Easter. A hugely significant time in the calendar, the time for Christians worldwide to commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ the Saviour and to reflect on what this means for the entire Christian faith. But personally, having reminded myself over the last few days of the Easter Story from Palm Sunday right through to today, Easter Monday, my copy of the bible seemingly appears to be missing a few pages regarding a certain chocolate egg-laying rabbit.
Now I’m no bible expert but unless those pages were scribed by the oft edited and widely discredited “gospel according to Crazy Bob”, Jesus’s lesser known disciple who was out buying pizza at the time the initial sketches for the last supper were being made, I’m not fully convinced that following his resurrection Jesus’s followers suddenly realised that in all the excitement they’d forgotten to have their chocolate-egg based desserts and so the lord performed his second miracle of the day and made a passing rabbit lay some new ones. Nor am I particularly happy about the idea they were eating any “chocolate eggs” laid by rabbits in the first place, no matter how crazy Bob may have been…
Fortunately, I can find no record of this particular event and so I’ve been forced to delve deeper. Now the egg of course is symbolic in many ways. It is a sign of new life beginning, it’s shape may be said to symbolise the boulder that barricaded the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth following his crucifixion, and of course it represents a central ingredient in a decent Easter morning breakfast. Eggs and bunnies have also been representative of the coming of springtime since long before Christianity came about and painting eggs was apparently a long held tradition enacted by the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Persians so it’s easy to see how the decorative egg became entwined in Easter. As for turning it chocolate, well a decorative chocolate egg is a lot more appetising than a raw egg dyed to look like a morbidly obese face, I mean if you’re going to have an egg shaped face it may as well be one you’ve joyfully stuffed with delicious chocolate right?!
But whatever the origins of these traditions I for one don’t intend to stand in their way. So crack open those Easter eggs, go and have a picnic in the middle of a field of bunnies and have yourselves a great Easter Monday!
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