We, as Christians, all know that the church was established on the Day of Pentecost as we are told in Acts chapter 2. The Day of Pentecost (also known as the Feast of Weeks) is one of seven major feasts of Israel that the Jews celebrate every year and it occurs fifty days after the Sunday that follows the Feast of Passover.
I have often wondered why the birthday of the church on Pentecost (betrothal day of the bride of Christ) is never mentioned, much less celebrated amongst the Christian community? I think it may have to do with the Christian traditions carried down through the centuries from biased roots grown from the early church fathers. Some of Chuck Missler’s recordings touch on this matter in a round about way when his, and other scholars research have shown that the early church did it’s dead level best to separate themselves from anything relating to Israel because of their anti-Semitic view point, blaming the Nation of Israel for the crucifixion of Christ as was evident by the rulings made by the Council of Nice in 325AD1 when they created their own “Passover Day‘, that is calculated as the first Sunday following the first full moon following a pagan holiday in the spring of the year called the Spring Equinox2
When you read about the church’s development in the book of Acts starting with the preachings and teachings of Peter and other disciples and then continuing with the miraculous ministry of Paul and his fabulous interpretations of the gospel of Christ for us through the inspired letters that he wrote, you don’t see any anti-Semitic tendencies coming through. Somehow, though, in the decades that followed, despite the warnings to watch for false apostles, teachers and preachers by Peter, James, John and Paul, Satan was successful in embedding enough false teachers within the church to create small misdirections that grew into the beginning of the allegorization and misinterpretations of God’s word. The apparent influence of Satan, coupled with a sanctioned hatred toward the Jews, caused the early church to eventually chose to distance itself from anything relating to Jewish practices and one of the results was the creation of a resurrection day who’s place on the calendar is determined by counting from the base of a pagan holiday even though, at this point in time, they still called the celebration Passover. We also find that after the papacy firmly established itself politically, as well as religiously, they renamed the day of celebrating the resurrection of Our Lord as Easter, a name that has it’s roots in Babylonian pagan religious fertility festivals celebrating Ishtar (that is where the crazy tradition of an egg laying rabbit came from).
Wow! So even if you searched the internet for the calendar day of Pentecost, the betrothal day of the Bride of Christ, most likely you would find a false day, for Pentecost is a Greek word that means count fifty. We need to know what day they are counting their fifty days from, from a pagan fertility feast called Easter, or are they counting from a full moon, or is it from the Feast of First Fruits, which is the Sunday that follows the Sabbath that follows Passover and is the day that Our Lord, Our Savior met Mary at the tomb after He had arisen.
So why isn’t Pentecost on list of special days of recognition? The other days of recognition, Easter (even though the origins and the name of the holiday is Babylonian), the meaning behind the day still allows us to reflect on the greatest miracle ever performed since the creation of the universe) and Christmas (another one that has scary Babylonian roots) are about Christ our Savior. The day the church was created and Christ’s bride was betrothed is a known traceable day. Why isn’t it recognized? I suspect the reasons have their roots buried in the anti-Semitism of the early church and the fact that we, as the body of Christ hold traditions almost as dear to our hearts as facts. There may be some churches tucked away somewhere that recognize the Day of Pentecost, but I don’t know of any and those Christians I mention it to kind of look at me like “What?…what’s up with this guy?”. I personally try to find when the actual Day of Pentecost is and sing a little happy birthday song to recognize the birth of the vehicle that allows us as Gentile, but more so as sinful humans to prepare and meet Our Lord.
God Bless, Jim
*1 http://www.debate.org.uk/topics/theo/council_nicaea.html
*2 https://www.learnreligions.com/all-about-ostara-the-spring-equinox-2562471
jimbussell 