17/04/2022
Today, many people celebrate the miraculous resurrection of the promised Jewish Messiah. It’s a wonderful thing worth celebrating every day of the year. In fact, this year, the Jewish calendar and the Christian calendar happen to closely align in marking the time of the resurrection of Yeshua. But why are the holidays separated? Did you know that the invention of Easter as a holiday apart from the Jewish calendar was a choice made intentionally out of antisemitism? At the Nicene Council in A.D. 325, Constantine said in reference to the date of celebrating the resurrection, “We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Savior has shown us another way; our worship follows a more legitimate and more convenient course (the order of the days of the week); and consequently, in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews…”
We mourn the hurt that this horrible rhetoric has caused for our people over the centuries, and even the pain and separation it perpetuates today. We look forward to a day when we can celebrate the resurrection of the Messiah as one—Jew and Gentile together—without the tarnish of antisemitism.
