Easter - bunnies, chickens, chocolate and Jesus

When I was a child, Easter was one of the few, very special and exciting events of the year. Although it didn’t have the raw excitement of Christmas, it seemed like a symbol of many enjoyable aspects all rolled into one. Although I wasn’t knowledgeable about botany, biology and the mechanics of the seasons, it was obvious that the world around me was awakening again after winter and seemed so much brighter and alive – a positive ‘buzz’ prevailed. It signalled the start of good times again. Spring heralded lighter nights, which meant we could ‘play out’ with our friends after school again. It preceded my birthday by a few weeks, another exciting event. Then there were all the chocolate eggs given to us by relatives and friends. Remember, in the 50s chocolate was a real luxury and not a regular indulgence like it is for young people now. My parents usually gave us a special egg. It was in two halves and when opened, revealed a bag of sweets inside. I was quite cautious with my egg consumption, unlike my friend Barry, who would have eaten all of his by the end of the week. I would always keep one back so that I could have more little treats when Easter was long past. I’d break off a tiny piece to eat every so often and sometimes that egg would last for months!

I must say that the actual meaning of Easter was a puzzle to me. It was all the uplifting, positive things I mentioned, symbolised by cute bunnies, chickens and yummy chocolate eggs but it was also a downbeat religious celebration. God, Jesus and Christian religion was something we were aware of from our Sunday school and normal school lessons, but I had no real understanding of it at all. It seemed to be a series of stories about foreign people and strange events and times long, long ago. Jesus was the hero, I knew that, but the Easter story was completely baffling and conflicting with the rest of the Easter mood in my world. The story started out well with a donkey ride and people throwing palm leaves. Jesus and his disciples seemed to be having a good time and even having a party but from there, things turned decidedly nasty. How could a man who was clearly a force for good, be treated like a nasty criminal and eventually nailed to a wooden cross? What had all this to do with bunnies, chickens and chocolate? And who was the man with the weird name - Pontius Pilate and why was he washing his hands. Why did Jesus have to die to save us from our sins? The saving grace to this horrendous story was the fact that he came back to life again. I clearly had a lot to learn about the world and the people in it.

As a last and serious note, it wasn’t until a few years ago that the whole story actually made sense to me. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ is an incredibly brutal and graphic film and a very moving one for me. It did however, put the whole confusing jumble of Easter tales into perspective, which I had never really understood until I saw it. The saddest aspect is, that after 2000 years, the human race has not learned to live peacefully and is still capable of inflicting immense pain and suffering on it’s fellow men.