Holidays are celebrated for all sorts of reasons. Some honor heroes, others commemorate religious events, but April 1 stands out as the only holiday that celebrates foolishness.
April Fools’ Day, or All Fools Day, is an odd celebration with a strange history. What other holiday asks us to play tricks and dupe our unsuspecting friends and acquaintances?
The day began, most believe, in 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII decreed the adoption of the “Gregorian calendar” — named after himself — which moved New Year’s Day from the end of March to Jan. 1.
The change was published widely but those who didn’t get the message and continued to celebrate on April 1 “were ridiculed and, because they were seen as foolish, called April Fools.”
Why one might relate it to Christianity even more
Hebrew prophets were often scorned as mad or eccentric for pronouncing unwelcome or uncomfortable truths. The Apostle Paul talked to the Corinthians about becoming “fools for Christ.”
“If the wisdom of the world is folly to God, and God’s own foolishness is the only true wisdom,” argues British bible scholar John Saward, “it follows that the worldly wise, to become truly wise, must become foolish and renounce their worldly wisdom.”
The Appeal
Since the Bible, the Word of God, nowhere teaches Christians to partake in observing such a day of mockery, foolishness, jesting and ridicule, and since God actually condemns foolish jesting in His Word (Ephesians 5:4), followers of Jesus Christ should have nothing to do with this custom.
God commands Christians, “Learn not the way of the heathen” (Jeremiah 10:2). Regarding worldly customs inherited from heathenism, God declares: “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you” (II Corinthians 6:17).
By Paul Dennis. Additional reporting By Huffington Post.
