Hello and happy Easter (for those of you in Australia).  Otherwise, sorry, but I'm a day late.  I'd like to talk a little about Easter, dogmatism, and plastic grass.  Easter came on time this year. Resurrection Day, however, was celebrated a month early. It was during Passover, if you'll remember, that Messiah was crucified, buried, and raised up. Just a technical issue, since we are to celebrate our new life in Christ's resurrection every day, or so I believe.  

A few years ago, I would have talked about how Easter should not be celebrated because of its pagan roots, celebrating spring, fertility goddesses, etc. 

I got to thinking about how many people may only go to church on Easter and Christmas.  A question entered my small brain: What if this is THE exposure to Jesus that some people get during the year?  Are we supposed to just tell them that they can't really take Easter seriously because it doesn't always come during Passover? 

Some of you reading this ( I hope more than two people are reading this) are thinking that we should draw a line in the sand, take a stand against all the pastel madness and overcooked hams. Before we start shooting mall bunnies in the name of Christ, let's look at another rather important day, Sabbath. 

The Jews took Sabbath very seriously, to the point that they had built in extra rules to hedge the Sabbath so that nobody could get near enough to defile it.  At the same time, the Torah teachers and Pharasees were using their own extra rules to give them loopholes so that they could do a day's work on the Sabbath.  Jesus comes along and starts healing people on the Sabbath.  Oh the shame!  The scandal!  How could a person do such a horrible thing as heal a lame man on the Sabbath? 

 Matthew 12:10-14 -  And there was a man with a dead hand. And they put a question to him, saying, Is it right to make a man well on the Sabbath day? so that they might have something against him.
And he said to them, Which of you, having a sheep, if it gets into a hole on the Sabbath day, will not put out a helping hand and get it back?   Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! For this reason it is right to do good on the Sabbath day.
Then said he to the man, Put out your hand. And he put it out, and it was made as well as the other. 
But the Pharisees went out and made designs against him, how they might put him to death.

Jesus heals a man with a lame hand on the Sabbath. He tells His critics that honoring God does not take a day off, and doing good in God's name is more important than a law set up for men.  In the same way, if we start making the Easter issue an argument about how much paganism is involved and in the process miss Jesus, then we lose out. 

I like to attend Messianic Passover feasts, celebrating the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ in a way that I think closely reflects what the earliest believers celebrated. Easter, with all  the things we borrowed from the pagans, may be a far cry from the first century church, but it does draw many people to church and even more who celebrate the non-religious things about it.  If those people are open to Jesus, even just that one day, then we should be ready to share the Truth with them, not tell them "It's pagan, so its tainted. Come back on Passover"

Ok, enough rambling.  Tomorrow (or Wednesday) I'll have two movie reviews: Revolver and Southland Tales.  God bless and good night.