Resurrection Sunday versus Easter

This is what’s on my mind, and I am to the point where I have to plead my case to friends, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ. It grieves my heart every year to see the word Easter plastered on our churches, in our literature and advertisements, and used so freely in relation to the resurrection of Christ. It is a day believers should remember, and acknowledge the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, and be referred to as Resurrection Sunday.
     Easter comes from the word Eostre, which was a pagan fertility goddess from ancient England, celebrated in a spring month known to them as Eosturmonath. All of the trappings that go along with the word Easter such as bunnies and colored eggs and other symbolism are obviously related to pagan fertility worship. Blending it into a Christian festival in my mind is blasphemous and a big part of what’s wrong in modern Christendom today. Especially in this country. 
     Our churches (not all of them I must say) have become worldly, and compromise the truth of scripture. Statistically, the divorce rate, live-in couples, etc, are just as high in the church as on the outside. Biblical illiteracy is at a staggering rate inside the church. We as believers are called to be a peculiar people 1 Peter 2:9 KJV, His own special people NKJV. Romans 12:2 tells us “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Matthew 5:13-14 reminds us to be salt and light in the world. Salt is a preserving agent, light dispels darkness. Shame on us. 
     We are to be “ambassadors for Christ” 2 Corinthians 5:20. Christ calls us to “take up our cross and follow Him.” Have we lost sight of what that means? 1Peter 4:17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God? (Just for clarity, not condemnation of believers, but the purging, chastening, and purifying of the church). There are people all around us lost and without hope. They need to see a people separated from the world, that have something they don’t. But what are they seeing within the church today? Not much difference. What do we have that they don’t? Or maybe I should say, what do they have that we don’t? Jehovahs Witnesses are a cult and don’t worship the God of the Bible. But somehow they get it.
With all my heart. In Christ.
Donnie Young*

*This is a guest post by my husband.