Eid Mubarak!

Today was the second day of Eid Al Adha which is the second Eid of the year.

Here's a little Wikipedia for you on this Eid:

Eid al-Adha or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his sonIshmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice instead.

In the Christian Bible we believe that it was Isaac not Ishmael that was going to be sacrificed by Abraham. But the story is similar to the one in the Quran. The point of the story being that God intervenes with a lamb or animal to sacrifice instead of Abraham sacrificing his son. At Eid they are celebrating the substitute for Ishmael and giving thanks to Allah for this.

As Christians, we see this Old Testament account of God providing a sacrifice in the place of Abraham sacrificing his son as preparation for the ultimate sacrifice that was to come. While animals in the Old Testament were sacrificed as offering to cover over sins, this time Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son. God in the end, intervened and provided a lamb to sacrifice instead. In the New Testament, Jesus is brought to the cross and killed as an eternal sacrifice for the sins of man. In the book of John we are told that Jesus is the "Lamb of God" who will take away the sins of the world and anyone who will believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

During this Eid we visited over 15 homes and shared in this special holiday with our friends. While we see the story slightly differently and we certainly see the story having a different meaning it is nice to see our friends and celebrate with them. They know that we will soon celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas and holidays are a great time to learn about one another's cultures, traditions and religions.