SimpleMan has left a new comment on your post "WELS Easter Egg Hunts - Celebrating the Pagan Fert...":
Can it be just a fun thing to do for the kids of the church and neighborhood?
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AC V has left a new comment on your post "WELS Easter Egg Hunts - Celebrating the Pagan Fert...":
"Can it be just a fun thing to do for the kids of the church and neighborhood?"
Sure, just don't let it overshadow (to borrow a phrase) the reason for the season or pretend that it's a "community service" when really it's a ruse to get people to join your church.
What Mollie Ziegler Hemingway said:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/04/its-not-easter-yet-its-holy-week/
Mark and I were bursting with pride as our little 2-year-old joined her 4-year-old sister and the rest of the Immanuel Lutheran choir in singing "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna" this past Sunday. Our kids loved the service and the palms they were given. They've been playing with them and "decorating" with them all week.
Apparently there was something we didn't know about the 2,000-year-old tradition of waving palm branches in commemoration of Jesus' ride into Jerusalem, though. Thankfully, modern-day parents have figured it out: Palm Sunday is too dangerous for our fragile children in need of constant protection. Palms are being replaced with green paper in the shape of palm fronds.
You know what else is harming our children? "Aggressive parents" who forced the cancellation of a Colorado town's Easter Egg hunt. Apparently they were so out of control last year -- hopping over rope lines to secure eggs for their children -- that the town simply decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
Which reminds me of my final complaint about the current War on Easter. For liturgical Christians, Easter begins on Easter and lasts for seven full weeks. This season includes celebrations of Jesus' resurrection and ascension.
The week preceding Easter, which we're in now, is Holy Week. It includes the most solemn days of the Christian liturgical calendar, the Triduum. And prior to Holy Week is the season of Lent, a time of penitence, prayer and fasting.
Where am I going with all this? Well, our culture seems to have limited ability to understand that Easter egg hunts should not be taking place, as they increasingly do all over the country, during Lent or the Triduum. You have seven full weeks of Easter to hold as many Easter egg hunts and rolls as you want. There is no need to jump the gun and start celebrating Easter before Easter happens. Particularly considering the solemnity and fasting of the days prior to Easter.
One notable exception to this trend? You may be surprised: The White House. At least during the Obama presidency, the White House Easter Egg Roll has always taken place after the first day of Easter.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/04/its-not-easter-yet-its-holy-week/#ixzz1rJY9qOoi
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GJ - The Billy Graham Crusade once admitted they used all kinds of gimmicks to get people to attend their meetings. Once they had a famous runner circling the stadium, so the audience's necks craned around and around. One of them said, "We were pretty desperate."
Mollie makes a good point about the grossness of an Easter Egg Hunt during Lent itself. I saw many WELS events dated March 31st, during Lent, one day before Palm Sunday. Today, delaying the hunt until Easter should be considered High Church Panourgia, the secret things of disgrace done with the liturgical calendar in mind.
The whole idea reeks of entertainment evangelism, because the idea is to draw children in through "fun" and then apply the Word. Soon the service of Word and Sacrament has to be fun and lacking the Sacraments. And then the sermon has to be fun, and relevant, and borrowed directly from Craig Groeschel, an embarrassment to Christianity.
How far can this go? The LCMS pastor had a video on the Net, "Because Christmas Is Not Your Birthday," showing an apparently drunk or stoned Jesus (the pastor) goofing off in ways that would get the hippest Babtist pastor run out of town.
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AC V has left a new comment on your post "J. P. Meyer Warned Against Committing Secret Thing...":
First 7:30 minutes speaks to this issue:
Have Easter and Passover lost their true meaning?
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1550804122001/have-easter-and-passover-lost-their-true-meaning
