The Trouble With Easter

Although I was raised in a decidedly Christian family, Christianity and the practices associated with it have disturbed me since I was old enough to think for myself. Although most of the popular Christian holidays have questionable attributes (flying reindeer and Christmas, Lent and self-deprivation), Easter is by far the strangest holiday of them all.

So what is Easter all about? Well, on the surface, it's really pretty morbid. Take one popular dude, turn his friends against him, nail him to a cross and stick him in a tomb. Three days later he rolls the big ole rock away from the entrance and crawls out, unscathed but for a few little wounds on his hands and feet. Bandaid might make it better, but according to the tale of Jesus, if you're down with God even the Grim Reaper can't touch that.

So Easter is about the Son of God dying (to save us from sin, as legend has it) and then rising from the dead, not as a zombie, but as a normal dude, just like before. Makes for a good story, I'll give them that.

But is that really what Easter is about? Well, a visit to Walmart tells me otherwise. After all, a stroll through the candy aisle is a visual assault of chocolate rabbits, foil-covered eggs and marshmallow peeps. I don't see a single Cocoa Crispy Christ on the shelves, not even a package of Cross Ribs. So what gives? We celebrate the death and undeath of the Son of God by eating really waxy chocolate hares? Something just doesn't seem right.

Turns out that Easter wasn't always Easter. The predecessor of Easter was Eastre, a pagan celebration of the goddess of springtime and reproduction, and Eastre was, appropriately enough, manifested in an earthly form as a rabbit. So all you good Christian folks out there buying up the Easter Bunnies are really paying homage to a Pagan goddess. Did you know that?

Somewhere along the line the Christians realized they'd probably be in big trouble if they tried to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ while the pagans were celebrating the bigger picture. Instead of celebrating a distinctive festival, they decided to "appropriate" Eastre and change the festivities a tad. In other words, Easter is a rip-off because the Christians were afraid that, unlike Jesus, they probably wouldn't be rising from the dead, as zombies or anything else.

So we celebrate the fact that God's son died and came back from the dead (and not as a zombie) by stuffing our kids with chocolate Easter bunnies, the symbol of reproduction. Could this be the real cause behind promiscuity and pregnancy in teens? Probably not - after all, Easter bunnies are losing ground to chocolate Homer Simpsons, chocolate High School Musical, chocolate Spiderman and chocolate Disney Princesses. There goes that theory. I guess modernity is now appropriating Easter.

Somehow the idea of celebrating the end of winter and arrival of spring, the rebirth of the natural world, and getting busy like bunnies is appealing. Much more appealing than celebrating a dude who died but came back to life, not as a zombie. I'm going to the drugstore to hunt down some chocolate, and you can bet your little winter-white tail it's going to be chocolate in the shape of a rabbit. Those people celebrating Easter can have the chocolate motorcycles and the marshmallow Mickey Mice. Until they smarten up and start gnoshing on Jelly Bean Jesus, I'm sticking to the real deal.

Happy Eastre, friends.