What you Should Know About EASTER

(Continued)

Easter Parades

   Each year at Easter in towns and cities across the land, images and crucifixes are borne through the streets by marchers in the annual Easter Parades. These processions are another carryover of the worship of Adonis and Astarte. In Pfieffer's Old Testament History, pp. 76-77, we find these processions mentioned.

   "Classified as a mystery cult by modern students of religion is the worship of Adonis, which became popular in Hellenistic times. Adonis was the son of Cinyras, mythical king of Byblos. He was the husband of Astarte or Ashtoreth. The legend relates that Adonis was hunting wild boar in Lebanon mountains when the animal which he was pursuing turned upon him and so gored his thigh that he died of the wound. From that time on he was mourned annually. At the time of the summer solstice, the anniversary of his death, all of the women of Byblos went in a wild procession to Aphaea in the Lebanon where his temple stood. There they wept and wailed on account of his death. The river which his blood had once stained turned red to show its sympathy with the mourners, and was thought to flow with his blood afresh. After the weeping had continued for a definite time, an image of the god was buried in the sacred temple precinct, bringing the mourning to an end. On the next day Adonis was supposed to return to life. His image was disinterred and carried back to the temple with music and dances. Wild orgies accompanied the rejoicing. Adonis at Byblos was the Phoenician counterpart of Tammuz, or Dumazi, the Babylonia god of pasture and flocks, whose worship had reached Jerusalem (Ezekial 8:14). In the Babylonian epics, Tammuz dies in the autumn, when vegetation withers, departs to the underworld, and is recovered by the mourning Ishtar [Easter] in time to return in the springtime to the fertilized upper-world."

EASTER PROCESSIONS Yesterday and Today

   Interestingly, a Catholic historian writing of the Easter celebrations in Rome wrote a strikingly similar account of these processions.

   "With Holy Thursday our miseries began. On this disastrous day we went before nine to the Sistine chapel...and beheld a procession led by the inferior orders of clergy, followed up by the Cardinals, in superb dresses, bearing long wax tapers in their hands, and ending with the pope himself, who walked beneath a crimson canopy, with his head uncovered, bearing the Host in a box; and this being, as you know, the real flesh and blood of Christ, was carried from the Sistine chapel through the intermediate hall to the Paullina chapel, where it was deposited in the sepulchre prepared to receive it beneath the alter.... It remains there till...He is supposed to rise from the grave amidst the firing of cannon, and blowing of trumpets, and jingling of bells." Rome in the 19th Century, vol. III, pp. 144-145.

   As you can see from the above quotes, the annual Easter parades are nothing but a carryover from the ancient processions of the worship of Adonis. Sadly, this pagan custom has invaded the worship of the New Testament faith, as have other Easter customs.

Easter Sunrise Services

   Throughout history man has been highly fascinated with the heavenly bodies, especially the sun. Our Creator, however, has strictly forbidden the worship of them in His Word.

   Modern Christianity wishes to ignore those warnings.  Each Easter, before the rising of the sun, groups of worshippers gather on hilltops to hold what is called Easter sunrise services. We find Ezekiel 8:16 calling this practice an abomination.

    "And He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh's house, and behold, at the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Then He said unto me, 'Have you seen this, O son of Man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke Me to anger: lo, they put the branch [phallic symbol, Companion Bible] to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury: Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.'"

   This worship is as much an abomination to the Eternal Yahweh today as it was then. For our Heavenly Father said, "I am Yahweh the Eternal, I change not," Malachi 3:6. It is evident that our Heavenly Father's views haven't changed since the time the prophet Ezekiel first wrote of this degenerate form of worship.

   These passages illustrate how pagan customs infiltrated the worship of our Heavenly Father, going so far as to influence man's mind, Ezekiel 8:12.

   The very ministry of Yahweh was engaged in these pagan rites, for the 25 men standing between the porch and the altar were ministering priests (Joel 1:13 and 2:17). This Scripture should be a warning for those today who would participate in Easter sunrise services, for these services are simply a modern carryover of what was being practiced in ancient Israel.

   The Bible openly condemns the Easter sunrise service. But not a word of condemnation ever is spoken by those who observe it, though they profess to believe in the Bible. Why do so many people blindly continue to follow the crowd down the road of perdition? It is not our Heavenly Father's will that anyone should perish, but that all should have everlasting life through His Son. However, He has given us all free choice, as He did Adam and Eve. We can either choose to obey, and forsake the worship of these foreign deities, or we can continue to serve them and reap the consequences of our stubborn disobedience. Your choice makes all the difference between life or death--between being saved or lost.

To learn what eggs and rabbits have to do with anything
and how Easter entered into our worship, click here to continue.