Easter is a religious holiday which has nothing to do with the real world of economics and politics. "Tax Day" is simply the mundane legal reality of a deadline to pay taxes, which has nothing to do with religion.
Right?
Wrong.
Both days commemorate legal and political events, and both are truly "holidays," that is, "holy days."
Easter marks the assassination of the "King of the Jews." The "Religious Right" of the day exercised political clout in the neoconservative empire of the day to try, convict, and execute a communist Revolutionary, who rises from the dead and ascends to the Throne as the Anti-King, and now offers the world "Peace on Earth" in a comprehensive all-encompassing legal, political, and cultural sense that the Bible describes as "salvation."
"Tax Day" marks the subjugation of a nation to an imperial "New World Order" which imposes tribute and claims to bring the very same "salvation."
When the religious leaders tried to trap Jesus by asking Him if His disciples paid taxes, Jesus asked them to show Him a coin used to pay taxes. They gave Him one they were carrying. He asked, "Whose is this image and superscription?" (Matt. 22:20; Mark 12:16; Luke 20:24). The answer was, of course, "Caesar's." According to Geldenhuys,
After their acknowledgment that it is Caesar's, the following two facts are vividly brought to light through Jesus' masterly handling of the situation:
(1) Coins with Caesar's image and superscription are in use among the Jews.
(2) The coins are evidently the property of Caesar, otherwise they would not have borne his image and superscription.
From these two facts it thus follows that the Jews had accepted the imperial rule as a practical reality, for it was the generally current view that a ruler's power extended as far as his coins were in use.
Rushdoony notes:
The practical reality was thus made clear. These men used the coins of Tiberius which carried a "bust of Tiberius in Olympian nakedness, adorned with the laurel wreath, the sign of divinity." The inscription read, "Emperor Tiberius August Son of the August God," on the one side, and "Pontifex Maximus" or "High Priest" on the other. The symbols also included the emperor's mother, Julia Augusta (Livia) sitting on the throne of the gods, holding the Olympian sceptre in her right hand, and, in her left, the olive branch to signify that "she was the earthly incarnation of the heavenly Pax."[7] The Coins thus had a religious significance. Israel was in a certain sense serving other gods by being subject to Rome and to Roman currency. The point made by implication by His enemies, that tribute to Caesar had religious overtones, was almost confirmed by Jesus, even as He proved their own submission to Caesar.
Rushdoony also notes,
Stauffer [Christ and the Caesars
] has tellingly summed up the imperial gospel as it was proclaimed on Roman coinage: Two related coins from Spain direct attention to world history. One is like a summary of the scenery on the armour of Augustus: the sun-god is soaring up with his crown of sun-rays and his outspread heavenly mantle, with the capricorn below, and between them the single word AUGUSTUS. The other shows the capricorn again, this time with the emblems of world dominion, the helm and the globe, and above them the emblem of the king of paradise, the cornucopia with the diadem, and again the single word AUGUSTUS. The symbolic meaning is clear: a new day is dawning for the world. The devine savior-king, born in the historical hour ordained by the stars, has come to power on land and sea, and inaugurates the cosmic era of salvation. Salvation is to be found in none other save Augustus, and there is no other name given to men in which they can be saved. This is the climax of the Advent proclamation of the Roman empire.In not too many years, a disciple of Jesus Christ was to declare, in a challenge to the religious and civil leaders of Judea, and to all authorities: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Warfare between Christ and Caesar was thus inescapable: here were two rival gods claiming the same jurisdiction over man. It was not a struggle between church and state but between two kingdoms each claiming ultimate and divine powers, Rome and the Kingdom of God.
The parallels between Caesar and the Messianic Obama can hardly be missed.
Probably 99% of the public complains about taxes at some point in time. This month has seen numerous "Tea Parties" protesting taxes. They are the "fringe." But they are also quite mainstream. Most of the protesters probably voted for the Representatives who voted for the Bush and Obama Bailouts and the taxes to pay for them. And few of them are as radical as the organizers of the original Boston Tea Party, men like Sam Adams and John Hancock, who took direct action against a tax of 3 pence per pound of tea, and a total tax burden of no more than 3%.
Today's Caesar, today's King George III, takes over two-thirds of everything you earn. And the vast majority of Americans would protest any protesters who wanted to abolish all taxes and the government programs they support. Most Americans -- even those who go to church on Easter Sunday -- believe that imperial tribute is necessary and justified, and that without the Empire we would lose our salvation, that is, our medical and economic health, prosperity, national security, welfare, and stability -- in short, everything the Bible and Caesar Augustus spoke of using the word "salvation."
America's true faith is in the IRS King, not the Easter King.
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