Resurrection Sunday or Easter Sunday

Milton — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 02:18:57 +0000

I have yearned for some feed back on this. I have for years been trying to get folks to say Resurrection instead of Easter, why? Politics or Christianity? I guess that I just want to point everyone to Christ and Easter only says rabbits and eggs to me. I do not want to get into any personal preference issues here but I do want your hearts. There are arguments that fall into a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and those that say whose day is it anyway? Recently I even heard of some folks who are angry because Christians want to call Easter: Resurrection Sunday and how awful that is.

Wow! Isn’t this Our Lord’s Day? Aren’t we the custodians of the Gospel and so the day matters? So if we choose to call our day Resurrection Sunday should it matter to others? Well, that is where the rose becomes a different flower and maybe a Rock. If Easter is a meaningless term then what does it matter Milton just call it Easter. But the rhetoric of today is not so.

Here is a quote from Christianity today by an author Ted Olsen in 1998:

The fact of the matter is no one knows for sure, but our best bet comes from Bede (”The Venerable”), a late-seventh-century historian and scholar from Anglo-Saxon England. He says Easter’s name comes from the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, associated with spring and fertility, and celebrated around the vernal equinox. So there you go. As Christmas was moved to coincide with (and supplant) the pagan celebration of winter, Easter was likely moved to coincide and replace the pagan celebration of spring. And while we’re at it, the Easter Bunny comes from these pagan rites of spring as well, but more from pagan Germany than pagan Britain. Eighteenth-century German settlers brought “Oschter Haws” (never knew he had a name, did you?) to America, where Pennsylvania Dutch settlers prepared nests for him in the garden or barn. On Easter Eve, the rabbit laid his colored eggs in the nests in payment. In Germany, old Oschter lays red eggs on Maundy Thursday. If anyone knows why children in an agrarian society would believe a rabbit lays eggs, please tell us or a historian near you. We’re all dying to know.

Now we know some history on this but what does it really matter? So what does all this have to do with a controversy today over the name of the day? Why does it matter? Because it is the central and most important item in our Faith and so it must be clear. Clarity will speak to our unsaved brothers and sisters. I am nothing (Milton) but a dirty sign pointing to a Holy God but I want my pointer focused on Him. When we Worship we worship what we know and who we know and because we know. This wonderful day was co-opted because some early brothers and sisters wanted to connect better with the unsaved and so caused there to be an obfuscation of our purpose. Yes bunnies are cute and chicks but if I had a burning house and my neighbor who was coming to get me out came with a fireblanket in one hand and a pink shovel in the other saying I should take both I might get it wrong! The shovel would be useful if I were digging through the floor but the fireblanket would get me out and save my life.

We want folks to get the truth about us and yet we seem to hide His Great Victory under chicks and ducks and in plastic grass. I love kids and want them to enjoy a wonderful Childhood but today we cram so much into the whole “Family” Idolatry that we forget this is NOT a family day! This is a day of wonder and power and rejoicing! Jesus over 2000 years ago sealed our hope in His Love as He rose from the dead! A much greater joy for every child than a nice colored egg. Yes they can be turned to make a point but why go there in the first place? And to go there with a pagan goddess of fertility? We say “so what is the harm?” What else have you lied to me about mom and dad if the Easter Bunny whom I do not see is also a lie? I cannot see Jesus….. “I learned about some fun rituals while I was a kid and now that I am older I think I see their point after all they are older than Christianity and so they must be better..”

Well that is as much as I want to say to get the ball rolling. I want to hear your hearts on this and your minds. We can tilt at windmills and we can get distracted but isn’t this really where the line must be drawn? Tradition is nice but it is often wrong and to speak to anyone about the Lord by first handing him a basket and then looking for an egg seems to be too much saccharin when the Lord is all about Honey from the Honey comb!

A Post for my mother

Milton — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 00:17:22 +0000

For my first post to this site as a contributor I would like to put a story. I love to write them and use them in Worship because they draw people’s hearts to who the Lord is INSIDE of me. If they see who He is INSIDE maybe the one who is outside will not matter so much and His Grace will flow to them. I wrote this to my mother who is now dead and I wanted her to find the Jesus before it was too late - she did and she is now with Him in paradise. My story just confirmed the Lord to her (having already found His Love thru one of my best friends cautious and kind ministrations). I offer it here to encourage you to learn to use the power of the story in Worship. Here, dear ones, is my dream and my heart for all who would know Him: When I do face the Father of Life and the Lord of Lords He will tell me I have lied and have cheated and have stolen and have missed the mark completely. He will show me that I deserve to live forever in torment with Satan and his angels and all the rest of the people who have done as I have. I will tell Him about all the good things that I have done and they will mean nothing to Him; they will mean nothing to Him. He will listen when I tell Him about all the times I have helped people and have sat with sick people and worked to assist strangers; and every time He will tell me that it is not enough. Not enough. I will then tell Him about the times I went to church and prayed. I will tell Him that I thought He and I understood each other, He will look at me with sadness in His eyes and say, “Our understanding? That was a bargain that you made on my behalf. Prayer is two ways not one way. You cannot make a deal with Me but I did make a deal with you.” At that I will say to Him that I took His deal then He will ask, “Milton, where is your sacrifice then? Where is your sacrifice?” I will answer to Him, “Lord, I have no sacrifice with me.” Just at that moment Jesus will rise from His seat at the Lord’s right side and say, “Unlike the many before and the many after this man, I must speak on His behalf. I laid down My life for everyone and yet so few even listened to me ask for their hearts and souls and minds, this man heard and obeyed. He walked in My strength and My life for many years and even at the end of his life He did not turn away. He stood with me and loved me enough to tell others about me. He even helped others to know that I am a person not a thought or an idea. He told them about My love and My sacrifice. See, My Father, his name (along with all who are mine) is written in the palm of my hand. He can never do enough to earn a place in Heaven or to earn a break on Earth. Never. Yet, I gave Myself to form a bridge for Milton (or anyone else) to find a place in Heaven and hope on Earth. All they need to do is to come to Me in prayer and reach out telling me all that they can tell about who they are and then surrender all that they know about all that they are to all that I am; saying, ‘I am hopeless without You Lord, I need your forgiveness. Please be my sacrifice! I am nothing unless You come to my aid. I cannot do it by myself nor can I do it with the help of others. I can only become your child by accepting You as my sacrifice. Please tell me You’ve found me a place in Your heart.’ This is the cry of my loved ones.” Jesus will then say, “Lord of the Universe and all that there is in eternity, I tell you now that Milton has a sacrifice: I am his sacrifice. I am his sacrifice. Let him come and be made new. Made whole in Our Kingdom. Let him join us.” Then the Father of Lights will touch me with His great hand of Love and Purity and Holiness and He will lift my eyes to look into His face and He will say to me, “Milton, you are lacking so very much. There is nothing to recommend you to Heaven. Yet you will come in and join all of us here, because you belong to My Son and His family is always welcome. I am so glad to have you here. I have missed you so very much.”

My brothers and sisters this is the gift that I will begin with on this site this special place. I will start here and return here because it is the birthplace of worship and the gift that we all speak of over and over. It is the place for all things to begin and end. You will never find me far from here so if it is a place for you to begin then let’s start to explore the Awesome challenge it is to Worship the Rock and the Light! Yes He is the Power and the Might! To write to sing to laugh and to cry out, in this place: O Lord Jesus! We Worship YOU!

Thanks,

Milton

GC Worship » Milton

Resurrection Sunday or Easter Sunday

A Post for my mother