Uncovering the Church’s Break from God’s Calendar and Its Redemption Story
With the approach of Passover and Easter, I am again reminded of the tensions caused by how the world and the church has lost track of time and the misplaced traditions that have set aside God's plan for celebration and worship. As I see it, this movement began at the Council of Nicaea when Constantine and the Bishops intentionally established the calendric substitution of Easter over Passover, obscuring salvation history beginning in Egypt and abridging it to a sudden work of salvation in Yeshua, seeming to eradicate all of the previous history rather than grow from it. The discontinuity has led us to celebrations riddled with the infusion of symbols adopted from the world's cultic practices while completely neglecting the honoring God's established order: Exodus leading to Jesus. Jesus returning, not just Israel, but the entire world to its creator.
Amidst all this, Shabbat has stood as a reminder of God as a sanctuary in time, yet it, too, has been largely discarded. More on this later.
The Divine Foundation of Time
Exodus 12:2 establishes the divine cornerstone of the Biblical reckoning of time.
“Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.” (Exodus 12:1–2, NASB95)
It inaugurates God's sacred calendar with the new moon as His appointed sign, marking both initiation and continual renewal of the annual cycle of His appointed feasts. Here, God synchronizes His people to this time, uniting them in a shared rhythm of observance and worship.
As believers, we navigate a complex interplay of temporal frameworks. God established a sacred calendar in Exodus 12:2, aligning time with His redemptive acts, notably Israel's deliverance from Egypt. This divine system, rooted in a delicate dance of solar and lunar cycles, ordains the timing of His appointed feasts and holy convocations (seasons, moedim, appointed times, Genesis 1:14).
In contrast, the modern Gregorian calendar, a solar-based system instituted in 1582, operates independently of these sacred events. Its widespread adoption has supplanted the biblical reckoning of time, introducing new months and seasons detached from the rhythm God ordained. This shift fosters confusion in understanding historical biblical events and distracts from the observance of God's appointed times, leading to a disconnection from the spiritual heritage embedded in His divine calendar.
The Fracturing of Sacred Time
As I explored in a previous article "Time and the Calendar Disconnect: Have We Lost Track of Time?", "When God delivered Israel from Egypt, He established a new beginning for His people. This wasn't merely a historical event but a cosmological reordering. Time itself was recalibrated to align with God's redemptive activity." The disconnect between modern calendars and God's ordained accounting of time represents more than a mere technical difference—it signifies a profound spiritual rupture.
The modern calendar, with its mechanistic division of time, has severed our connection to the sacred rhythms established by God. We now mark days, months, and years divorced from their biblical significance. This severance wasn't accidental but deliberate: led by early church councils that sought to distance Christianity from its Jewish roots.
As noted in "The Apocalyptic Nature of Time", "Time itself carries apocalyptic significance—revealing God's purposes and unveiling His redemptive plan in history." When we discard God's calendar, we lose sight of how His appointed times reveal the unfolding narrative of redemption. Each feast, each Sabbath, each new moon serves as a moment of revelation, unveiling another facet of God's character and intention for creation and marking progress toward the final redemption.
The Nicaean Rupture
The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE represents perhaps the most consequential moment in this calendric substitution. Here, church leaders deliberately divorced Easter from Passover, severing the connection between Christ's redemptive work and its foreshadowing in Israel's deliverance from Egypt. This wasn't merely a scheduling adjustment but a theological statement—a declaration that the church had supplanted Israel, treating the old covenant as a closed chapter rather than as a vessel being filled, clarified, and embodied anew in the new covenant.
This decision created what I've described as a "chronological discontinuity" in my examination of "The First Sentence Perspective", where I noted that "The biblical narrative presents a continuous story, unfolding from creation to new creation. When we fragment this narrative, extracting isolated events from their historical context, we distort God's redemptive timeline." By extracting Jesus from the historical context of Israel's story, the church created an artificial rupture in salvation history.
The consequences of this rupture remain evident today. Easter celebrations today reflect a gradual historical blending of traditions, where elements with diverse origins have been incorporated over centuries. No longer do we focus on the empty tomb alone. Symbols such as eggs and rabbits, which carried significance in pre-Christian spring fertility celebrations, have been gradually reinterpreted through a Christian lens. Similarly, while the English term 'Easter' may have etymological connections to Germanic spring festivals, the celebration itself was an attempt to commemorate the resurrection within the context of existing cultural frameworks. This process of cultural adaptation, while making Christianity more accessible to converts, has inadvertently distanced many believers from the rich Passover symbolism that formed the original context of Christ's death and resurrection. What began as contextualization evolved into disconnection, as many Christians lost awareness of how deeply the resurrection narrative is embedded in the Passover story and God's appointed times established in Scripture. Meanwhile, the rich symbolism God ordained in Passover—symbolism that points directly to Christ's redemptive work—is overlooked by most Christians.
Living Between Calendars
Today's believers find themselves caught between competing calendric systems—between God's ordained time and secular time, between sacred rhythms and commercial schedules. As I wrote above, "We who are believers find ourselves in a mixture of times. Not only are there God's time and the annual time of the created cycle, there is the modern calendar which has intentionally replaced the sacred calendar of Exodus 12:2."
This tension manifests most acutely in our struggle to honor Sabbath in a culture that recognizes no sacred pause. The biblical Sabbath stands as what Abraham Joshua Heschel called "a sanctuary in time," a weekly reminder that our time belongs ultimately to God. Yet in our 24/7 world, with its ceaseless demands and distractions, Sabbath observance has become countercultural. This is not merely the result of secular encroachment, but a quiet capitulation by those of us who profess allegiance to God's ways—trading sacred rhythms for cultural currents.
The replacement of God's calendar affects not only our observance of appointed times but also our understanding of biblical events. As I observed in Time and the Calendar Disconnect, "Without a proper understanding of the biblical calendar, we misplace events chronologically, misunderstand their significance, and miss the divine patterns embedded in Scripture's timeline." How can we fully grasp the timing and meaning of Jesus's death and resurrection, for instance, without understanding the Passover context in which these events unfolded?
Reclaiming Sacred Time
The path forward isn't abandoning modern calendars entirely—they serve practical purposes in our global world. Rather, it involves recovering the spiritual significance of God's appointed times alongside our use of conventional calendars. As believers, we can live "between times," honoring both our secular responsibilities and God's sacred rhythm.
This recovery begins with recognition. We must acknowledge, as I wrote in The Apocalyptic Nature of Time, that "the biblical calendar reveals God's character through cyclical remembrance of His mighty acts." Each feast serves as a memorial of past redemption and an anticipation of future restoration.
Practically, this means learning about and observing biblical feasts such as Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, even while maintaining awareness of the conventional calendar. It means reclaiming Sabbath rest as a weekly practice, setting aside a day for worship, rest, and celebration amidst our busy schedules. It means seeing time itself as a divine gift, to be stewarded for God's glory rather than consumed by productivity or entertainment.
Transcending Temporal Confusion
As Passover and Easter approach, we have an opportunity to transcend the temporal confusion that has characterized much of Christian history. Rather than seeing these observances as competing alternatives, we can recognize their intrinsic connection—Easter, or better, Resurrection Sunday, as the extension of Passover promise for the entire world, Christ as the ultimate Passover lamb.
By recovering the biblical timeline, we restore continuity to salvation history. We recognize, as I've emphasized, that Jesus returns, not just Israel, but the entire world to its creator. The redemptive work that began with Israel's exodus from Egypt finds its culmination in Christ's resurrection, which offers exodus from sin and death to all humanity.
In this recovery, we find not legalism but liberation—freedom from artificial divisions between "Jewish" and "Christian" time, between "Old Testament" and "New Testament" theology. We discover instead the beautiful coherence of God's redemptive plan, unfolding across centuries according to His perfect timing.
The tension between calendars need not lead to confusion. Instead, it can prompt us to deeper engagement with God's Word, greater appreciation for His appointed times, and more faithful stewardship of the time He has given us. In honoring both God's sacred rhythm and our practical responsibilities, we bear witness to the Lord of time Himself, who works in history to accomplish His eternal purposes.
When we honor the beginning, we understand the end. This is the First-Sentence Perspective.
