Remove the prelude from Easter

ROBERT DASH

EASTER IS A time of great reflection and remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus.

The retracing of the journey of Jesus to the cross puts the church into a mode of confession and repentance and the forgiveness of God which the church needs today to experience revival.

This journey, for the Evangelicals in Trinidad, is called Holy Week.

It is a week that involves nightly services and culminates with an early Good Friday morning service and an early Easter Sunday morning service. Easter Sunday is also called Resurrection Sunday.

It is a week that is steeped in Hebrew history which speaks of the “Passover lamb” and the deliverance of the Hebrew people by the hand of God under the leadership of Moses.

Jesus, in this week, came and fulfilled the Passover lamb and in doing this he ushered in the new covenant of grace. He also instituted the Lord’s Supper.

This week points the church to holiness. However, this week needs to be preserved. For there is a prelude to this Holy Week that is sanctioned by those who are on the opposing side of the Evangelicals.

This prelude is damaging the witness of the church.

This prelude reveals the lowest level that the carnal man can reach. The Carnival bacchanal of Trinidad, which is called the “greatest show on earth,” is in this prelude. What a shame to call this “the greatest show on earth.”

In this prelude, Satan is able to recruit a cross-section of the population to do his dirty work. There is live pornography on the streets and the police turn their back on it. There are many calls from society and the Evangelicals for this to be stopped but it goes on unabated.

These calls extend to members of the sanctioning church. One member expressed disgust, “It is time a law is passed not only for the near nakedness, but also for the disgusting animal behaviour.

That is why I do not even look at Carnival on television, because that is what it is now, carnal behaviour, and come Ash Wednesday they are very pious.”

This Carnival nudity is out of control and requires a total rejection from the church, but those who were on the opposing side of the 16th-century church revolution continue to sanction Carnival. This sanction is damaging the moral fabric of the Trinidad society. The people are encouraged to be involved in revelry.

They are then led to Ash Wednesday service of confession and repentance. Then they enter into 40 days of Lent, where they refrain from meat and eat only fish. And they reference Lent to the 40 days of fasting, praying and temptation that Jesus went through after his baptism? What a deception!

They then share in Easter. This is an annual routine of the church. It is an evil cycle. There is no spiritual growth. For every year one goes through the same motion.

Why is this unbiblical prelude allowed to continue? It is doing too much damage to our nation. It is time to stop this Carnival. A high official of the sanctioning church seems embarrassed in 2024 at the impact that Carnival is having on the moral fabric of Trinidad. He called upon his “flock” to “maintain the moral order” in Carnival. What a presumptuous statement. For there is no morality in Carnival.

Robert Dash is a Baptist pastor.