Thought for Today

Christ is risen; He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Today we celebrate the joyful news of Christ’s Resurrection. Today is Pascha. The disciple’s fears prove groundless; they, and we, aren’t still dead in our sins; our situation isn’t hopeless; what they, and we proclaim isn’t vain.

God vindicated Christ for what He had done. Jesus has made a spectacle of the Principalities and Powers. He has defeated sin, death, and the devil. In eternal terms, His victory is done, complete; Satan’s time as ruler of this planet will one day fully expire; Christ will return. In the end, He will set up His eternal kingdom. Our hope is certain, our future, through faith in Christ and His work, is secure. Alleluia!

So, why refer to the day as Pascha, and not Easter? There are those who insist that the day we celebrate is rooted in pagan tradition, dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. To celebrate it is at best due to our ignorance, is unwise, and may even potentially lead to the loss of salvation. Easter is a rite that, at its core, worships the demonic.

The writings of Alexander Hislop often figure quite heavily into that argument. According to Hislop, and his followers, most of what we practice was inherited from the Roman Catholic Church, practices that are deeply rooted in paganism.

Did paganism infuse much of Roman Catholic tradition? One must unfortunately answer that question in the affirmative. To cite one example: the Rosary. It is generally maintained that the rite traces to a spiritual apparition received by Saint Dominic in 1221; a type of apparition that has striking parallels with the rise of both Mormonism and Islam. What Mary became within the Roman church, and especially for those who worship her, has parallels in the Old Testament to the Queen of Heaven (see Jeremiah). Any time any of our practices contradict or supersede Scripture, we get into trouble.

But is celebrating Easter, pagan?

If one only thinks of Ishtar and fertility rites, then yes. But here is where things get interesting: it is only in English and German that the day we celebrate is referred to as Easter. In other Latin, romance languages, the day is called Pascha.

First Corinthians 5:7–8: Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (NAU)

Note in particular the middle part of the verses. That doesn’t sound like a pagan feast at all, does it? It is also worth noting that the Christian Year, of which Pascha is a part, was in place well before the rise of what became the Roman Catholic Church. In the early days of the Church, while it may have been “first among equals,” Rome didn’t have the authority that the later official Roman Catholic Church, in their revised version of church history, now claims.

What is our response? If a person truly believes celebrating the day is a pagan tradition, don’t celebrate it. As Romans 14:23 tells us, whatever isn’t of faith is sin. If someone can’t celebrate it in faith, it is better not to do so. Whether I celebrate the day of Pascha (Easter) or not doesn’t determine my eternal destiny (see also Romans 14:5). My eternal destiny hinges on whether I do or do not have a salvific relationship with Jesus Christ.

It seems like every Pascha social media gets flooded with three things: first, the joyful celebration of Pascha itself; second, articles that declare Jesus’s tomb was found or some other “proof” that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead; and third, why we should not, as genuine Christians, celebrate the day.

As you can probably guess, to me, the day is a day for joyful celebration, rooted in the verses from 1 Corinthians. But even if you take the third position (the second is a falsehood), please give those of us who do celebrate the day grace to do so. The world might actually see we are disciples of Jesus if we’d give each other the grace to disagree over non-essential issues, and whether or not one celebrates Pascha truly is a non-essential issue.

Christ is risen; He is risen indeed! Alleluia, Alleluia!