As I write this, a couple weeks ago the world celebrated Mardi Gras (known by other names in other countries) and Ash Wednesday, then embarked upon Lent leading up to Easter. As many churches celebrate all of these holidays, Catholic and Protestant alike, it is important to take a look at these holidays and see if they are Biblical in nature or not.
Beginning with the first of the holidays in this list, we have Mardi Gras.
Mardi is the French word for Tuesday, and
gras means “fat.” In France, the day before Ash Wednesday came to be known as Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday.” This name comes in part from the food that was consumed leading up to and including the day. Mardi Gras is a tradition that dates back thousands of years (pre-Christianity) to pagan
celebrations heralding the arrival of spring, the hope of fertility, and the renewal of life. In the spring, the god who was so feted was Lupercus and the Romans named this festival "Lupercalia" in his honor. This festival was a raucous, drunken orgy with much merrymaking. It was held in Rome in February after which time the participants would then fast for forty days. When Christianity arrived in Rome, and pagans converted, they did not want to give up their popular holidays. Think of how modern Christians resist the idea of forsaking Christmas, which has become a very secularized holiday, actually has no Scriptural basis, and in fact is based on a pagan holiday. Nobody wants to do it. It is a fun holiday on which we paste a Christian veneer and the deeply ingrained tradition is not something that people easily want to part with, even if it is not actually Bible based. Neither did the people of Rome want to give up their holidays. As it seemed impossible to separate the people from their traditions, along with many other compromises such as renaming the pagan statues for Christian "saints" (Zeus became Peter), turning the vestal virgins into nuns, keeping the Babylonian priesthood of the Pontifex Maximus and cardinals, and etc., religious leaders decided to incorporate and Christianize these pagan traditions into the new faith, which was an easier method of transitioning without rebellion than abolishing
them altogether. As a result, the debauchery and excesses of Lupercalia, now renamed Mardi Gras, became a prelude to the newly re-purposed and renamed period of Lent, the 40 days of fasting and penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. The period is now said to be in commemoration of Christ's 40 days of fasting in the wilderness (actually Lent is 46 days in length as they don't count the Sundays). As Christianity spread to other European countries and from there to the other continents via missionary work of the church, so did Mardi Gras and its accompanying Lenten period.
Just as today people don masks and costumes (or merely go nude), the Romans also donned masks, dressed in costumes, and indulged in all the depraved carnal pleasures, as they gave themselves to Bacchus (god of wine) and Venus (goddess of love). The purpose of the masks and costumes were to disguise their identities so as to be able to anonymously engage in sexual misconduct, which they normally would not be able to do. Under the "influence of Bacchus," all kinds of debauchery was allowed. Today in New Orleans, they have a celebrity pose as Bacchus for the big parade as all sorts of debauched, depraved, and usually drunken people strut their naked or almost naked bodies, engaging in lewd behavior and public sexual activities both hetero and homosexual. Woman flashing their naked breasts and crotch, and men their genitals is very common among all the tourists who come for the festivities.
The word
carnival, another common name for the pre-Lenten festivities, also derives from this feasting tradition: in Medieval Latin,
carnelevarium means to take away or remove meat, from the Latin
carnem for meat. Traditionally, in the days leading up to Lent, merrymakers would
binge on all the rich, fatty foods—meat, eggs, milk, lard, cheese—that
remained in their homes, in anticipation of several weeks of eating only
fish and different types of fasting. Hence the name "Fat Tuesday" or in French "Mardi Gras."
While there is more history attached to Mardi Gras, I believe this is enough to show the origins of the festival and the tone it sets. In New Orleans, January 6 kicks off three things - Twelfth night, Epiphany, and the start of Carnival season which continues up to Mardi Gras. During this time, people live as carnally as possible in anticipation of the six weeks of fasting (whatever they choose to fast, it doesn't have to be food). Then,
beginning twelve days before Fat Tuesday, nightly parades are held, which
get bigger and more elaborate as the big festival day approaches. These
parades are a mix of many things celebrating the sinful pleasures of life. In the final week,
festivities intensify in New Orleans and surrounding communities,
culminating in the biggest parades. Mardi Gras is so popular that it is
accepted as a holiday in some parts of the South. On Mardi Gras, the revelry in New Orleans is non-stop with drunkenness, unbridled sexual activity including people having sex with strangers, and all kinds of perversions. Ash Wednesday is known as Trash Wednesday in New Orleans due to the filthiness of the streets.
The next holiday in this list of spring holy days is Ash Wednesday. This ritual “imposition of the ashes”
is purportedly in imitation of the repentant act of covering oneself in
dust and ashes as was done in the Bible. While Mardi Gras and Lent started much earlier in the church's history, Ash Wednesday was a later addition to the Christian
liturgical calendar, first appearing in the tenth century according to
historical records written in the eleventh century. Or rather its Christian practice
dates to then. The putting on of ashes on Ash Wednesday goes back to the Norse practice, several hundred years earlier when it was
done to celebrate the deeds of Sigurd, the hero of the Volsung Saga, a
character perhaps better known as Siegfried from the Ring of the
Nibelung.
In the pre-Christian Norse religion, the laying of ashes (ashes being representative of Sigurd), was meant to
grant the Norse God Odin’s protection to a Viking warrior in battle. When the Vikings raided coastal
towns in western and Mediterranean Europe they brought their beliefs and
practices with them, included the laying of ashes on a Wednesday–Odin‘s Day–(another name for Odin is Woden, hence Woden's Day or Wednesday) which the Christian Church appropriated and inserted as a barrier between Mardi Gras and the Lenten period.
Ash Wednesday derives its
name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of adherents
as a sign of mourning and repentance. This is done in the shape of a cross. It's supposed to be a day of fasting, mourning,
and penance. It might have the appearance of godliness, but it's not at
all Biblical. Disfiguring one's face to imply fasting is in direct violation of
Christ's directive which was to not disfigure the face but to wash our
faces and not let anyone know we are fasting.
"Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance:
for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;
That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in
secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." Matthew 6:16-18.
The next thing in this list of liturgical events is Lent. As Lent was officially instituted by the Catholic church, I will let them define its purpose. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “the real aim of Lent is, above all else, to prepare men for
the celebration of the death and Resurrection of Christ… One can
effectively relive the mystery only with purified mind and heart. The
purpose of Lent is to provide that purification by weaning men from sin
and selfishness through self-denial and prayer, by creating in them the
desire to do God’s will and to make His kingdom come by making it come
first of all in their hearts.”
So, according to the Catholic church, the purpose of Lent is to purify ourselves
through self-denial and prayer, and make God’s Kingdom come. There are obviously some serious problems with this. First of all, no amount of good works, whether self-denial, prayer, fasting, abstinence, or any other work can purify us from sin. We cannot purify ourselves. Nor will it put within us a desire to do God's will or make God's Kingdom come. The only thing that purifies us is the blood of Jesus Christ. And the only way to receive that is through repentance and confessing Him as the Son of God and our Savior. And God's Kingdom will only come on earth when Christ returns. All of our works are like filthy rags, if we do them through our own efforts. Only those things done through Christ are of any merit, and even those do not grant salvation. They only gain us rewards in heaven, and keep our relationship with God in good standing.
Paul had this to say about self-denial. “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world,
why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and
humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the
satisfying of the flesh.” Colossians 2:20-23.
Lent is a doctrine of men that insists upon denying the flesh for the purpose of purifying yourself. As you cannot purify yourself, what is the point of this type of fast? Fasting is Scriptural, but it seems to be taught that it is in conjunction with prayer, for the purpose of focusing more acutely on the prayer to show God your sincerity and draw you closer to Him. It isn't to show God how you are trying to balance out the sins you have indulged in during Carnival and Mardi Gras through period of self-denial.
So, where did the observance of Lent come from? We know that the people fasted for 40 days after Lupercalia, but is there an origin older than that from which they got the practice? The Babylonians had a tradition of weeping, fasting, and
mourning for Tammuz which is very similar to Lent, and some have
speculated that this might be the actual origin of Lent. In fact, the
prophet Ezekiel saw a vision about people mourning over Tammuz at the
Temple in Jerusalem.
"Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was
toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet
again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these." Ezekiel 8:14-15.
It is interesting that one of the Babylonian practices was to cross oneself in the shape of a "T" as a sign of Tammuz. One can see this remnant of Babylonianism in the practice of Catholics crossing themselves when they genuflect. The "T", originally a sign of Tammuz and which is now said to be the sign of the cross, is also the mark put upon people's foreheads when they receive the ashes on Ash Wednesday.
In A.D. 360, the Catholic Church at the Council of Laodicea
officially commanded the observance of Lent and the people celebrated Mardi Gras (or whatever name you wish to call it by) to prepare for Lent. So the Roman church established this
practice 300 years after
Messiah’s death and resurrection. None of these practices have their origins in the Bible. They all seem to have their origins in paganism. And the church commanded the observance of two of these. Ash Wednesday and Lent. The Bible tells us what the commandments of men are to Him.
"Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctines the commandments of men." Mark 7:7. God sees it all as in vain. It means nothing to Him except to be useless. We should not be adding celebrations that have their origins in paganism to our traditions.
While it is said that Lent is 40 days, in commemoration of Christ, it is actually 46 days. The Sundays are not included. I would like to know why that is. Is it because the original pagan day of Lupercalia was not 40 days before what became Easter, and so to make it fit the timeline, so they could put the Christian veneer over it, they just decided to not count the Sundays? Why of all days would you not fast on the day you go to worship God? (For anyone who follows my blog, you know that I don't believe Sunday is the correct day of worship anyhow. The Sabbath is, but the church celebrates it as if it were the Sabbath.)
While in the beginning people fasted food, which is the only kind of fast that I have found in the Bible, it has devolved into people "fasting" things which are almost meaningless, so that they don't really miss what they "fast." For instance, I know someone who decided to "fast" their online internet games. This person is not Catholic, she is a Protestant (some Protestants do observe this liturgical practice), born again Christian, as far as I know. I cannot understand why she does not see the trivial way she is celebrating it, if she is going to celebrate it. Does she really think that Christ cares about giving up forty days of online games? How exactly is that going to bring her closer to Christ? I do not doubt her sincerity, but I do doubt her discernment.
In his book
The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop says:
"Let any one only read the atrocities that were
commemorated during the 'sacred fast' or Pagan Lent, as described by
Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the
Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these
abominations, 'went down to Egypt for help' to stir up the languid
devotion of the degenerate church, and who could find no more excellent
way to 'revive' it, than by borrowing from so polluted a source; the
absurdities and abominations connected with which the early Christian
writers had held up to scorn. That Christians should ever think of
introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it showed
how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it inevitably
led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the
preceding revelries of the carnival, was entirely unknown...."
Alexander von Humboldt, a German explorer of the early 19th century wrote of the practice among the pagans in Mexico being held in the spring, the following:
"Three days after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the sun." The idea of fasting forty days was a common pagan practice that evolved on separate continents. And it was done in honor of the sun in this case. Sun worship is really just another name for worshiping Satan.
It was also celebrated in Egypt, according to John Landseer in his
Sabean Researches. He wrote that a period of forty days was held in honor of Osiris. As the Egyptian religion was the descendant of Babylonianism from Nimrod and Semiramis (Tower of Babel), as were the pagan religions of the other countries of the world, we should not be surprised to see this as a common ritual in all of them.
There is a spiritual undertone which indicates the spirit behind these traditions. Christ made it clear in John 4:23-24 how we are to worship.
" But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such
to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Riotous debauchery, followed by a pagan practice and mock repentance is not it. This is no more than ritual religious observance with, for a great majority of its practitioners, no real conviction behind it. It is lacking the vital element required by God. It lacks truth.
In 1 Peter 1:13-16 we are told
"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end
for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy."
We are not to fashion ourselves after the manner of the pagans or imitate them, but we are to be holy. Being holy means to be set apart and different from the rest of the world. If we are indulging in pagan traditions, which are an abomination to God, how exactly are we being holy?
We have to be very, very careful about taking man-made traditions and elevating them to the level of God-ordained holy days, especially when they have pagan roots. In Matthew 15:3, Christ says,
"But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" The Pharisees and scribes had incorporated all kinds of traditions and imposed them on the people. Traditions which not only were unBiblical in origin, but were anti-Biblical in nature. They actually transgressed the laws of God. It is no surprise that Christ seriously objected to this. In the same chapter in verses 6b-9, He said,
"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." These traditions make the commandments of God to be of no effect. It renders them null and void.
Mark 7:9,13
"And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.....Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye." The consequences of following man-made religious traditions in place of worshiping God in truth is also addressed by Christ. Matthew 23:15
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and
land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold
more the child of hell than yourselves." Traditions are not just harmless rituals. They can actually drive us away from God.
Additionally, God prefers a different kind of fast than one that is strictly ritual and not heartfelt. Isaiah 58:5-7 says,
"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his
soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth
and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day
to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to
loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it
not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that
are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover
him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?"
Lastly the holy day of Easter has to be addressed. Before even getting into that, the very name itself screams paganism. As much as is known, which is not a great deal, Eostre, or Ostara as she was also known, was a pagan goddess of Germanic origin. Eostre is traced back to a "goddess of the dawn."
As the goddess of the dawn, the sunrise was an important part of the celebrations, as were bonfires, eggs, and rabbits for the spring fertility rituals. This goddess was apparently starting to take a back seat when Christianity came along, but as with all things ingrained in a populous, some remnants remained, and the name "Easter" and the associations were added to the paschal season. We have sunrise services, Easter eggs, and chocolate bunnies.
In addition to the above associations, the timing of Easter was decided by the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 to be the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox. If we are to observe the Feast of Firstfruits, which is the correct feast day, which became the resurrection day of Christ when He fulfilled the Feast of Firstfruits, it would be the Sunday after Passover, which is the 15th of Nissan or Aviv, the first month of the ecclesiastical year in Judaism. As the first of the month is determined by the new moon, and the new moon is two weeks away from the full moon, the 15th of the month would end up being in the relative same time frame as the full moon. And as the month of Nissan falls in the spring, it would also fall around the vernal equinox. So it is common that Passover and Easter fall around the same time, and most often fall in the same week, but the factors determining the dates are not the same, so there can be times when they do not fall at the same time.
Passover is determined by God's instructions. Easter is determined by association with the occult importance of the vernal equinox and full moon. They just happen to coincide most of the time. When it happens that they do not, because Judaism often inserts an extra month in their calendar every so many years, Easter does not fall on the Feast of Firstfruits. Easter's date of observance therefore has more to do with the pagan celebration of Eostre than the Feast of Firstfruits. This is not the way it should be. As the resurrection was the fulfillment of the Feast of Firstfruits, it should always occur on the Sunday after Passover. So are we celebrating a day which is not always really the right day? And should we be celebrating Passover as a part of this instead of ignoring it as a Jewish holiday? What does the Word of God say on the issue.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8
"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye
are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the
leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth." Exactly what feast is Paul speaking about? Easter was not a feast that the disciples celebrated. Passover was the feast they celebrated. And it seems that Paul is telling us to keep the feast - the feast of Passover - for the reference is that Christ is our
passover. Is the day of resurrection also to be celebrated? As it already existed as a feast day in Judaism - the Feast of Firstfruits, yes, it is also to be celebrated. But we have forgotten to celebrate Passover, relegating it to the trash as a Jewish holy day, not a Christian one. Instead we celebrate Good Friday (if you can call it celebrating), which even in that there is dispute that Jesus died on Friday, as that does not allow for three days and nights in the grave. It would be much better for us to celebrate Passover which contains all the significance of His death on the cross.
When Christ ate the Last Supper with the disciples, He was celebrating the Passover seder. When He picked up the cup and said
"This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins," He was actually renaming the third cup that is drunk in the Passover Seder - the cup known as the Cup of Redemption. (There are four cups, each with a different meaning.) When He broke the bread and ate it, He was breaking the bread known as the afikomen (see note below on afikomen). Both are important parts of the seder meal. What He was doing was re-purposing and renaming two of the Passover elements,
not creating a new tradition with all the other elements removed. It was the same tradition, but with new meaning. Men are the ones who have changed the tradition by removing those two things from their original source. We have lost much of the meaning and significance of what He did and said at the Passover by removing those two elements from the seder and making them a la carte. He said that when we drank the cup (the cup of redemption of the Passover) and when we ate the bread (of afikomen), we were to do so in remembrance of Him. But people don't realize that it is the Cup of Redemption and they don't know the bread is the bread of the afikomen and what those two things mean within the seder.
[Afikomen- during the Passover seder, three pieces of matzoh are
placed in a bag with three compartments. At a point early in the seder,
the middle piece of matzoh is taken out and broken in half. Half is put
back in the bag, and the other half is wrapped in a linen cloth and
hidden or buried to be found (resurrected) later in the seder. When
searched for and found, the matzoh is broken into pieces for the guests
at the seder to share and is eaten. To the Jews, this is a ritual for
which they really don't have an explanation, but as Christians we can
see the significance. The three pieces of matzoh stand for the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The middle matzoh, the Son, is taken out
and broken (for our sins) and it is wrapped in a cloth and "buried."
When found (resurrected) it is eaten by those celebrating the Passover.
This is the ritual that Christ observed with the disciples when He broke
the bread and said, "Take, eat, this is my body which is given for
you."]
Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 11:24-26
"And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is
my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying,
This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye
drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come." As often as we drink the Cup of Redemption from the Passover seder and as often as we partake of the afikomen, we do so in remembrance of Him, which means, we were expected to continue to observe the Passover, but in a Messianic way, the way Christ did at the last Passover. And then we were to observe the Feast of Firstfruits in remembrance of Christ being the firstfruit of the resurrection. This is the way it was intended for us to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection. How much more deeply significant is spending the time at a Passover observance going through the Scriptures, singing songs, and partaking of the lengthy seder meal with all of its meanings, instead of celebrating with an Easter basket full of eggs and bunnies and going to a church service. Look at what we have lost. The most moving celebration I ever had at this time of year was when I partook of a Messianic Passover seder. And one does not serve ham (which was an unclean animal and therefore not acceptable to the Jews) at a Passover seder. The meat of choice is Lamb, for the Lamb of God. Even the meat has a spiritual significance which we have abandoned in favor of serving one of the forbidden meats of the Old Testament. Considering that the meat has spiritual application, what does it say that many Christians serve it on Easter in place of Lamb?
That the early church, before Rome changed so many of the traditions by compromising them with paganism, celebrated Passover can be seen in this passage from
The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop. He wrote:
“The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of
Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival
from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not
known by any such name as Easter…That festival [Passover] was not
idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. ‘It ought to be known,’ said
Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and
contrasting the primitive [New Testament] Church with the Church in his
day, ‘that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as
the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.’” Not only was Lent was not observed by the first century
Church, it would appear that Passover was the feast that was observed, not Easter.
As can be seen with all the information above, the holidays that the Church celebrates in no way can claim origin in the Scriptures (except for celebrating the resurrection). We have abandoned God's feasts in favor of pagan ones with a Christian overlay. Does God care? Too many Christians think that He does not, as long as they themselves want to believe the rituals are okay. I do not think that God takes sincerity (which is the excuse) into account. Uzzah was sincere when he tried to catch the ark of the covenant from falling off the wagon. God killed him for disobedience. Nadab and Abihu were sincere when they offered the wrong kind of incense on the fire. God killed them for disobedience. There seems to be a pattern here. Sincerity did not count. Obedience and adherence to God's ways seems to be what God cares about. Ritual, and especially ritual with no real heart repentance is meaningless to God. Hear what He has to say to Israel when they acted in this way, and they were observing the rituals that God had created for them, not pagan ones with a phony godly veneer over them. We should look at their punishments and heed the lesson.
Isaiah 1:11-14, 16-20
"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the
LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed
beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the
new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with;
it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them......Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like
crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."
