This is my favorite time of year. Not only is winter finally over and hopefully the cold along with it, but we get to celebrate my favorite holiday, Easter. I just love celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. Nothing makes me happier than to know that because he died for me and rose again, I have been forgiven of all my sins. How can you top that.

What has got me thinking is the term easter. Last year and this year I have become increasingly aware of the controversy surrounding the word easter, and the pagen roots of easter. I have heard of more and more people who refuse to celebrate any holidays other than the Jewish holidays outlined in the bible. This is primarily the 7 feasts, as well as the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) Now I have no problem celebrating those holidays. They are part of my heritage as a Christian. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law, he came to complete it. Mt. 5:17. What I am still having trouble understanding is how you could not want to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. That is the whole point. If Jesus had not risen again, where would we be, dead. The basis that Jesus does not command us to celebrate the major Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter is complete baloney. He doesn’t tell us in the bible to celebrate Hanukkah, yet this group of people do just that. Hanukkah is described in the book of Maccabees, which is not in any of my bibles. Yes Hanukkah is mentioned is the book of John, John tells us that Jesus celebrated the Feast of Dedication Jn 10:22. To say that we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas and Easter because Jesus never celebrated them is in my opinion wrong. How could he have celebrated them, we have them because of him. It just makes no sense to me.

I understand not wanting to associate The Resurrection with a pagan holiday. Instead of using the term easter, call it Resurrection Sunday. I know plenty of people who use that term rather than easter. You don’t want to have any of the commercialized trappings of easter than don’t. Alex and Lizzie have never even heard of the term easter bunny, let alone seen one or had their picture taken with one. Yes our children get baskets, but I try to put something in them besides candy. Something that helps them to understand the very abstract idea of The Resurrection.  One thing we use is Ressurection Eggs, along with the movie, Miss Pattycakes Egg Stravaganza This year I plan to put the Resurrection eggs in at least Alex’s basket, along with his candy.

As I said before I see nothing wrong with celebrating the feasts of the OT. In fact we celebrate Passover every year with my parents. The kids love it. This year I am thinking about having a mini Seder every night of passover.   I am also thinking about celebrating in some way the other feasts with the kids, especially as we homeschool. I think it is good for all of us to remember our roots. I just don’t think  we should forget about Jesus in the process of remembering our roots, He is our roots.