Recently, I was asked again why I choose to celebrate the “Jewish” holidays instead of the “Christian” ones.
So I thought it would be a good thing to blog about this again.
Like everyone else in the world I am on a journey through life. As I journey, I learn and grow, and my thoughts and opinions change based on the things I learn and experience.
One of the areas I have learned and grown in over the years is the area of holiday celebrations. Several years ago, Jeremy and I were challenged by our children to reconsider the holidays we celebrate and how we celebrate them. Our older children especially saw that each holiday was about material gifts and not really about celebrating God. So they wanted us to focus more on God and the poor.
But, in more recent years, we not only saw that the Christian holidays were not actually the Biblical holidays. We read in the Bible over and over that God gave His people special days to celebrate Him. These are often seen as the Jewish holidays, but can be found in Leviticus 23 for the children of God.
So, we slowly over time began observing or keeping these Biblical holidays the best that we can.
This post is not about how to keep the Biblical holidays. It is not a post about the pagan roots of other holidays.
This post is about walking out our understanding of scripture to the best of our abilities and letting others do the same.
When we first began learning the origins of Christian holidays, we were zealous and passionate about telling others what we had discovered. We thought it was amazing, interesting, and life changing. When we discovered in God’s WORD that He had already set aside important days, like a weekly Sabbath, Passover, and Shavuot, we were so excited we wanted everyone to know. Sometimes in our early zealousness we may have offended others with our passion.
But now, after years of study and growth, we no longer feel the need to persuade everyone to worship God as we do. Instead, now we realize, that as God has taken us on a journey to a closer relationship with Him, He is also calling others on their own journey to a closer relationship with Him.
We are more than happy to tell you about the Catholic roots most Christian holiday practices, we are even more excited to tell you about what the Word of God tells you about His special appointed Times. We are ready with an answer for why we live and believe the way we do.
But we do not see ourselves as separate from other followers of YHVH. We believe we are brothers and sisters in Yeshua, with those who know Him as LORD and Savior through his grace and merciful act of death and resurrection to redeem us from our sin. We also see ourselves as brothers and sisters with Jews, who seek to follow Torah as it is written in the scriptures, even those who have not yet had their eyes open to the Messiah Yeshua.
So no I do not celebrate Easter, but I do celebrate the Resurrection of Messiah on the appointed day of First Fruits during the week of Unleavened Bread (Passover week). I also do not celebrate Christmas, but I do enjoy the one week long celebration in the Fall that YHVH set apart for us to remember that He came down to earth once and will return again soon for His bride called Sukkot.
My hearts prayer is that how ever you celebrate any day, that everyday is a day of rejoicing in His eternal Resurrection and Redemption.
May you grow in faith and wisdom everyday. Shalom.
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