Happy-Easter round

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb on the third day, after his crucifixion. Easter is the fulfilled prophecy of the Messiah who would be persecuted, die for our sins, and rise on the third day. (Isaiah 53).
Remembering the resurrection of Jesus is a way
to renew daily hope for victory over sin.

We don’t know exactly when, but the Easter Bunny is first mentioned in German writings from the 1600’s. The Germans converted the rabbit image into ‘Oschter Haws’, a rabbit that was believed to lay a nest of colored eggs as gifts for good children. As Christianity spread, it was common for missionaries to practice good salesmanship by placing pagan ideas and rituals within the context of the Christian faith and turning pagan festivals into Christian holidays (e.g. Christmas). The ‘Eostre Festival’ occurred around the same time as the Christians’ celebration of Christ’s resurrection, so the two celebrations became one, and with the kind of blending that was going on among the cultures, it would seem only natural that the pagans would bring the hare and egg images with them into their new faith (the hare later became the more common rabbit).

Regardless how you celebrate Easter,
I sincerely wish you God’s Blessings
& a very Happy Easter!!

I came across this poem recently, it really has nothing to do with “Easter”, but if you celebrate Easter as a ‘blessing’, then I hope you see this poem as I do.
What a very different place this world would be if we practiced this each day.

Bless my eyes

To-All-Of-You-Happy-Easter-Gif

Aboard the Mayflower, 1620

The Pilgrim’s journey to America began in 1608 when they were forced to leave their native England for Holland. Their Puritan religious beliefs were in conflict with those of England’s Anglican Church. As the Anglican Church and the monarchy of King James I were one, the Puritan’s opposition could be interpreted as treason; consequently, they felt it prudent to leave the country.
By 1620, the Puritan’s experience in Holland had gone sour and they returned to England with the objective of making passage to America.
Problems plagued their departure from the start. Leaving Southampton on August 5 aboard two ships (the Mayflower and the Speedwell) they were forced back when the Speedwell began to leak. A second attempt was thwarted when the Speedwell again began to leak and again the hapless Pilgrims returned to port.
Finally, after abandoning the Speedwell, 102 Pilgrim passengers departed from Plymouth aboard the Mayflower on September 6. The intended destination was Virginia where they planned to start a colony. After a journey of 66 days they made landfall at Cape Cod near present-day Provincetown – more than 600 miles off course.

William Bradford was a prominent member of the expedition and would soon be elected governor of the Plymouth Colony. He kept a record of the journey and we join his story as the Mayflower sails out of Plymouth: (The Old English of the original account has been modernized)

And I may mention here a special work of God’s providence. There was a proud and very profane young man; one of the sea-men, of a lusty, able body, which made him the more haughty; he would always be condemning the poor people in their sickness, and cursing them daily with grievous execrations, and told them, that he hoped to help to cast half of them over board before they came to their journey’s end, and to make merry with what they had; and if he were by any gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly. But it pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard. Thus his curses fell on his own head; and it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him.
After they had enjoyed fair winds and weather, they encountered many times, crosswinds, and met with many fierce storms, with which the ship was thoroughly shaken, and her upper works made very leaky; and one of the main beams amidships was downed and cracked, which put them in some fear that the ship could not be able to perform the voyage. So some of the chiefs of the company, perceiving the mariners to fear the condition of the ship, as appeared by their mutterings, they entered into serious consultation with the master and other officers of the ship, to consider whether to return, rather than to cast themselves into desperate and inevitable peril. And truly there was great distraction and difference of opinion amongst the mariners themselves.

But in examining of all opinions, the master and others affirmed they knew the ship to be strong and firm underwater; and for the buckling of the main beam, there was a great iron screw the passengers brought out of Holland, which would raise the beam into its place; which was done. The carpenter and master affirmed that with a post put under it, set firm in the lower deck, and other ways bound, he would make it sufficient. And as for the decks and upper works they would caulk them as well as they could, and though with the working of the ship they would not long hold firm, they would be safe as long as they did not over-stress her with sails.

So they committed themselves to the will of God, and resolved to proceed. In many of these storms the winds were so fierce, and the seas so high, as they could not bear a knot of sail, but were forced to heave to [face into the wind to stop the ship], for many days together. And in one of them, as they thus lay hove to, in a mighty storm, a strapping young man (called John Howland) was, with a lurch of the ship thrown into the sea; but it pleased God that he caught hold of the ropes which hung overboard. He held his hold (though he was many feet under water) till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with a boathook and other means got into the ship again, and his life saved.

In all this voyage there died but one of the passengers, which was William Butten, a youth, servant to Samuel Fuller, when they drew near the coast.

…after long beating at sea they fell with that land which is called Cape Cod: they were not a little joyful! After some deliberation amongst themselves and with the master of the ship, they resolved to sail southward to find someplace about Hudson’s river for their habitation. But after they had sailed that course about half a day, they fell amongst dangerous shoals and roaring breakers, and resolved to bear up again for the Cape, and thought themselves happy to get out of those dangers before night overtook them.

Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof.”

“Aboard the Mayflower, 1620,” EyeWitness to History, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2004).

The above is a good reminder of the origin, but beyond that: Congress of the United States has proclaimed National Days of Thanksgiving to Almighty God many times throughout the following years. On November 1, 1777, by order of Congress, the first National Thanksgiving Proclamation was proclaimed, and signed by Henry Laurens, President of Continental Congress. The third Thursday of December, 1777 was thus officially set aside…”…for solemn thanksgiving and praise. That with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their Divine Benefactor;… and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them (their manifold sins) out of remembrance… That it may please Him… to take schools and seminaries of education, so necessary for cultivating the principles of true liberty, virtue and piety under His nurturing hand, and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth of ‘righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost’…”

Then again, on January 1, 1795, our first United States President, George Washington, wrote his famed National Thanksgiving Proclamation, in which he says that it is…”our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experienced…”

Many years later, on October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, by Act of Congress, an annual National Day of Thanksgiving “on the last Thursday of November, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” In this Thanksgiving proclamation, our 16th President says that it is…

“…announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…”

So it is that on Thanksgiving Day each year, Americans give thanks to Almighty God for all His blessings and mercies toward us throughout the year.

Beyond the history … I believe it is something different to everyone. It’s a day to be ‘Thankful” for everything we enjoy on a daily basis. Freedom, Family, Friends, Blessings, etc. Thanksgiving Day is a reminder to us all to
“Give Thanks” – in earnest.

I wish you a Blessed Thanksgiving Day!!!