by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB
Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SATURDAY, April 3, 1993 TAG: 9304050248 SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
FOR ADVENTISTS, JUST ANOTHER SUNDAY
Easter Sunday won't be any different at the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Memorial Avenue from any other Sunday.That is, the building will be empty and the congregation at home.
Seventh-day Adventists keep the Sabbath on Saturday and will have acknowledged the death and Resurrection of Christ at services on the day before Easter.
There will have been no Palm Sunday service, no Maundy Thursday commemoration of the Last Supper, no Good Friday mourning.
"As we have studied and researched the traditions" associated with the observance of Easter, said Jim Richards, Seventh-day Adventists have concluded that most originated from "pagan" practices of ancient Rome.
Richards, pastor of the Memorial Avenue congregation, said Adventists are very deliberately Protestant. "I don't want there to be any misunderstanding," he said. "There is no tension between individual Adventists and Roman Catholics."
The denomination nonetheless specifically has rejected as unbiblical many of the traditions and rituals it considers to have begun with early Catholicism, he said.
Among those is the name "Easter" and the associations with bunnies and eggs - although some Adventists might have egg hunts that don't refer to Easter, he said.
The Seventh-day Adventists' rejection of the origins of some Christian holidays may most strongly be felt at Christmas.
In addition to refusing to celebrate what they believe was originally a pagan religious festival, many Adventists believe Jesus' birth was more likely to have occurred in the fall than in winter, Richards said.
Seventh-day Adventists do concur with other Christians in accepting the biblical account of the Resurrection as having occurred on a Sunday after Passover.
What they object to is the wholesale shift of the day of worship from the last day of the week - the Sabbath - to the first Sunday, Richards said.
That happened early on in the Christian church, but Adventists contend there was "no basis biblically for changing that which God had made holy."
So the Sunday celebration of the Resurrection by others gets at the "very foundation of our distinctiveness," he said. The Resurrection is celebrated 52 weeks a year, not just at the season when the original event is reported to have occurred.
That doesn't mean the denomination rejects the historical accuracy of the biblical account of the week before Jesus' Resurrection.
"We do have the ordinance of the Lord's Supper on a regular basis," Richards said, usually four times a year. It is open to all Christians.
The event also may be observed on special occasions, such as the opening of a new church or the initiation of a new program. At times when a congregation has felt led to conduct a fast for a special purpose, Richards said, such as during a period of prayer for those starving in Somalia, the Lord's Supper may be observed to close the fast.
What is not commonly known, Richards said, is that the Lord's Supper is regularly preceded in Seventh-day Adventist churches by what is known as the "ordinance of humility" - the washing of each other's feet.
Men and women are separated for the ordinance, imitating Jesus' service to his disciples on the night of the Last Supper.
"It adds a beautiful, beautiful dimension" to the celebration of the Lord's Supper, Richards said.
While churches don't conduct services specifically commemorating each of the events in the week before the Crucifixion, the events are in the members' minds, Richards said.
This year there will be a special drama and music presentation during services on the Saturday before Easter at the Memorial Avenue church. It will recall the events between the time of Jesus' prayers and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemene to the Resurrection.