I noted here a while back that our group will not be meeting together on Easter.
In the early days of our journey to live in community following the New Testament pattern, if we had done this it would have felt radical and we would have had a high level of self-consciousness about it. This time around, the idea came from someone other than me. And, when the idea was proposed, there was no response other than some bland head nodding.
Of course, there was nothing close to an Easter celebration among early disciples and, certainly, before the fact, Jesus spoke of His coming resurrection often and He also spent time with His disciples between the time of His resurrection and ascension, yet there is no authority for an Easter Holy Day from Him.
So, why does the institutional church make such a big deal out of the Easter Holy Day? As Easter has become an increasingly major event in American Christendom, ask yourself what kingdom expanding fruit has it produced.
Because the focus of our gatherings here is so much on the taking of the Lord's Supper, we are always intensely focused on the entire story of what Jesus did to save us. In taking the Lord's Supper, we focus on the whole Gospel story, including the part of it still to be fulfilled in the Kingdom.
It seems to me that practicing Easter as a Holy Day does many things that are harmful, perhaps, most of all, leaving people with the impression that following Jesus has anything at all to do with attending a worship service.
Easter has become one more way of exaggerating the unbiblical clergy/laity divide by creating unbiblical religious products and services for the clergy to present to the laity for it to consume, giving the false impression that this somehow glorifies God.
This Easter Holy Day thing can't be good for the Kingdom. Certainly, so far it has never been.
Maybe the disciples didn't celebrate Easter per se but they did meet together regularly on Sunday. Every Sunday was a celebration of the resurrection
ReplyDeleteWell, Acts 2 says that they met every day in the temple courts and broke bread in their homes.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, there is one occasion in which Acts notes that Paul and others gathered on the first day of the week to break bread. And, no doubt, meeting on the first day of the week memorialized the resurrection. And, in our own community of gatherings some of us meet regularly, but not pharisaically on that day.
But here, and in the early community of disciples, no particular Sunday was considered to be more significant than another.
As a pragmatic matter, we have found that not gathering on Christendom's high holy days such as Easter, permits us to live the Word by actually doing things we once were too busy to do. Today, for example, we will dine with mom and dad while mom, at least, will still be able to remember it and while dad, at least in the moment, will be able to enjoy it.
But, you are correct, Lew. Sunday, as the Christian day of worship, is, a celebration of the resurrection.
Thanks for contributing your comment.
I want to make it as clear as I can that my point here is that the institutional church has transformed the life-altering--WORLD-changing--power of the resurrection into a special occasion for people to attend a Sunday morning show.
ReplyDeleteThe resurrection continues to radically challenge my way of life every day. While, it seems to me, in the declining institutional church, the fact that Jesus defeated death is confined to a spectacle planned and executed in so-called sanctuaries.
Give me the resurrection 24/7/365. You can have Easter Day, if you want it.