Soon we will be celebrating Easter, one of the holiest and most confusing events on the Christian calendar.
Easter itself is pretty straightforward. Almost everybody knows what it's about. But after all these years, I have to admit I'm mystified by the way we Christians celebrate it.
For one thing: why isn't Easter on the same day every year? Christmas always falls on December 25th. But Easter? This year it's in April, others years it's in March. You just get the feeling somewhere there's a guy throwing darts at a calendar.
I know there's a logical reason - something about the first full moon after something or other. It just seems so arbitrary and strange that we can settle on February 2nd as Groundhog Day, but something as important as Easter gets shifted around every year.
If when we celebrate Easter is a trifle confusing, how we celebrate it is an absolute bafflement to me. I've read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, First Corinthians and - just to besure - Second Corinthians. I've read the entire New Testament forward and backward,
King James and modern English. And I have yet to find a single reference to an Easter
Bunny.
I kept hoping I'd run across something that would explain it: "And lo, on his way too Damascus, Simon met upon the road a rabbit. And the rabbit carried him a basket, from place unto place. And in this basket were tiny chocolate eggs, which eggs the rabbit did hide even under the sofa and behind the wall unit. And when the sun rose, legions of children searched for these eggs,and found them, and did spend the next eight hours wired on sugar."
Of course, no such passage appears. Lots of bread, wine, and fishes, but no chocolate eggs.
Even though I don't understand it, I play along. Every year I end up buying three or four chocolate bunnies the size of Buicks. It's interesting to watch people eatchocolate bunnies. They get the bunny, pull it out of the box, then agonize over what to
eat first. Do they go for the ears? Maybe nibble on the nose, or break off the tail? My brother used to bite the eyes out. We worried about him for a long
Another Easter tradition, at least, in my family, was the Easter bonnet. Thankfully, my brother and I were spared this little indignity - it was bad enough that we had to wear blue blazers, itchy wool pants, and clip-on bow ties. Every Easter Sunday my Mom would trot out the little sailor hats for the girls, and the king-size, Carmen Miranda fruit basket number for herself.
We'd line up for the annual family photo, and while Dad relearned how to use the camera, my brother and I would pluck grapes off Mom's head and thrown them at my sisters. All the Easter pictures in our family scrapbook have the girls in tears and my brother and I in the back row, smirking. Year by year, Mom's hat gets smaller and smaller. She never caught on.
My little girls don't have brothers to worry about, so they won't get pelted with grapes this Sunday. But they'll go on an Easter egg hunt, and chow down on a chocolate bunny and get all dolled up in nice dresses and cute little sailor hats. They may never understand exactly why. But they'll always remember Easter as a very special day.
And Iguess that's the important thing. Hey, don't take my word for it. Ask the Corinthians. Both of them. Just to be sure.
Nils Ling's book "Truths and Half Truths" is a collection of some of his most memorable and hilarious columns. To order your copy, send a cheque or money order for $25.00 (taxes, postage and handling included) to RR #9, 747 Brackley Point Road, Charlottetown, PE, C1E 1Z3
