Clash of Purim and ‘Easter' in Holy City

By Christine Darg

For nearly two decades I’ve been encouraging the churches to get with God’s program by commemorating Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Resurrection Suday during Passover, when God Himself actually planned for these historic, sacred and profoundly prophetic events actually to occur!

This week’s clash of the traditional church’s “Easter” and Purim in Jerusalem’s sacred Old City helps to justify my arguments.

Purim is a fun Jewish holiday when the Jews let down their hair despite living under the gun. Not just the children, but many adults unabashedly wear costumes out onto the streets for a couple of days to celebrate their victory over genocide.

Never has the celebration been more relevant than now when modern-day Persia’s Hamans (Iran) vow to destroy Israel’s Esthers and Mordechais.

I love the holy sounds of the religious Jews singing all night long as they dance down to the Western Wall during their religious festivals.

Such joy interestingly does not disturb my sleep!

However, tragically, Purim in the sacred Old City seems to be devolving into a pagan holiday.

I often say a visit to the Holy Land helps believers to understand the Bible, but the so-called “Psychedelic Purim Rave” at the Jaffa Gate was, frankly, vulgar and naively inconsiderate of the holy nature of Jerusalem.

Last night’s all-night disco rave with its merciless jungle beat reverberating from the walls of the ancient Citadel fortress gave Exodus 32 a touch of reality for the tourists and Christians Arabs trying to sleep in the neighborhood:

When Joshua heard the boisterous noise of the people shouting below them, he exclaimed to Moses, “It sounds like war in the camp!” But Moses replied, “No. . . I hear the sound of a celebration.”

If he were alive, Cecil B. DeMille could have used this outrageous 11-hour sound track for his orgy scene around the Golden Calf.

Here’s the description of the all-night Psychedelic Purim Rave from the Tower of David website (underlined words are mine):

“This year we are coming back to the beautiful fortifications of the ancient citadel with two monstrous sound systems, 11 hours of amazing music and art performances made by the brightest minds around. Get your silver sequined tights and join us to a Psychedelic Middle Eastern journey on a camel that went mad.”

At one point a Christian Arab restaurant played very loudly the mournful sounds of the Lebanese iconic singer Fairouz to remember what Jesus accomplished on Maundy Thursday, but there was no competition with the maximum decibels emanating from the drug culture jungle drums across the street.

If Israelis need an annual catharsis from hate, Israel’s economy also needs tourists!

One Swedish tourist complained in an email to the municipality (and also copied to the Ministry of Tourism):

“We support Israel with our visits, and we do also like the Jewish festivals, but we hope that the extremely noisy Purim celebrations will not stop tourists to come and stay in the surrounding hotels.”

There’s a Talmudic tradition during Purim that the Jews are supposed to get drunk. The idea is that they’ll get so drunk that they’ll forget their sorrows. But the Bible doesn’t teach that. The Bible allows strong drink for a condemned man.

Along with so many other terrorist incidents, in 2001 an Arab driver plowed a bus into a group of soldiers at a bus stop. A Christian friend went to the funerals at Mount Herzl. A soldier asked my friend, “Why did you go to the funeral?” “So we can remember,” my friend answered, and then asked the soldier, “Why do you go to the disco on a Friday night?”

“So we can forget,” the soldier said, “So we can forget.”

Maranatha!

Meanwhile, if you want to be part of the real celebration of the Passion events, join us 22-27 April 2016 here in Jerusalem.

Many believers are aware that the name “Easter” actually originates with the pagan worship of the fertility goddess Ishtar that was traditionally observed at the time of the vernal equinox, nominally about March 21 or 22.

Traditional pagan fertility symbols of both rabbits and eggs continue to be associated with this holiday.

Our theme for our 19th Passover Convocation is justified by this week’s ‘Easter’/Purim clash: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell–even together!” (Psalm )

Most reasonably informed Christians are well aware that many of the traditions that surround the Christmas and Resurrection holidays have pagan origins with very little correlation to the actual events in the Bible. However, as Bible teacher Chuck Missler has written, most of us are surprised when we discover that some of what we have been taught about “Easter” is not erroneous, but deliberate error!

The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which actually occurred on the Jewish Passover and is clearly defined in the Scriptures as the 14th of Nisan.

Acts 12: 4 in the King James Bible wrongly translates the text as “Easter,” but other versions translate the verse correctly saying “Passover.”

To register for our Passover convocation, click this link.