7R. Sunday, Fasting and Saints Days

Justin used the name "Sunday" for the day for Christians to worship together. This name, "Day of the Sun", came from nature worship, but it was easy to link with Christian ideas. Christ is the "Sun of righteousness" (Malachi 4.2), and "the Light of the world" (John 9.5). Justin also thought of Sunday as the first day of Creation, when God said, "Let there be light", and the day when Jesus rose from the dead. In the New Testament we can see that for Christians this day was already beginning to take the place of the Sabbath (Saturday) of the Jews (Acts 20.7; 1 Cororinthians16.2; Revelation 1.10). This last Scripture reference gives the day its true name, the Lord's Day.(2)

Fasting

Strict Jews fasted twice in the week (Luke 18.12), on Monday and Thursday. By the year A.D. 100, Christians also fasted twice, but had changed the days to Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday they remembered the Betrayal of Jesus (Mark 14.10), and on Friday His Crucifixion (Mark 15.24, 25). But these events happened, not only on certain days of the week, but at a special time of the year, about the time of the Jewish Passover on the "14th of the month Nisan", which means the first full moon in spring. This is the festival which commemorates the escape of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. So Christians in Asia Minor celebrated Easter on the same day as the Jewish Passover. For Jews, the Passover is a time for family gatherings. They wish each other "a happy Passover", as Christians wish "a merry Christmas." Christians, however, began their "14th Nisan" with a solemn fast, remembering the Crucifixion, and ended that same day with joyful Eucharist, remembering the Resurrection.(2)

Easter Day

This custom was unknown in the west, when Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in A.D. 154 and tried to persuade the Bishop of Rome that it was a custom handed down by the Apostles. A little later we find Easter being observed in Alexandria and in Rome on the Sunday following the Jewish Passover. It was observed on Sunday because that day of the week was the Resurrection day, and it seemed wrong that the yearly festival should be on any other day but Sunday. So Easter, Christianity's oldest and greatest festival, came to be fixed for the first Sunday after the spring full moon, with the previous Friday (now called Good Friday) as the fast commemorating the Crucifixion.(2)

Saints Days

As early as A.D. 156 a festival of a different kind was added to the Christian Year, a Saint's Day. In that year the Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp, had been burned to death by the Roman authorities for refusing to deny Christ saying: "Eighty-six years I have served him. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" His friends, writing an account of Polycarp's martyrdom, added these words about his grave: "There we shall gather, with joy and gladness, to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom."

Questions for Discussion

1. How is Sun-day true to its roots in your Christian Community?

2. Why fast?

3. What is so special about martyrdom?

Bibliography

"You are fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household." Ephesians 2.19

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