Why I don’t celebrate Good Friday or Easter

I didn’t go to church this Sunday.

Well, if you have read my previous posts about church. You would recall that I shared on this blog before that I don’t attend church, and I am still not attending church.

This weekend, most Christians celebrated Easter Sunday where most churches recognize it as the day that Christ was risen. Churches usually get extra crowded on this day, apart from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day services and the watch night service the day before the New Year.

I always wondered why.

Being a non-church goer, special occasions set in traditions by the church doesn’t motivate me to go to church either.

I never liked to be fed information by religious institutions and then believe for the sake of what a church pastor or leader proclaims, or common practices in Christian traditions. I always like to find out truth for myself.

I have always been really curious about why eggs and Bunnies are celebrated visuals used during Easter, and why the word Easter? Before finding out the roots to ‘Easter’, I have done some research through this post about Christmas, and this Christian celebration sounded suspiciously like it was from the same roots.

So neither I am keen to buy easter eggs for K from the supermarket and be all enthusiastic about Easter egg hunts organized by the churches.

Many believe it is harmless, it’s all in good fun? How do you explain to a child, when he/she asks when we have eggs or visuals of bunnies during Easter. The closest lie I can think of is, ‘”Eggs signify birth, its like a new birth of Jesus” and uh.. “Bunny signify fruitfulness, Jesus died so that we can be blessed abundantly…”

Sounds pretty convincing doesn’t it?

I don’t like to perpetuate nonsense to children. Especially religious claptrap, or false information (in this case, paganistic practices) masquerading as Christian tradition.

Good Friday to Easter Sunday? 

Jesus resurrection has nothing to do with eggs or bunnies, and Good Friday or even Sunday.  The question I have is, how do you fit three days, three nights on a Friday to a Sunday?

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” – Matthew 12:40

So Good Friday and Easter Sunday works out to only 3 days and 2 nights, so what are we missing here? The only thing that can explain this contradiction is that Friday-Sunday timing is not biblical.

So oops…the church have not been getting this right all along.

It just seems a little more suspicious now when I share this possibility that the person from the past or some religious institution conveniently used this Friday-Sunday timelines to bring in paganistic Easter on the Sunday.

So then, after saying so much, is this week being Ressurrection week even biblical? It is.

This month is the first month of the Hebrew Calendar, the month of Nissan. Jesus was buried on Nisan 14, either on AD 30 or 33, which works out to Wednesday – Saturday (Sabbath).

Saturday afternoon Resurrection of Christ is supposedly found in Matthew 28:1, 5-6. The text reads: “In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the tomb. . . And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (KJV).

Passover this Week

The Jewish people celebrate Passover as a remembrance of how God redeemed the Jewish nation from slavery in Ancient Egypt, that was ruled by the Pharaohs. The original celebration centered around the Passover lamb, which was sacrificed and its blood put over the doorposts as a sign of faith, so that the Lord passed over the houses of the Jews during the last plague poured out on the Egyptians – the killing of every firstborn.

The Passover lamb has been eliminated from the Passover festival. However what matters here, is the significance that Passover has for Christians. The New Testament says that Jesus is our sacrificial Lamb. The Passover lamb was to be a ‘male without defect’, which was the same description given to Jesus.

Much of the symbolism of Jesus’ last Passover week is lost to us due to ignorance of the customs during that time. Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem five days before the lamb was killed in the temple as the Passover sacrifice for the sins of the people of Israel. Five days before the lamb was to be sacrificed, it was chosen. Therefore, Jesus entered Jerusalem on lamb selection day as the lamb of God to be sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Passover starts on the 15th Day in Nisan and ends 7 days thereafter. It started Monday April 14 and will be ending on April 22.

So it will just be Passover week that I will celebrate from henceforth.

Still Not Attending Church

As for not attending church.

Don’t try it, unless you have made a commitment to search out the bible daily and spend time dedicated to reading the bible and prayer daily.

Don’t even consider, if Christianity is limited to Sundays only, and special occasions like Easter, Christmas or the New Year. Just stick with attending church weekly, as I believe you will still benefit from some preaching of the Word of God.

It is still a personal choice for me and my faith is still going strong despite finding out all these untruths from Christian traditions and churches.

I don’t wish to blindly believe what traditions or what pastors tell me, I want to find out the truth from the bible myself and search it out. Faith is not a walk between me and the leaders of the church, it is between God and I.

I want to be like the 1st century Christians in Thessalonica;

These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so – Acts 17:11

And I take this very seriously;

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. – Hosea 4:6 

This is no laughing matter for me. As I sure don’t want God to reject me or forget my children.

P.S. I am aware that I got some Christians irate for publishing the last post about not attending church the last time. Christians were concerned that I was turning people away from attending churches by reading a post like that.

Well, the modern church these days are not exacty role models of what the bible deemed a fellowship of believers to be. I have learnt that the truth offends, and I don’t mind being that person to say it, whether people like to hear it or not.

For non-Christians reading this, I do encourage you to search the Christian bible if you are curious and also do ask God if He is real.

The church route may not work for everyone. It didn’t for me, at least for a while.

Update Sept 2014 – I have since found a local church and have been regularly attending weekly and appreciating the fellowship of the small congregation from this new church. To read about my journey searching for a church, go to this post.

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