A Rather Unpopular Change

It is once again time to whip out the matza bread and get rid of pretty much everything I normally cook with throughout the year in preparation for Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This year, Passover is set to begin around the 20th of April, depending upon the ripening of the barley fields.

About two years ago, Brandon (my husband) and I decided to join the thousands of Yahushua-seekers who have chosen to replace typical Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas with the Jewish Feasts of the Bible.
And while this still stumps relatives and friends, we no longer celebrate Christmas and Easter but do not pressure or expect any one else to do the same. I think the expectation that we look down on anyone who doesn't share our opinion on Christian holidays is what keeps family members feeling uneasy about our choices, but truthfully, we think no such thing.
But a couple of years ago I started to question these typical American celebrations, and found they were nothing we wanted to be a part of.
For instance, the term Easter , is actually another form of Astarte,
a Chaldean goddess.
The festival of Passover was celebrated by Christians in post-apostolic times and was a contiuation of the Jewish feast, but from there the pagan festival of "Easter" was introduced into Western religion as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity.
Astarte is mentioned in Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:17-19, 25 and in 1 Kings 11:5, 33 and 2 Kings 23:13 and she is referred to here as Ashtoreth. So Easter is found in the Bible - as part of the pagan religion Yah condemns.
The celebration of Astarte, the goddess of fertility, was held in the spring of the year, and is where we get Easter eggs and the Easter bunny, which where pagan symbols of fertility.
Actually, in ancient Egpt and Persia, friends exchanged decorated eggs at the spring equinox, the beginning of their New Year, and Christians of the Near East adopted this tradition. Crazy enough, these "Easter eggs" have now come to represent the tomb from which Jesus came forth after his Resurrection.
And eventually pagan celebrations were "Christianized" and came to replace the Yah-ordained festivals that Yahushua , the apostles and the early church celebrated.
So many times I get, "Well, G-d tells the Jews to celebrate these feasts, but we're not Jewish," or "Isn't that pretty legalistic to follow The Law - Jesus set us free from the law?"
I always say, "Well, the New Testament tells us that those who believe in Yahushua are grafted into Yah's chosen people." And while we don't follow the letter of the law, because Yahushua fulfilled he Law, he still celebrated the Feasts of Yah, and therefore we celebrate them as well.
Tons of people ask me, "How can millions of well-meaning Christians observe Christmas and Easter if it doesn't please Yahushua?"
I don't have a politically correct answer to this question, but I always think of Matthew 15:9, "In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."
So, while I don't condemn anyone who worships in a way that differs from ours, I do often think of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron who in Leviticus 10
offered "strange fire" before Yah, attempting to enter in to Yah's presence in such a way that was not commanded by Yah.
They were consumed by Yah's fire of judgment.
To me, worshipping Yah through a festival he did not command in place of one that He did, is the same as Nadab and Abihu.