Do you celebrate Easter, and if so, how?

• I am a Christian, raised in a denominational church which celebrated most of the holidays or observances associated with Easter, although we were not Catholic. After an absence of several years I renewed my Christian faith. Although in my nondenominational church we do not celebrate Easter in the sense we did in my denomination earlier, I do pause to remember Christ's suffering and death on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday. But as a Christian I feel we can remember his birth, life, death and resurrection every day of the year and every season. How do you feel about these holidays? I will respect any view that is presented respectfully. While I do not share in the same holiday observances many Christians take part in, I do respect and support their faith and their right to worship God and the Risen Savior in this way. I hope all who answer will do so in a respectful way and the answer that gets BA does not have to agree with my views on this matter.

• Answer:

  I celebrate Easter the way I was raised, in a non-christian home. We did the Easter baskets and had a special meal. I carried on this tradition to my children. Once I became a christian our traditions didn't change and part of the reason was because our church did it the same way as me except they included prayer. I don't celebrate passover because it Jesus is my passover. 1st Corinthians 5:7-8 "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." My children are in the teen years so we no longer do the baskets but they did request jelly beans. I don't believe I'm worshiping nature or Ishtar. To me it's really about eating ham and family. I'm sorry, but I don't relate it to pagan worship or Christianity. It's just a day for family and fun. Passover is a big deal to me. As you can identify with the scripture above as to why. Colossians 2:16-17 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." The old testament holy days were a shadow of things to come. He came and is Risen!