This is not Jesus
My 14 year old (Kelly) and her friend (Allison) and I were in the car tonight. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Four more days and I get to eat french fries." (This has been my Lenten dietary exclusion, we were driving past my favorite burger place - In N' Out)
Kelly: "Dad, you are such a woose."
Allison: "We get to have an easter egg hunt at our house. The Easter Bunny is coming; that is the best part of having a 9-year old brother - you still get celebrate all the holidays that aren't really real. My brother still believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny."
Kelly: "Oh yeah, I stopped believing in Santa when I was like two years old. I swear. I told all the other kids at school that Santa was not real. They didn't believe me. I told them to go ask their moms."
Me: "Well THAT was kind. Did you make any of them cry?"
Kelly: "Daaad, of course not. But I did tell them to ask their moms, I always did that".
Alison: "How in the world did the Easter bunny get made up?"
Me: "Good question, we need to Google that. With Christmas at least there is a vague connection between Santa Claus and the celebration of Jesus. With Easter its like, what does this bunny have to do with death and resurrection of Jesus?"
Allison: "I know, its so random!"
Kelly: "Totally"
Me: "Maybe the greeting card companies made the holiday up."
Allison: "I think it might have something to do with the beginning of Spring"
Kelly: "Yeah, like something medieval"
Me: "Like a pagan ritual."
Kelly: "And what is the bunny doing handing out EGGS? Bunny's make eggs? Come on!"
Me: "Yeah, how come the Easter Bunny doesn't hand out little bunnies instead?"
Allison: "I had a little bunny once, we found him in our neighborhood"
This is something brief on the origins of the wacky Easter Bunny. But, as we know, Easter is so much more than fodder for sales at Target. More than decorations, family dinners, flowers, greeting cards, and kids having egg hunts.
Here is the focal point of Easter. A life sacrificed for every person ever born, an empty tomb. And ever since the events of those few days, the world has never been the same.
Its not about the Bunny, people.
