April 18, 2017: Second Advent Easter Observed
PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling
Pannuches Meal Rite
Bishop Gene Savoy Jr performing Pannuches Meal Rite PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling
The 107th Pannuches Meal Rite was held Saturday, March 4, 2017 at 6:00 PM. Jubilee Sunrise Divine Service was held in Sanctuary the following morning.
Second Advent Easter (April 18)
On Tuesday April 18, 2017, a concelebrated Sunrise Divine Service was performed at the Cathedral Church of the Americas. A light breakfast was served at the Sanctuary Chapter House following the service.
April 18 is celebrated as True Easter in the Second Advent Church in a twofold manner: first, we commemorate the spiritual resurrection of Jesus on this date in keeping with the solar calendar, which, unlike the lunar calendar used by First Dispensation churches, is fixed; second, we remember the Revelations received in Sanctuary on this date in 1982, an event that served to confirm the importance of this date in the Sacred Calendar of the Church. Revelations received on this date are recorded in The Book of God’s Revelation.
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On April 18, 1982, The Church received a revelation confirming the Second Appearance of God when the Angel of the Lord in the form of Jesus manifested in visible form at the Sanctuary of Revelation and entrusted The Church with the keys to open the Seals of the Book of Revelation. The date of Second Advent Easter was established as part of the Sacred Calendar following the series of Revelations that The Man received on that day as he climbed the Seven Mountains of Metal.
It is recorded in The Book of God’s Revelation that, while on the fifth mountain, the Mountain of Bronze, The Man was exhorted to instruct the Righteous and the Ordained Ministers in the Sacred Calendar of God’s Word, to let them be knowledgeable in the Days of His Appearances and Blessings, and to let them gather together at the prescribed times so their spirits might be anointed by God’s Comfort and strengthened by His Consolation. Thus Second Advent Easter has a unique and sacred significance to members of the Second Advent Church.
On that day in 1982, while The Man stood on the summit of the Mountain of Iron in the Sanctuary of Revelation, an Angel of the Lord appeared to The Man out of the midst of the Four Luminaries, identified Himself as Jesus and spoke:
All prophecies having been fulfilled, Judgement is now upon the world of the living. The Heavens declare the glory of God in His Final Appearance. He has established His Tabernacle in The Sun whose rays enlighten the Soul of the Righteous, putting them on The Way of holiness.
The blind are made to see His Image. The deaf are made to hear His Word. The dead are made to rise at His Coming. Every Spirit is judged before The Creator. Freedom to err is abolished. The wicked find no sanctuary in Darkness, for it is lit and evil is exposed.
As foretold by The Father in Heaven who revealed understanding of future events to His prophets in visions, the fruit of the vine is abundant. All may drink anew the dew for a blessing as drops from the honeycomb. God pours out His Holy Spirit as from a fountain flowing from a rock over desolate wastes. By the perfection of His Light, God breathes His Word a final time. His utterings bring forth a New Creation. He reveals the Image of His Countenance.
God has opened the gates of the Heavenly Temple. The altar is of Light fashioned by the luster of His Presence on the Throne of His Glory. The tabernacle is lit by the sun, and the Bread of Life is placed thereupon. The Heavens are rolled up like a scroll inscribed with His Statutes and Judgements. His Law is written on the Tablets of Light borne by the Ark of His New Covenant as a rainbow.
I ministered to Israel, to a generation unworthy of redemption, and I was scourged by faithless men. I, a man of sorrows who bore the grief of the people turned to their own ways, did intercede for the transgressors, sacrificing myself not to God but to my people out of my love for them. But Israel understood not my preordained presence, which was my destiny from birth as God’s Appointed One. . . .
Moses and the prophets of the remnant of True Israel spoke of my coming to redeem the people. With the rejection of me, the Light went out from the land. But the precious remnant, shortlived, awaited the Advent of God and the brightness of His Second Coming.
The Day of The Lord is near. He appears out of the Darkness to enlighten the whole Creation with His Image and to judge it with His Word. It is meet that He manifest His Image before His full coming and prepare the Creation with His Word. For I declare unto you that when He comes to restore the creation and reveals Himself, nothing shall live save His Light and those Souls reborn of that Light. . . .
Further Revelations received by The Man on April 18, 1986, are recorded with commentary in The Book of God’s Revelation.
In the Second Advent Church, Easter is a fixed date in the Sacred Calendar. The Church celebrates true Easter each year on April 18. On this day The Church honors both the day of Jesus’ Resurrection and the day of Jesus’ Revelations and Appearance at the Sanctuary.
It is known that the Eastern Church had celebrated Easter every year on April 16, the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, also known as Passover. The day of the crucifixion, a Friday, and the 14th day of Nisan, was recognized as the beginning of the 15th of Nisan. Jesus was resurrected on the following day, Sunday the 16th.
The Church, holding to the solar calendar of the Essaei, maintains that the date of Easter cannot be movable in present-day time reckoning, as it is under the lunar calendar (determined as the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring). The fixed Sacred Calendar of the Second Advent ministry recognizes that an annual alignment of the earth and sun, planets, stars, and the cosmos in general, makes this day cosmically important.
Because the manifestation in Sanctuary took place on April 18, 1982, The Church considers this day to be the day in alignment with the original date of the Resurrection. For these reasons The Church keeps this day sacred.
The Gospel message records Jesus as saying, “For the son of man shall come in the glory of the Father with His Angels; and then He shall regard every person according to his works.” It was written by prophets of former times that God would send His messenger to prepare the way of God’s Second Coming, as promised to Adam and Eve, and come as a fire to refine the world. The Old Testament presents the prophecy of Malachi: “For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, but unto you that love me, shall the Sun of Righteousness appear with healing in its rays, and ye that do righteously shall grow up as a new people of God. And I shall spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.”
With God’s manifestation in the Sun of Righteousness on February 2, 1962, and the Appearance of Jesus on April 18, 1982, the Second Advent of God and the manifestation of Jesus and the Angelic Host have transpired and are presently at work for the salvation of the righteous.
