This past week Americans celebrated one of three celebrations: Easter, Resurrection Day of the Holy Week, or Passover week.

Easter has become more of a celebration with no religious emphasis. Families give baskets filled with treats and have a special family dinner. I am all for family time and blessing your kids, but it’s become more about colored eggs and candy, than about celebrating God and what His Son has accomplished for us. 

On the other hand, many believers in Jesus have renamed Easter with the term Resurrection Day. They are getting back to the intention of this celebration; remembering all that Jesus went through for us, from His last supper to the cross, and finishing with His resurrection (Holy Week). Most still also bless their children with coloring eggs and baskets of treats. 

Passover is a celebration remembering how God delivered His people (Israel) from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. This is done with a Seder meal called the feast of Passover. In this feast, they remember the whole Exodus story. This is also the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days Hebrews will not eat any item with leaven in it. This is in remembrance of the Israelites leaving Egypt in such haste that the bread was unable to have sufficient time to rise. It took Israel seven days to get to the Red Sea and cross over, completely cutting off Egypt from God’s people.  

As for my family, we celebrate both Ressurection Day and The Feast of Passover. We commemorate His resurrection by spending time with Him in worship in the morning and having a family dinner with my wife’s parents and daughter and son-in-law. We have a Seder meal on the first night of Passover and occasionally other nights through that week to celebrate with various friends and family. 

Passover is a Jewish feast, so why should Christians also celebrate it? God instructed Moses to share with the people of Israel about the feasts. God called them His feasts.  

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.”

‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭23:1-2‬ ‭ESV‬‬

God goes on with the instructions to Moses by listing out all the feasts and when to celebrate them. Two of those feasts are the Feast of Passover and The Feast of Unleavened Bread. If they are God’s feasts, and we have accepted Jesus, then we are grafted into Israel and the kingdom of God. Why wouldn’t we want to celebrate His appointed feasts?!  

Passover and Easter (aka Ressurection Day) most of the time fall within the same week. Both holidays are based on a lunar cycle. Easter is set on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. Passover is set also by a lunar cycle. It is the first full moon in the Hebrew calendar month called Nisan. The Hebrew calendar does not align with our Gregorian calendar, so the week many differ when the Hebrew calendar has a leap month every seven years.

The celebrations of Easter, Resurrection Day, or Passover are not in competition with each other. As you see I celebrate all three. Some things are God spoken, and others are traditions. Traditions are not bad and we all have some. But if our traditions do not lead to Jesus, we may need to re-examine the purpose or focus of our traditions.

My wife and I have done this with all of our celebrations. We still celebrate Resurrection Day together. My daughter and her husband always want to come to our house for Resurrection Day dinner. We still give them a mixing bowl “basket” filled typically with kitchen gadgets, Easter grass, and treats. We do Easter for them, but it is not our first focus. This year with the “Quarantine” we did nothing of Easter because my daughter and son-in-law were not able to make it home.

Through all of this sharing of how I celebrate, I want you to remember that you are a follower of Jesus Christ, and not a follower of another Christian. Even Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians…

Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you that ye remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. 1 Corinthians 11 (ASV)

1 Corinthians 11:1-3 (ASV)

Paul desired that they imitate him even in traditions. Corinth was a Gentile city. My perception is Paul probably brought to them God’s feasts that were given to the Hebrews and instructed them to follow the feasts. He also told them to submit to Christ as their head and not a man.

If Jesus is asking you to change the way you celebrate and change your traditions, you need to follow Him, not a man.

APPLICATION

• Check your traditions. Are they leading others toward God?
• If not, how can you change them?
• Remember it is a personal walk with Jesus and you do not have to celebrate exactly like other Christians do, who each have their own traditions.