What Do the Easter Bunny and Resurrected Jesus Have in Common?

What do the Easter Bunny and resurrected Jesus have in common? The obvious answer is Easter. My answer is that there is no Easter Bunny nor dead Jesus un-deading.

Some background:

1. There are about twenty stories, or Gospels, about the life of Jesus. Only three of them, Matthew, Luke, and John, talk about a resurrected Jesus. Mark 16:9–21 is a resurrection story, but it was written more than one hundred years later.
2. The first written resurrection story is found in Matthew, some fifty-five years after Jesus’s death. Why did it take so long to put it down in writing? I think it’s because it was a fabricated story.
3. Part of the crucifixion procedure was leaving the dead bodies on the cross for the wild animals to eat during the night. Jesus was crucified for sedition, and it would have been highly improbable to release a pretender king, especially in the Roman empire. There would have been no body to resurrect.
4. When someone dies, the body starts to decay in less than four minutes. To quote John 11:39 (KJV), dead bodies “stinketh” and are not much fun to be around for quite a while, especially as body parts start to fall off.
5. I’ll never believe that “Jesus died for my sins” or the idea that a supposed loving God would plan his son’s torturous death because I mess up. It’s preposterous. It makes someone’s god a monster and a child abuser.

One of the biggest problems with the church is that it believes it needs to keep its followers in a childlike state for control purposes. I have no interest in that church.

Let’s return to the Jewish art of midrash, or biblical interpretation, and delve into the story to uncover the truth. I love this truth: our lives might seem dead for a variety of reasons, such as addictions, the death of someone or an animal, a painful divorce or bankruptcy, or even imprisonment. There seems to be no reason for living. People feel dead, hopeless, or helpless.

But what Jesus, the Easter story, and my faith tell me is that no matter how bad it seems to be, tools are available for me and everyone else to be able to rise above our difficulties and keep moving forward.

My death-to-life experiences are minimal compared to some of the gang members I have worked with, some of those in prison, or folks with addiction issues. What always comes to my mind is Father Greg Boyle’s Homeboy Industries, which for the last thirty years has given hundreds of “dead” people the tools to transform death into life, all with agape love.

For me, this is the only reason for the season: to remind the world that anyone can transform their lives at any time and that it is never too late.

This also reminds me of my favorite Easter story, which takes places in Russia and follows Demetri and his twelve-year-old nephew Igor, who lived in a small town where Demetri was considered the town derelict. His house was filthy, the yard was full of weeds and trash, and both of them lived in dirty rags and smelled awful. They had no friends, and everyone avoided them.

On Easter morning, the sun was rising as Demetri was outside in his weed and trash infested yard. Suddenly a man appeared, gave Demitri a beautiful white lily, and said in a joyful voice, “The Lord is risen.” Demetri mumbled, “Huh!”

He went inside and showed Igor the flower, but where to put it? Everything was filthy. Then he found an old vase with dead flowers in it. Demitri threw them out, washed the vase, filled it with water, and stuck the beautiful white lily in it. Demetri didn’t know where to put it. Everything was filthy, so he cleaned off the ledge of the windowsill and put it there. But dust layered the windows. He cleaned the windows so the sun could shine through and everyone could admire the flower.

Igor wanted to hold the lily, but his hands and clothes were filthy, so Demetri made Igor take a bath and put on clean clothes. Demetri then realized how dirty he was, so he took a bath and donned clean clothes. But there was no place to sit down because everything was so dusty, so Demitri cleaned the house. He cleared the accumulation of dishes off the table, washed them, scrubbed the sink, and continued throughout the house until it sparkled. Now the yard looked even worse so he started weeding it and even planted new flowers and a vegetable garden.

The word got around town, so people came to see the transformation and complimented Demitri. He became friendly with his neighbors and the folks around town. He was the new Demitri.

The next Easter rolled around. At dawn, Demetri was standing in his yard surrounded by flowers when that man with the lilies came by, gave Demetri another lovely lily, and said once more, “The Lord is risen.” But this time, Demetri responded in a cheerful voice with, “The Lord is risen indeed!”

I have loved this story for years, not because there was a real Demitri but because of the profound truth in the story: the power of Easter enables anyone to transform life’s negative experiences into a vital life.

Happy Easter!

PeaceLoveJoyHopeKindness

Bil

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P.S. People often ask me provocative questions about current events, both religious and secular. I have found that some of these questions are being asked universally. I’ll be periodically alternating regular articles with one of those questions and my answer. I invite you to send me your question to bilaulenbach@yahoo.com.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash