The Easter Bunny and the Christ

As a child I loved Easter, maybe even more than Christmas. Each year there was a new fancy dress, frilly socks, white patent leather shoes, lacy gloves, and maybe a hat. There was the traditional hunt for Easter baskets before church, perhaps a visit to the store to visit the Easter Bunny in person. Sunshine, blue skies, puffy white clouds, the bright green color of new grass, yellow and purple spring flowers, and white lilies. Later there would be a more formal dinner, the main dish being a lamb roast with mint jelly, some egg salad, and perhaps a lamb-shaped cake.

As I got older I began to question many things about Easter. Why eggs and bunnies? Why lamb? What is Easter all about anyway – Christ, Passover, pagan celebrations? All these things whirled about my head each Easter season. After years of researching and pondering, and indeed, praying I’ve come to the following conclusion: The traditional American Easter has three faces, one is very ancient and of mostly European peoples. The second is Judeo-Christian based on the concept of Messiah or Jesus Christ. The third is pure marketing exploitation.

It is true that spring festivals occur across the globe both anciently and in modern times. Symbols and rituals surrounding the rabbit or the egg probably arose from human observation of natural fertility. The setting of Spring is also a natural observation of nature resurrecting from a long winter’s sleep. Even the name Easter, arises from an Anglo-Saxon name, Eostre, which itself has roots in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (the Middle East of today) as Ishtar the goddess of fertility and probably the same source of what we call “Mother Earth”.

Strangely enough, the Judeo-Christian concept begins in the Middle East as well. Both traditions recognize a common heritage descending from Father Abraham down to Moses. It is under Moses’ prophetic powers that the ordinance of Passover is first observed including the eating of lamb. Passover later flows into the Christian observation of the Last Supper, eventually becoming the ordinance of the Sacrament. The Passover became an annual observance. Since the Hebrew calendar is based on the cycles of the moon, Passover always occurs on the 14th day of Nisan, which is the full moon in our month of April.

Early Christianity grew out of its Jewish roots, reforming into a remembrance of the life and death of our Savior. The “paschal lamb” of the Passover becoming a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul referred to Christ in this role when he said, “For even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

So what shall I do with Easter? Do I join in the cultural fun of bunnies and eggs, or should I throw out culture and focus only on the religious ceremonies? Which traditions or ceremonies do I choose? Serious questions for any Christian.

Author C.S. Lewis, in his book “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, created the Lion named Aslan as a representation of Jesus Christ. When Aslan disappeared after he had been killed by the Witch, leaving behind only a cracked stone table. Lewis observed, “It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still that she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and darkness before Time began, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack, and death itself would work backwards.” So too, Christ was a willing sacrifice and overcame death. In my mind, the holiday we call Easter holds some of that “Deeper Magic.”

I believe that the pervasiveness of Easter hints at the possibility that the story of a promised Savior, the Messiah, is older than Time itself. The threads of that truth pulls our souls back to the beginning of Time, to the Garden of Eden, to the home of our First Parents who taught us that One would come who would break the bonds of mortal death, who would teach us a better way to live, who would bear our sins and our burdens, who would heal us. In the end, the tomb of stone burst open, and He opened the path for us to return to our Heavenly Home. All we need do is follow it. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “For I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

As for me, I shall have fun with the cultural elements of Easter, but I shall breathe in the Deeper Magic from before the dawn of Time, that is the Resurrection of Christ and the Redemption of all Mankind and let it fill my soul.

Karen Murray is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints experiencing life as a wife, mother, grandmother, family historian, author, and political activist.