Easter nonsense

ok, since today is my last day at work before Easter, and therefore my last day to post on here before Easter, I wanted to post on Maundy Thursday (today), Good Friday (tomorrow) and Easter (Sunday)... I wanted to do a little research, check out my facts and then post... what I found was this nonsense... (all of the following, unless otherwise specified is found here)

nonsense -> We cannot find Easter in the Bible. This is a major problem for us, because we are Bible Christians. We only worship the Lord Jesus Christ according to what is written in the Holy Scriptures. The great and dreadful God of the Bible demands worship exactly as He has commanded. He will not tolerate additions or deletions, no matter how innocent, noble, popular, or sincere. If you doubt this, ask Cain about his offering, Nadab and Abihu about contemporary worship, Moses about striking a rock, or David about moving the Ark of the Covenant on a new ox cart. All four were judged severely for altering the worship of God. If we cannot find a doctrine or practice clearly taught in the Bible, we hate it and oppose it with all our might; therefore, we hate Easter and anything to do with it, for it is not in the Bible."

Addie -> Funny how all of those examples are in the OT - before Jesus and before Easter... not to mention Romans 7:4 (NLT) "So this is the point: The law no longer holds you in its power, because you died to its power when you died with Christ on the cross. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, you can produce good fruit, that is, good deeds for God." Makes the above paragraph seem like nonsense to me.

nonsense -> Sunrise services are pagan. Have you ever been to a sunrise service? The darkest tribes of the darkest nations on the darkest continents have not shown more ignorance, superstition, or idolatry. But when so-called Christians gather in the chilly dawn to sing hymns while facing the rising sun, there is a new standard set for pagan perversion of God’s religion, regardless of the modern clothes they might be wearing and the modern automobiles they drove to the event. Where in the world did this obvious custom of sun worship originate? Did the apostles face the rising sun and sing hymns? There is no record of it in the Bible. There are three strong Bible reasons against sunrise services. First, the great and terrible God has already very plainly condemned sunrise services connected to His religion (Ezek 8:15-18). Second, He also condemned any other form of worship of the heavenly bodies (II Kgs 23:5). Third, Jesus did not rise on Easter Sunday morning; He rose the night before at the end of His prophesied three days and three nights. When the women arrived at His tomb in the dark of the morning, He was already long gone.

Addie ->Now since when does a sunrise service constitute worship of the sun - not to be confused with worship of the Son (which we do)... I cannot even tell you how dumb this is... the reason for a sunrise service is to be like the believers and go first thing in the morning at dawn (read John 20:1(NLT) Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance) and yeah, Jesus had already risen but it was still after midnight and therefore Sunday, but right around sunrise is when the followers came (which is what we are), and Christ didn't rebuke Mary for being there at that hour, in fact, He shared a very intimate moment with her

nonsense -> Good Friday is a joke. How in the world could Jesus have died on Good Friday afternoon, risen from the dead on Easter Sunday morning, and still been in the ground the three days and three nights that He prophesied and promised (Matt 12:38-40)? This common tradition only allows one day and two nights. If you count parts of Friday and Sunday as whole days, you still only have three days and two nights. The math does not work! There are only two nights! Of course, once Constantine and the religious compromisers at the council of Nicea in AD325 had subscribed to sun and moon worship for setting the date, it was not difficult to further reject the words of Jesus Christ and create their Good Friday - Easter Sunday combination. Simple saints that believe the Bible can rejoice over their arrogant persecutors with seminary degrees and worldly education, just as Jesus had promised (Matt 11:25-27; I Cor 1:19-20; 3:19-20). They know Jesus was buried Wednesday night and rose Saturday night, just as He had declared would be the proof of His identity.

Addie -> Now this is just absurdity... I will let Mr.Ken Collins (whom I do not personally know, but enjoy his writing) explain all of this.... (just for reference, the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday, which would make Sunday the first day of the week)
1.Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all inform us that the Last Supper and the Crucifixion took place on Preparation Day.

2.Mark and John inform us that the next day, the day after the Crucifixion, was the Sabbath.

3.Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John inform us that the Resurrection took place on the first day of the week.

4.Matthew, Mark, and Luke inform us that the day before the Resurrection was the Sabbath, and John heavily implies it.

-Ancient Christian writers confirm these conclusions. In The Apostolic Constitutions, Book V, Section III, it says that the Last Supper occurred on the fifth day of the week (Thursday), that Jesus was crucified on the next day (Friday), and rose on the first day (Sunday), and it explicitly states that this constitutes three days and three nights. The Apostolic Constitutions uses Roman-style midnight-to-midnight days, so this squares with the New Testament’s use of sundown-to-sundown days(note from Addie: if you notice in Genesis 1, it says and the evening and the morning were a day, not morning and eveing - this is how the Jews count days)... Therefore, it is obvious that the Crucifixion took place on a Friday, that Jesus rested in the tomb on Saturday, and rose from the grave on Sunday. So, you might ask, why didn’t the gospel writers just come right out and say that it was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? The answer is that they did, for the circumstances under which they wrote. They were writing for an audience beyond Palestine, and in the Roman Empire of the first century, there was no general consensus about the names of the days of the week, the number of the current year, the names and lengths of the months, the date of the new year, or the time at which the day began. On that last point, the day began at midnight in Egypt, at sunrise in Greece, and at sunset in Palestine. So even though it is not what we are used to, the gospels are really worded in such a way as to make the dates and times comprehensible to anyone in the Roman Empire who was familiar with the Jewish Scriptures. When you count days you get a different answer than when you subtract dates. If you go to a three-day seminar that begins on Friday, you expect it to end on Sunday, because Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are three days. However, if you subtract the date of Friday from the date of Sunday, the answer is two elapsed days. The ancients counted days instead of calculating elapsed time—in fact, Jesus Himself counted days this way in Luke 13:31-32. This is why the tradition is universal that Jesus spent three days in the tomb when He was buried on Friday and rose from the dead on Sunday. All intervals in the Jewish and Christian calendars are calculated the same way, which is why Pentecost falls on a Sunday and not on a Monday. Roughly speaking, the western Church consists of Protestants, Catholics, and Anglicans. The eastern Church consists of the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Oriental Orthodox churches, and the eastern-rite churches affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.

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so today is Maundy Thursday, what does that mean? Maundy Thursday is the Thursday of Holy Week (the Thursday before Easter). It was the day on which Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples, sharing a meal with them which we call the Last Supper. The word "Maundy" comes from the Latin for 'command' (mandatum). It refers to the command given by Jesus at the Last Supper, that his disciples should love one another.

Tomorrow is Good Friday... why is it called "good"? Never really understood that as such a terrible thing happened that day... the good part didn't get here until Sunday... weird... as I said earlier, I am off tomorrow, so Im posting about everything today... I think Im going to fast tomorrow, as most of you know I am already fasting from sugar and sweets, but I think tomorrow I will fast completely from food to try to keep the day as holy as possible - I encourage you all to do the same (try to keep the day holy, not fast - that is up to you)... we have a good Friday service tomorrow night where we will take communion, Im looking forward to that....

Saturday - in all actuality, this was just another day to most people, the followers were probably still grieving, but I dont know, this day doesnt really do anything for me besides fulfill the prophecy... maybe its b/c I know whats going to happen next

Sunday is Easter... yay... this year will take on a whole new meaning... I now know what it means to have a first-born son... so I can have the tiniest glimpse of how the Father has been agonizing over the past week or so and also how much He really does love me, and maybe even just a tiniest bit of His joy and pride for what happened today... often we focus on what the Son was going through and totally miss out on what the Father was going through as well, I often wonder if the Father's sacrifice was greater than the Son's although they are one and the same, so I guess the sacrifice is one and the same too - hard for the human mind to comprehend (mine at least)

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Does anyone else find chocolate crosses a weird thing to want to eat? On one hand, that just seems sacriligious to eat something that our faith is half-hinged on... but on the other hand, it was just a cross and it in itself didn't have any power... On the other hand, at least they are commercializing the right part of Easter - the important part, but then on the other hand, doesnt commercialization of Easter kind of go against what Christ preached... I dont know, it just seems like a weird thing to eat - like you wouldnt go around eating a chocolate electric chair.... (Daniel made the comment "they should make a chocolate rock instead to signify the rock in front of the tomb" - I joke not, he actually said that and was serious - he is so funny) but if eating a chocolate cross is your thing, then do it all to the glory of God, that's all I have to say... as for me though, I will be eating the ears off a bunny... :)

------------------- HAPPY EASTER! -------------------