The “Spring Feasts” of YHVH occur at this time of year, beginning with the time of Pesach, or Passover, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Most people are aware of the command that we are to eat no leavened bread during that week, and are told (Exodus 12:15, 19, etc) to get the leaven (or “chametz”, in the Hebrew) completely OUT of our houses.
The metaphor which connects yeast or “chametz” with sin is also probably familiar to most readers here. Yeast, like sin, can literally be a “growing” thing, which takes root in our houses, and spreads — almost like a cancer. Indeed, “a little leavens the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9, 1 Cor 5:6, and the MANY references of Yahushua to the “leaven of the Pharisees”). Pesach is the historic time for “spring cleaning”, and getting the ‘sin’ out of our houses, in preparation for the dramatic events to follow.
But there is more to it!
Much of the symbolism of the Passover has to do with marriage, and with both the promise of the Covenant, and the abomination of idolatry, or literal spiritual adultery. It is the imagery of unfaithful wives who are called ‘whores’ (like both the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah were, and for which they were sent again into exile and bondage) because they went after other gods. Time and again, “treacherous Judah” and “backsliding Israel” (see Jeremiah 3) both committed idolatry, then failed to “return unto Me with her whole heart.”
But it is also about reconciliation, and the promise of renewal of ‘right relationship’ with YHVH — if ONLY we will t’shuvah (“turn around”, or repent) and RETURN to Him.
Pesach is also a time of spiritual conflict, between the worship of YHVH, as He specifies, and the “prince of this world”, who has sought to pervert what is Written since the Garden of Eden by ‘twisting’ — sometimes just a little bit, and then later by a lot. It is why Scripture so clearly forbids “adding to” and “subtracting from” His Word, and warns so clearly against attempting to “honor” Yah in the ways of pagan ‘gods’ (Deuteronomy 12:30-32, among many).
I realize that drawing any distinction between the Passover of our Creator* and the pagan aspects of what has become “Easter” can be a very difficult topic, and a source of strife and division. I have no doubt that this is exactly what the Adversary intended. But, if we are to “speak His Truth boldly” — as we ought to, is it something which must be addressed.
It takes only a very cursory study of pagan goddess worship to realize that “Easter” and the vast majority of the “cute harmless traditions” that surround it are exactly what our Creator so explicitly forbade, especially when it comes to “mixing” the clean and the unclean, the ”holy” or set-apart to Him, and the profane. Not only are eggs, bunnies, and east-facing ‘sunrise services’ all explicitly pagan fertility rites, but the real story of those “harmless traditions” is even more heinous. Can there be a more severe indictment of Constantinian “Xtianity” than the realization that not ONLY has the most important event in all human history been co-opted in direct rebellion to YHVH, but that the Appointed times of Yah which He repeatedly commanded we keep “forever” have been changed, and even His very NAME has been expunged — to be replaced by a false pagan goddess (Ishtar, Astarte, Ashteroth, Oestre, “Easter”).
No wonder He Wrote through His prophet such a graphic description of His wrath about exactly what evil was done then, and is again being done now, in Ezekiel chapters 8 and 9. Read it for yourself, and observe that everything from the sunrise service to Lent (the forty days of “women weeping for Tammuz”) are referred to as “abominations” — and that the death sentence He specifies will “begin at My sanctuary“.
The story points out that there are nevertheless still people who “sigh and cry at the abominations” being done by those who profess to honor Him. They will receive His mark, and be separated and spared at the time of vengeance. The lesson is unmistakeable. And there truly IS, “nothing new under the sun.”
A columnist I admire frequently refers to the concept of “negative learning”, as is now widely taught in what pass for ‘schools’ in much of the world today. The “negative knowledge” which results is in fact worse than ignorance, because it is simply WRONG, and thus harmful, and in that it must first be UN-learned before the poor student can even get back to zero. Only then can real, POSITIVE learning again commence.
Unfortunately, this is what much of modern “Churchianity” amounts to — not just things which are in error, but often so WRONG that they must be UN-learned before those who have been so deceived by popes, priests, pharisees, and parasites can even get back to zero. The ‘baggage’ of tradition which is literally hateful to our Creator, and which Yahushua so consistently condemned, must be unlearned in many cases, and eliminated from our house, before we can return to Him, and learn to “worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
Paganism is a poison. It is a sin which YHVH forbids in the most explicit way possible. And, like leaven, it can infect a house. It can grow like cancer.
Whether we like it or not, such imagery is an abomination, and must be removed from our house, and our lives:
Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: [but] thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it [is] a cursed thing. (Deuteronomy 7:25-26)
We must get rid of the ‘chametz’ – get rid of the toxic leaven – and get the pagan traditions OUT of our house.
Thankfully, He has already made provision for our failure, and has even borne our guilt. “‘Return to Me’, says YHVH…Return, O backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding…for truly in YHVH Elohekah is the Salvation of Israel.” (Yermeyahu/Jeremiah 3:22-4:1)
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* Note, of course, that YHVH does not call it the “Passover of the Jews”, but in fact, always “MY feasts”, and “MY Appointed Time!”
