OJONG TECH SOLUTION

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.-Abdul Kalam. 'Good Night'

HAPPY EASTER 2014

HAPPY EASTER

2014

Compiled by

Emmanuel Ojong

MEMBER: FINAL HARVEST EVANGELICAL MISSION

Church Pastor, School Evangelist, Web Master, Re-writer, Script Editor, Script Writer

+2348030813847

NOTE; AMERICAN ENGLISH

HISTORICAL/BIBLICAL BACKGROUND OF “EASTER”

 (es'-ter) (‎pascha‎, from Aramaic ‎paccha° ‎and Hebrew ‎pecach‎, the Passover festival): The English word comes from the Anglo-Saxon Eastre or Estera, a Teutonic goddess to who sacrifice was offered in April, so the name was transferred to the paschal feast. The word does not properly occur in Scripture, although the King James Version has it in Acts 12:4 where it stands for Passover, as it is rightly rendered in the Revised Version (British and American). There is no trace of Easter celebration in the New Testament, though some would see an intimation of it in 1 Cor 5:7. The Jewish Christians in the early church continued to celebrate the Passover, regarding Christ as the true paschal lamb, and this naturally passed over into a commemoration of the death and resurrection of Our Lord, or an Easter feast. This was preceded by a fast, which was considered by one party as ending at the hour of the crucifixion, i.e. at 3 o'clock on Friday, by another as continuing until the hour of the resurrection before dawn on Easter morning.

Differences arose as to the time of the Easter celebration, the Jewish Christians naturally fixing it at the time of the Passover feast which was regulated by the paschal moon. According to this reckoning it began on the evening of the 14th day of the moon of the month of ‎Nican ‎without regard to the day of the week, while the gentile Christians identified it with the first day of the week, i.e. the Sunday of the resurrection, irrespective of the day of the month. This latter practice finally prevailed in the church, and those who followed the other reckoning were stigmatized as heretics. But differences arose as to the proper Sunday for the Easter celebration which led to long and bitter controversies. The Council of Nice, 325 A.D., decreed that it should be on Sunday, but did not fix the particular Sunday. It was left to the bishop of Alexandria to determine, since that city was regarded as the authority in astronomical matters and he was to communicate the result of his determination to the other bishops.

But this was not satisfactory, especially to the western churches, and a definite rule for the determination of Easter was needed. By some it was kept as early as March 21, and by others as late as April 25, and others followed dates between. The rule was finally adopted, in the 7th century, to celebrate Easter on the Sunday following the 14th day of the calendar moon which comes on, or after, the vernal equinox which was fixed for March 21. This is not always the astronomical moon, but near enough for practical purposes, and is determined without astronomical calculation by certain intricate rules adopted by ecclesiastical authority. These rules involve the Dominical Letters, or the first seven of the alphabet, representing the days of the week, a standing for the first day of the year and the one on which Sunday falls being called the Dominical for that year. There are also involved the Golden Numbers and the Epacts, the first being the numbers from 1 to 19, the cycle of the moon when its phases recur on the same days of the year, the first of the cycle being that in which the new moon falls on January 1. The Epacts indicate the moon's age at the beginning of each year. Easter was thus fixed by these rules, but another difficulty arose when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582, the difference between it and the Julian being then 10 days. This of course affected the determination of Easter, and its celebration by the Greek Church, which has never admitted the Gregorian calendar, occurs usually at a different time from that followed by the western churches. This difference may be as much as five weeks and it may occur as late as April 30, while in the West it cannot occur later than April 25 nor earlier than March 22. Occasionally the two come together but this is rare, since the difference between the two calendars is now 13 days. The Easter feast has been and still is regarded as the greatest in the Christian church, since it commemorates the most important event in the life of its Founder.

H. PORTER

THE BENEFITS OF EASTER

1.    Our justification. He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom 4:25). When God released his Son from the bonds of death, into which he had been thrown on account of our debts, he is to be viewed as having given him a discharge, and as having declared by that very deed, that his justice was now satisfied to the last farthing [penny]. When Christ was raised up, he was thus “justified in the Spirit” (1 Tim 3:16). But if he was thus justified, we must at the same time have been justified in him.

2.    Our sanctification. “Ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12). Hence believers are said to be “risen with Christ,” that is, in a spiritual sense (Col 3:1); and to be “planted together with him in the likeness of his resurrection, that, as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so they also should walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4, 5). This is “the power of the resurrection” (Phil 3:10) of which Paul speaks. Christ, when he came forth from the earth, was made, not merely like the first Adam, “a living soul — but a quickening spirit” (1 Cor 15:45). He received life, not only for himself, but also for his people; and not merely that he might live with the Father in heaven, but also that he might live by the Spirit in believers (Gal 2:20)….While believers are “members of his body” (Eph 5:30), they are also “one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17); and he is “our Life” (Col 3:4).

3.    Our glorification in a blessed resurrection. This is inferred by the Apostle from the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor 15:12; 1 Thess 4:14): and the reasoning is just; for he is our first-born Brother, and we are “joint-heirs with him” (Rom 8:17). If he then received life and immortality by a hereditary title from the Father, we too, in our place and order, must be partakers of the same inheritance; that, as he is “the beginning, the first-born from the dead” (Col 1:18), he may be so “among many brethren” (Rom 8:29). “Christ the first-fruits; afterwards, they that are Christ’s, at his coming” (1 Cor 15:23). Besides, Christ is our Head, we are his members; he would not therefore reckon himself entirely alive, unless we also were alive with him. Hence he teaches us to reason from his life to our own: “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). Job had long before argued in the same manner (Job 19:25-27). Christ, too, is the second Adam, from whom life is no less certainly derived to those that are his, than death from the first Adam to all: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). In fine, since the same Spirit, by whom God raised up Jesus from the dead, dwells in us, what reason can be assigned, why he should not perform the same work in us? “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom 8:11)….And he will accomplish the same work in believers, first by sanctifying their souls, that is by raising them to spiritual life, and hereafter their bodies, by raising them to a glorious life; for these also, according to their measure, were the subjects of sanctification.

It were easy to improve [i.e. explore and apply] these topics for Consolation; and, in the meantime, to inculcate assiduously, that none can justly assure himself of the privilege of a blessed justification, or of a glorious resurrection, arising from the resurrection of Christ, unless he also experience its power to communicate the vigor (or potency) of the spiritual life.