Obama, Passover and Easter

Barack Obama devoted his Saturday weekly address to Passover and Easter greetings to Jews and Christians.

That was nice.

But listen to what he said.

“These are two very different holidays with their own very different traditions,” he explained. “But it seems fitting that we mark them both during the same week. For, in a larger sense, they are both moments of reflection and renewal. They are both occasions to think more deeply about the obligations we have to ourselves and the obligations we have to one another, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what faith we practice.”

What immediately struck me about this statement was Obama’s apparent misunderstanding about the two holidays being from very different traditions and the suggestion that they fall in the same week by random chance.

Does Obama, a self-professing Christian, not recognize the connection between them?

The Hebrew rabbi Yeshua, whose Greek name, Jesus, is more familiar to Christians, was crucified on Passover and rose from the dead three days later. That’s why Passover and His Resurrection are marked in such close proximity.

Easter is a very bad name for the Christian holiday, since its roots are in paganism. And, unfortunately, many of the traditional trappings of the holiday also have the pagan practices.

Yet, the celebration of the Resurrection of the Son of God is certainly the most important holiday on the calendars of Christians worldwide – even if they often mark it on the wrong day and date.

But Christians and Jews are both “people of the Book.” They don’t come from different faiths at all – or shouldn’t. The only thing truly separating them is the question of whether Yeshua was the long-awaited Hebrew messiah or not.

I believe He was. It is that faith that makes one a “Christian” – faith that Yeshua HaMessiach (or Jesus the Christ) was who He said He was, fulfilled the prophecies of His coming, atoned for our sins as the ultimate Passover lamb and rose from the dead three days later.

In fact, many Christians, myself included, celebrate the Passover and the Resurrection. After all, our Lord did. His apostles did. That’s just what they were doing at the “Last Supper.” And His apostles continued to observe the Passover and other biblical feasts long after the Resurrection.

Christianity wasn’t a new religion. It was a direct offspring of Judaism. For those of us Christians who take our Bible seriously, we don’t see any divide between the so-called Old Testament (Tanach) and the New Testament (B’rit Hadasha). It is one coherent book, with one consistent story about a God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

But there’s more spiritual illiteracy in Obama’s brief Easter-Passover greeting.

Neither one of these holidays is “a time for think more deeply about the obligations we have to ourselves.”

They are both holidays when we are instructed to focus on our obligations to God.

Now it’s not that I would expect Barack Obama to get this right. If he did, he wouldn’t be Barack Obama. He wouldn’t be looking for creative new ways to kill unborn and just-born babies. He wouldn’t be bankrupting the economy with policies that have failed every time they have been tried in the past. He wouldn’t be attacking the biblical value of private property. He wouldn’t be formulating policies that break the law of the land through their inherent unconstitutionality. He wouldn’t be promoting so-called “hate-crimes laws” to punish Americans for their deeply held core spiritual convictions. He wouldn’t be doing a thousand other things right now that run counter to the teachings of the Bible held in reverence by both Christians and Jews.

However, what is just a little surprising is the fact that such a statement could have been vetted through all of his many speechwriters and top aides – and not a one of them spotted any problem!

That should tell you something about the kind of people with whom Obama has surrounded himself.