Our Heritage of Protestantism

Once upon a time there was a breed of person on this planet called a "Protestant." They were not business-as-usual people. They arose because of apostasy in the church. Comparing Scripture with the reality they could not deny in their church, sadly they admitted all was not well. In fact, they realized that a parade of pagan improvisations had been grafted into the church--abberations that took away from the gospel of God, that cheapened salvation, that obscured heaven's blood-bought plan to redeem humankind. They protested. For their temerity, their insistence in protesting, they were branded rebels, millions were burned to death or tortured and killed by other means. But they stood by the truth, and the truth was that many counterfeit pagan rituals needed to be excised--cut-out of--the church or she was not the church. And so it went.

The Protestants did not see all things clearly at first. Never, it is arguable, have they seen all things clearly; certainly it is beyond arguing that long years ago Protestantism had passed her high-water mark and already well along in her decline. But are you aware that before this, she largely gave up even easter?

Easter in the Dock

History shows us that easter observance traces back to the various pagan cults that littered the middle east. It was at the Council of Nicea in a.d. 325 that Emperor Constantine promoted the apostasizing churches desire to strongly differentiate its version of Christianity from the Jewish belief system which still observed Passover. It was in fact at Nicea that the practice of observing easter on shifting Sundays originated; a rule was even written that if it should fall on the same day as Passover, it was to be observed a week later on the following weekend so as not to in any way suggest commonality with Passover. Observance of easter arose not out of an appreciation of Christ's resurrection but out of an attempt to nullify the Jewish Passover.

The word easter comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon "Eostre," the name the Norse had used for their pagan belief in the "Spring Goddess." Eostre probably traces back much further to the Sumerian goddess Ishtar and the spring fertility rites her worship memorialized.

What about the easter bunny? We know the answer to that too. The bunny is a replacement of the Passover lamb. The easter hare originally was understood to be a bird which the goddess Eostre had changed into a four-legged animal. Thus the rabbit became a symbol of fertility. The rabbit was said to lay eggs, the symbol of the fresh life rising on the earth in the spring. The involvement of eggs in such festivities traces back a long ways; the easter egg hunt goes way back--it is nothing new at all. Certainly it is nothing Christian.

The Protestant reformers generally opposed the observance of easter, along with Christmas. Calvin was against it, Luther didn't like it, the Puritans strongly opposed it, and it wasn't even observed in early America at first except in Virginia and Maryland--sites where there were new communities of Roman Catholics who brought these things with them. More and more Catholic immigrants led to the Americanization of these inventions, until a tradition was established in our country.

Seventh-day Adventists are Protestants. That's our spiritual DNA; our heritage and our hope. We are a Bible people. We are not just another tradition-bound mainstream church plodding sleepfully along and blissfully content to be part of this world that revelation tells us is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31). All around us on every side we are enclosed by the multi-decible roar of a civilization sleeping on the edge of its close-out, rasping for its breath on the edge of its climactic nothingness. Mere inches away from its last tick of time, the world around us and the churches around us and yes, God forgive us many within our own denomination draw their breaths this day unaware and unprepared for what is coming. They are contentants, not Protestants. This world is their home and at the rate they are going surely shall be their final resting place. And we are culpable. We haven't given the message with certain enough sound.

This is easter weekend so-called. It's hard to keep up with; you know it changes every year. I only realized that was what it was late Wednesday evening. It always sneaks up on me. Let me explain.

You see, easter is one of those manufactured sort-of holidays. We won't really find it in the Bible. One version of the King James out there does include the word, but it is translated from the regular word for Passover in the Greek (paska). It will be timely to remind ourselves for a moment of how Satan works. He has little respect for man, but he is full-aware that we still retain the impress of God's image in some limited measure, that enough of the mental endowment of reason yet remains with us to prevent our random acceptance of error in its purity. So he mingles it. Truth and error are a much more potent, much more effective and attractive mixture than pure error. This special blend has worked well for six thousand years and it still works well (but I gather that a larger and larger measure of error can work well these days for him).

Pageants, Pomp and Soul-Silencing

A popular "evangelistic" idea among us in some places lately is the "easter pageant." A theatrical reenactment of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ is what this is. The idea is to get out a crowd from the community to watch the event and that they'll thus be led Christward. Recently I read through a brief description of one of these pageants (hardly one whole page of text). Nevertheless, in that short space, here are a few of the descriptive words used: "experiencing . . . What was it like to feel the emotions? . . . Your hearts breaks . . . Deep within you heart you want . . . you scream inside . . . Your heart breaks . . . . Tears roll from your face . . . a song of rejoicing swells within your heart . . .celebration . . . ministering to the local ______ community . . . their first exposure to Adventism."

In contrast, reference to the Bible, rational thought, etc., was entirely--yes, I said entirely--lacking. Thoughtful readers will realize that what is spoken of here is the "new paradigm" of understanding, the new epistemology or "way of knowing" some are promoting among us. It all has to do with feeling rather than studying, experiencing rather than thinking, and becoming affixed to "Christianity" through external flash and glitter rather than through any truly spiritual internal event of repentance and reformation and conversion. Anyone recall these lines from the Great Controversy?

The religious service of the Roman Church is a most impressive ceremonial. Its gorgeous display and solemn rites fascinate the senses of the people and silence the voice of reason and conscience. The eye is charmed. . . . This outward splendor, pomp, and ceremony, that only mocks the longings of the sin-sick soul, is an evidence of inward corruption. The religion of Christ needs not such attractions to recommend it. . . . A religion of externals is attractive to the unrenewed heart. (Great Controversy, pp. 566-567).

Where are we going? Shall such methods be the opening door, the entrance and "first exposure to Adventism?"

Christ's Resurrection and its Meaning for Adventism

The truth that easter is blended with is that Jesus, on the morning of the first day of the week rose from the tomb; the tomb is empty and the Father accepted His sacrifice for us and welcomed Him home to heaven with gladness. It is true that His resurrection opens the door of heaven to man, and that that is nothing for us to protest about.

Let us then pause and consider not a threadbare pagan yesterday but reflect together on the meaning of the resurrection to and for us. While others do odd things and some present strange fire before the Lord, let us call a halt, pop our eyes open yet wider, and see the beauty of truth shown in the risen Christ.

The Adventist mind sees the resurrection in a different light, for it knows the high Priestly ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. Had there been no resurrection, there would be no high priestly service of Christ there. Without this there is no intercession no advocacy, no mediation. No second coming.

Let me guess; I have your attention now, right?

No second coming means the surmise of the scoffers that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" becomes true. But it must not become true! Truth is interlaced; it all comes together in the end. But there is an end, there is a point where one age ends and another begins.

Divine institutions like the Sabbath, Baptism, Lord's Supper, and so on all trace their origin to a divine act that instituted them. But neither on the day of Christ's resurrection nor at any other time did Jesus institute an observance of easter in honor of His resurrection, as baptism was to commemorate this.

Yes friends, the earth had descended into darkness. Christ was to bring us light. Consider then the weight of darkness of our Lord at His closing hour.

Jesus at Zero-Hour

There come times in our lives when it seems we cannot win; when we cannot go forward and we cannot go back. Upon our decisions may rest issues of great importance to us, but upon Jesus in His last hours hinged all the history of the creation. Countless intelligences stood by in silent expectation as Christ entered upon His sacrifice at the cross.

As His soft tread echoed in the garden of Gethsemene and later as the ring of metal upon metal signalled the nails driven through His limbs and affixed to the instrument of crucifixion, our Lord was not alone. Another presence imposed itself upon Him. The dark blackness of forever seemed ready to swallow Him, and Satan stood by to whisper into His ear that if He should indeed go through with His sacrificial death, all would be for nought. Slyly the devil told Him that the death would be in vain. He pointed out to Jesus that all His disciples--all--had fled. "Look," he might have said, "See that white splotch at the left of your vision? that's Peter vanishing into the distance, isn't it? And see, over there at the right, see that brown robe in the distance? Who is that? Isn't that Nathaniel? They've all left you. Where is John? Where is Andrew? You have been abandoned Mister Savior." None understood, none were worthy of such a sacrifice he said. And worst of all, we may be assured that Satan told Jesus He would never come out of the grave again. For all eternity He would be separate from His Father. Humanity would be lost in the end and Jesus would be permanently cut-off from communion with His Father. Such sentiments were cast at Jesus again and again. Nor would Christ urge Satan to leave. It was His time to suffer, to come to the point of finishing this earthly mission of grief.

The demons were present there that terrible day. They whipped the crowd into a frenzy by taking advantage of passion and unconversion. And so the loud laughing and blasphemous jests and cat-calls came from the crowd. "He saved others, let Him save Himself." "If you are the Son of God, then prove it by coming down off the cross right now." The words were carried on the wind into His ears as He hung suspended between life and death for a race of villains.

But as He hung there in agony physical and mental, still He could see. Earth was nothing but a planet full of graves. The only place in the universe where death would ever reign--He was here. This was the end. Even if, as Satan urged Him, the sin He took upon Himself would be so offensive that nevermore would He return to the Father, still He made the decision to enter the tomb.

Under a sorrow beyond our imagination He committed His existence to the Father and breathed His last. Nature screamed out in torrents of rain, in trembling earthquakes and flashing crashing lightning. Darkness overspread the sky and the crowds, wet and terror stricken speechlessly dispersed. It seemed as if the planet would burst apart from the cumulative outcry of the creation over the death of its Maker. Everyone fled to their homes and holes and wondered what it all meant. The disciples and followers of Jesus wept in their hovels, tears mixing with the rain trickling across the floor. More fearful than while He yet lived, the Jews combined with the Romans to secure the tomb. Their great fear: an empty tomb. O, What would an empty tomb mean?!

The Resurrection of Christ

Early in the morning on the first day of the week (equivalent to our "Sunday"), history was forever shattered. The demons saw that their hopes were ruined. Jesus arose from the tomb. He resurrected. And suddenly there was a tomorrow for mankind.

You see, when Jesus arose from the grave, called forth by His Father, it was apparent that the Father would accept His death on man's behalf. Much more, it was apparent that Christ had prevailed. He came forth with the keys of hell and death jangling in His pocket. He was Master of the grave, high Priest for humanity, Redeemer of the race, and Victor over sorrow.

He strode out of the tomb to the shout of angels. He walked out of that dank stone room in glorified flesh nevermore to die. He triumphed openly, and we triumphed with Him. Romans 6:4 says that "We are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." You see, we were "planted together" in the likeness of His death so that as Christ rose in resurrection by the glory of the Father even so we also should rise in resurrection by the glory of the Father.

Our life is to be the translated life here and now. We are to live as though risen from death. If we were planted with Him in death then surely we are risen with Him in newness of life. The oldness of false traditions and man-made observances and "celebrations" is not for you or me; the newness of resurrection living is.

The resurrection of Christ is very worthy of our notice and observance. That's what baptism stands for. That's why you were baptized; Jesus rose from the tomb then so that you could live for Him now. God is the God of the living and not of the dead. He is the God of those who know and live for and with the divine Keeper of the keys. Christ's resurrection means we are released, we are free. Free to follow Him in the Spirit-led life of victory.

The Denial

From such resurrection power most turn away. Even in the church are many who make it their task to deny their Savior by wearing the form of godliness only. The outward ceremony and packaging and marketing becomes thus supreme and the inward life is turned from. Self denial becomes self absorption and union with Christ becomes a hollowed-out religious observance, dry and stale and empty of life or hope. But still some light candles and still some insist that in "dramatizing" the death of Christ they are doing an evangelistic ministry for God. If it has all become a form then the Bible commands us, "from such turn away" (2 Timothy 3:5).

How sad that candlelight sunrise services have captured the attention of some Adventists who fail to realize that in their participation they are playing into the hands of the beast of Revelation thirteen. The worship of the Sun was historically linked to these practices. If there is any religious community on the planet that should know better, it is ours.

God curses a co-mingling of error and truth at a time when judgment is in process, and the last people on the planet that He would have plodding about at sunrise with candles and vestments are those whom Scripture calls "the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 12:17).

If we join in Easter Sunday services, we are suggesting that there is some validity to this manufactured religious observance that has no part in Christianity. Furthermore, we join into an observance that is universally connected with Sunday-keeping rather than God's holy Sabbath day. It is a contradiction for any Adventist to have part in an Easter-Sunday event.

Seventh-day Adventists who are enamored today with Easter pageants and sunrise candlelight services are working at cross purposes to heaven, Protestantism, and Scripture. A Sunday morning candlelight service observing easter is a misrepresentation of God's character to the community, an elevator of tradition, an affirmation of the authority of the little horn to change "times and laws" (Daniel 7:25), and a denial of the Ten Commandment's command to observe God's holy day (the seventh day Sabbath). We do not deny the good intentions of Scripturally and historically-challenged Adventists who participate in such meetings, but we urge them to reconsider the strange fire (Leviticus 10:1-2) they are kindling. God can't use it. Check in with Nadab and Abihu.

Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen. What are you doing with robes and candles? Christ is risen. This is the end. Let the living Christ be in you and then there will be ministry. Be risen with Him. Be Protestants. Be Adventists. Be Christians. Let us rejoice this day in the resurrection of Christ, and step aside from the beaten pathways of tradition that spoils the gospel of God.