This is an odd year for nearly every American church. This day, April 12, 2020, according to the way the Roman Catholic Church sets dates in ecclesiastical calendar, is Easter.
(Trivia question: How does the Roman Catholic Church calculate which Sunday is Easter Sunday in a given year?)
Easter Sunday is the day of the highest Sunday Show attendance in many American churches. And, it seems to me, that the number in attendance at a Sunday show still matters tons in the institutionalized church, even though it's fashionable these days to talk about the importance of other things that have little to do with the Show, such as Kingdom and discipleship.
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The historic truth, however, is that Easter Sunday meant next to nothing in the Church of God in its movement days, when expansion was taking place so quickly that the ministers of the movement couldn't keep up and when the Priesthood of all Believers was its reality.
From what I can tell from social media, your church is probably trying to make as much of Easter as possible, even in the face of Stay at Home orders from the governor of your state.
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One of my Characteristics of the CGGC Brand, which I developed years ago, Creeping High Church-ism, touches on the increasingly important role of liturgical Holy Days in the CGGC. It's included next, followed by several comments.
5. Creeping High Church-ism. In recent years, there has been a marked increase in the number of CGGC clergy who don clerical collars and who sport large crosses on chains around their necks. At the same time, there has been increasingly open, unashamed, proud and passionate advocacy of the high church's celebration of Lent, Holy Week and Advent from CGGC mountaintops. This has had the effect of elevating the clergy of the CGGC as a hierarchical priesthood and stealing, from all the members of the CGGC body, their role as a universal priesthood. It also focuses the CGGC on the church that is served by credentialed priests, not the Kingdom Jesus brings
Some observations:
1. To be fair to the current batch of holders of institutional authority in the CGGC, I think that pressure to become a high church church may have waned to a small degree in the last few years. It's still present, no doubt, but the momentum may have eased slightly.
2. As I have often said, the move, in the CGGC body, to be just another Protestant denomination came late-ish in the history of our body.
It may surprise many to realize that, at the time of its founding, Church of God people did not consider themselves to be Protestants.
In fact, in 1830, on the day that the Church of God Eldership was formed, John Winebrenner identified this body as not being Protestant.
Winebrenner, and his colleagues looked, longingly, for the coming of "another great Reformation." They saw the Church of God leading the way, or, at least, joining in a movement toward that other Reformation, when the ways of the Reformation of the 1500s would be surpassed, and set aside.
(The day that the Church of God lost its founding focus to settle in as being merely another small Protestant denomination has proved to be a dark day for us. In my opinion, nothing good has come out of it.)
3. By far, more important than early Church of God reference, the early disciples didn't practice anything remotely close to the celebration of Easter.
There is nothing like Easter in the New Testament!
The early disciples did have something, though. What they did have was wonderful and it connected organically to the gospel they preached.
The early disciples gathered on the first day of the week.
Every gathering of disciples was a celebration of the truth of the gospel in its entirety, not merely of the resurrection.
The very fact of the gathering on the first day of the week recalled the fact that Jesus arose on the first day of the week.
Acts 20 describes an early gathering. Luke says, "On the first day of the week, when we gathered together to break bread..."
The evidence is compelling that every early gathering of disciples was centered around the breaking of bread...what we sometimes call the Agape Meal.
Paul describes what would be the normal way in which the gathering developed, including the whole gospel truth: "on the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus took bread..." (1 Corinthians 11)
Early disciples didn't have a yearly liturgical calendar. No. The truth of the gospel throbbed in the rhythm of their community in every moment. Every gathering proclaimed the gospel that Paul articulates in the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15:
-That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
-That He was buried,
-That He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
-And, that He appeared...
4. In the CGGC today, there is tension between what we say we believe and what we actually do. This tension creates and sustains the cynicism that prevents us from having a vigorous, unified ministry, like the ministry we had in the days we were being blessed...the days that we were expanding so rapidly that the people who served the movement couldn't keep up with the Lord's blessing.
We say that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. We do Easter, which is not a biblical practice, but rather, a nonbiblical tradition.
We talk a glorious Bible-living talk we don't walk...and we decay and we decline.
Early disciples didn't do Easter. What they did do meant so much more.
Early Church of God people didn't make a big deal of Easter because the teachings of the Word literally ruled what they did.
There's nothing like Easter in the New Testament. For that reason, Church of God people didn't do Easter,...
...and, they were blessed.
Oh, for those early days...
...not early Church of God days,...
...early church days.
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