Erm… :

Kindly research the origins of ‘Easter’ — it’s the pagan holiday ‘Ishtar - Astarte - Queen of Heaven’ worship.

Jesus and the Apostles would not have celebrated ‘Easter’.

God clearly says what His feasts are in Leviticus 23.

Gentiles can follow what the Bible says, celebrate Passover (A Memorial of Christ) or Gentiles can follow manmade holiday’s (Easter - Ishtar) celebration.

Thus, the Bible clearly admonishes God’s people to know unleaven (Pure: The verbatim Holy Bible) from leaven (impure: manmade doctrines and traditions).

Blessings!

Hi Erm,

Actually, I’m quite aware of the origins of the modern celebration of Easter. Thanks for your comments.

Jesus and the Apostles would not have celebrated ‘Easter’.

God clearly says what His feasts are in Leviticus 23.

Gentiles can follow what the Bible says, celebrate Passover (A Memorial of Christ) or Gentiles can follow manmade holiday’s (Easter - Ishtar) celebration.

Thus, the Bible clearly admonishes God’s people to know unleaven (Pure: The verbatim Holy Bible) from leaven (impure: manmade doctrines and traditions).

Blessings!

However, Shavout (Sinai - Giving of Torah) & Pentecost (Giving of The Holy Spirit) are the same events per God’s promise to ‘…write His laws (Sinai-Shavout-Letter of Torah) upon His peoples’ hearts (Pentecost-Antioch-Spirit of Torah)’ through faith in Christ Yeshua, ‘The Living Torah.’

‘In the beginning was the Word (Jesus - Torah) and the Word (Jesus - Torah) was with God, and the Word (Jesus - Torah) was God…’ John 1

Blessings! in Yeshua HaMochiach!

Mark 15:42-43 states, “Since it was Preparation Day (that is, the day before a Shabbat), as evening approached, Yosef of Ramatayim (Joseph of Aramathea), a prominent member of the Sanhedrin who himself was also looking forward to the Kingdom of God…”

Luke 23:53-56 records, “He (Yosef of Ramatayim) took it (the body of Jesus) down, wrapped it in a linen sheet, and placed it in a tomb cut into the rock, that had never been used. It was Preparation Day, and a Shabbat was about to begin. The women who had come with Jesus from the Galil followed; they saw the tomb and how his body was placed in it. Then they went back home to prepare spices and ointments. On Shabbat, the women rested n obedience of the commandment.”

John 19;40-42 says, “They took Jesus’ body and wrapped it up in linen sheets with the spices, in keeping with the Judean burial practice. In the vicinity of where he had been executed was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been buried. So, because it was Preparation Day for the Judeans, and because the tomb was close by, that is where they buried Jesus.”

All three accounts state that Jesus was buried on Preparation Day, right before a Shabbat, which would have been Passover. Matthew 28:1 says that the body of Jesus was discovered missing from the tomb after Shabbats (most Bibles express this as a singular but it’s plural in the Greek) toward dawn on Sunday (the first day of the week, though the Greek actually says “towards the first of the week” and not “towards dawn”, so it could have been anytime after sundown on Saturday). The discovery of the missing body of Jesus very early on the first day of the week is supported in Mark 16:1-2, Luke 24:1-2, and John 20:1.

Since the first day of the Omer is usually considered on the first full day of the Passover, the phrase “…on the morrow of the rest day the Kohen shall wave it” could easily be considered the day after the Passover sacrifice (on Thursday this year), rather than the first day of the week.

Actually, this Passover was a perfect picture of the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection. Imagine Jesus hanging on the cross on Wednesday, from about 9 a.m and dying at about 3 p.m. Sometime before sundown, his body is taken off the execution stake on the day of preparation for the Passover meal. He had to be buried before the actual Passover began at sundown.

Now count ahead three days, the number of days Jesus said he would be buried. We arrive at Saturday at sundown; 72 hours later. Once sundown occurs on Saturday, it’s the first day of the week. While most accounts state that the body of Jesus wasn’t discovered missing until sometime before dawn on Sunday, he could have risen at any point after sundown Saturday; the Third Day.

This makes a lot more sense then believing that Jesus died Friday afternoon and arose Sunday morning before dawn and that somehow, that equals three days. At my congregation at Shabbat services during the teaching yesterday, someone pointed out that celebrating the resurrection on Saturday night would be a lot more Biblicly consistent than waiting on a mountain top and holding a dawn service on Sunday (I live in Southwest Idaho and a number of churches here have that practice).

I’ve been following the activity on twitter today relative to Easter and while I have a different perspective on reading the Bible, what strikes me as most important is the dedication believers have to following Jesus, his teachings, and his life, and it expresses all of God’s promises to those who believe. I don’t write these articles to try and rain on anyone’s parade, so to speak, but to try and communicate the richness that can be found in the Bible if we just read it in the way it was written, trying to see the point of view of the authors rather than looking through the lens of 21st century theologies.

I hope your Easter celebration is joyous and peaceful.

I should also correct what I said earlier…you probably knew what I meant. The passover itself is not a sabbath, but the first day of unleavened bread is.

Given the codification found in Leviticus and Deut., if God had intended for the Israelites to wait until after the weekly Sabbath following the Passover to bring the offering, it seems that would have been indicated. This is especially true given that we have a proliferance of “Sabbaths” here…we have both the High Sabbath of the feast, we have the “sabbaths” meaning the week the feast lasts, and then we have [perhaps] the weekly Sabbath as well.

To suggest “day after the sabbath” refers to a weekly sabbath (when none are mentioned) right after two other Sabbaths were seems odd to me.

Claiming Leviticus 23:11 suggests the counting should begin on a Sunday appears to be the product of a misunderstanding. The term “Sabbath,” while generally referring to the seventh day of the week, also refers to a holy day of rest… exactly what 23:8 refers to. If Passover falls on a day other than Saturday, there are two “Sabbaths” that week.

You ask why many of your fellow-Christians don’t count the Omer. But your post indicates that you know perfectly well that we do, at least implicitly, since we observe the festival of Whitsunday, also called Pentecost. This is the 50th day, counting Easter day as the first. Leviticus 23.11 even implies that the count should be begun on a Sunday. The Mishnah records that a sect known as the Boethusians followed a first-day interpretation of Lev 23.11. The Dead Sea sect began the count on the Sunday after the Week of Unleavened Bread. The priesthood, of course, settled on the interpretation that Lev. 23.11 meant the 16th of Nisan, and this is still used by most Jewish folk. The Gospel of John finesses the matter by making 16 Nisan a Sunday. But to say that, because others take a first-day interpretation of the 50-day count, they are starting “too late”, seems unreasonable in light of the freedom permitted us in such matters. If you want to say that we have “replaced” Shavuoth with Whitsun, go ahead, but I find this word to be clumsy. One doesn’t ordinarily say that a fully-baked loaf of bread “replaces” the dough from which it was made!

Happy Easter.