Ask most evangelical Christians in America about Easter and they will recount some tale of bunnies, eggs, nice clothes, and/or church attendance. They will all know that it's supposed to be about Jesus, but they'll be hard-pressed to remember actually talking about Jesus after the obligatory Easter-lunch prayer. Even non-christians and nominal Christians (the "let's-go-to-church-on-Christmas-and-Easter" type) have been known to celebrate Easter, which is either the cause or the effect of the its dramatic over-commercialization. After all, Hershey's needs to sell candy! Easter has become so ubiquitous as to become almost nonspiritual and pointless.
In the background of this American landscape you'll find a few curmudgeons called Presbyterians. While many Presbyterians (most, really) celebrate Easter joyfully, there are some conservative ones who choose not to do so. There are some who would probably even go so far as to say that they hate such a papist holiday! When regular people hear this sort of revelation, they are shocked, and understandably so, as this Reformed Presbyterian subculture is somewhat obscure. When I tell people that I, a PK, didn't celebrate Easter, they are inevitably confused.
What motivates this disparagement of Easter, the holiday that celebrates the Resurrection of our Lord? It is the origins of the holiday that irk these Reformed brethren. Said origins are shrouded in obscurity and I would certainly not consider myself informed enough to debate them. It suffices to say that the Roman Catholic Church has a history of "baptizing" holidays. They have taken existing holidays and re-appropriated them to fit Christian meanings, retaining some of the original rituals. It was not always that cut and dry, however. Sometimes they simply set holidays during festive times of years, mixing and matching rituals that had ambiguous meanings. Easter would seem to be a case of the latter.
While the origins of Easter may be debatable, what we do know is that there are no Christian holidays that our Lord has commanded us to observe. In fact, Paul tells us that holidays ("holy days") are obsolete. They were shadows that point us to Christ (Colossians 2:17), no more binding in the Christian era than rules about food and drink. So, we can definitively say that we do not have to celebrate Easter.
Not be required to celebrate something, however, does not mean that we are not allowed to celebrate it. Many would grimace at that sentence. The Regulative Principle of Worship, they would say, states that we can't do it in worship unless God has prescribed it. Well, not only is that sort of thinking a result of a false worship/life distinction, but it also flies in the face of explicit Scripture. Romans 14 tells us how we should view such holidays (which holidays he has in mind is debatable and basically immaterial). Once again Paul compares laws about religious holidays to laws about food and drink. They are, in his mind, qualitatively the same. The funny thing is that Paul doesn't see the issue as rigidly as many do today. He doesn't tell the Romans that they must celebrate religious holidays, nor does he forbid them from doing so. He tells them that they don't have to, but that they should follow their consciences with the ultimate goal of honoring the Lord.
This interpretation may sound morally relative, but that's exactly the point. Religious days are morally relative! No day, says Paul, is more sacred than another. He could not be more unequivocal. No day of the week, month, or year is more important to God than any other! For the Christian every day is set apart to God!
A common Presbyterian retort to "Happy Easter" is "I celebrate Easter every Sunday!" Well, I believe that we should go even further. The Bible calls us to celebrate Easter every day! The way that we live our lives is to be dominated by the knowledge and power of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Resurrection was a dominate theme of the message of the early Church. Christ's death was certainly important, but it meant nothing without His Resurrection! As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, our faith is vain if Christ has not been raised from the dead. So it is definitely not enough to think about Christ's Resurrection once a year, but it is as equally insufficient to celebrate it every Sunday. We are to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ every single day of our lives, as we shall in eternity.
How do we do this? Firstly, we do this by renewing our faith in our risen Savior daily. We rest in His strength and victory. Secondly, we do this by overcoming sin daily. Paul tells us in Romans 6:1ff that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead enables us to overcome sin. We are no longer, says Paul, enslaved to sin anymore than Jesus is still held by the grave. By setting Christ free from the grave, God has set us free from the binding power of sin.
This is a reality. Religious holidays are merely shadows. Shadows may still have some value though. They are dramatic pictures that can communicate truth. That is why Christ gave us Baptism and the Lord's Supper. We no longer need a plethora of festivals, sabbaths, etc., but Paul recognizes that some people, for reasons all their own, still want that sort of thing. While no day is holier than another, says Paul, it is not wrong to observe holidays. Instead of taking a dogmatic stance, Paul encourages grace, deference, and Christ-centeredness. Simply put, when it comes to religious holidays, you do your thing and I'll do mine, and we had better love each other despite our differences.
I was not raised celebrating Easter (the annual holiday). It is probably due to such an upbringing that I have no particular desire to celebrate Easter now, especially in an overly festive way. Some of my siblings, however, feel differently. Having not been raised celebrating Easter, they want to do so now. You know what? We all get along okay. On the other hand, my wife was raised celebrating Easter in all of its American grandeur. She still likes that sort of thing, I'm sure, but we compromise. We celebrate with her family, but we don't really go all out. You see, it's okay for people to have different preferences when it comes to non-essentials. As hard as it may be to let people be different, we just have to learn to do it, so long as the Person and the Work of Christ remains the center of everything. Easter is, if nothing else, an opportunity to enjoy family and celebrate Christ. Take it for what it is and do with it what you can.
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