Easter

I have a favor to ask the world this year: This Sunday I want at one point everyone to put the pastel Easter clothes, the bunnies, the candy, the toys, and all the eggs aside and think for just a minute about what this holiday is all about. Yeah, I know it’s not as commercial as Christmas, but it’s certainly receiving it’s fair share of clutter, isn’t it?

As a kid I enjoyed Easter, because it meant in the middle of spring I got a second Christmas, usually full of stuff I can use during the summer. One year, all the plastic eggs were full of fishing gear and we took the boat out soon after. It was a ton of fun, so I don’t want to say that I don’t respect the whole celebration, but I find that with Easter too much emphasis starts being put on all the nonsense that isn’t important. Does it really matter that all the kids wear matching Sunday outfits? Is anyone killing themselves over building the perfect Easter basket? I guess a lot of my comments are directed at parents, and to them I have a question: Do your children really understand what Easter is all about?

It’s not a common practice in LDS homes to keep a lot of images of the crucifixion around in public view, normally walls are adorned with temples or that one picture of the Savior in the red robe looking over your left shoulder, and I’m not a critic of that, but among all the candy and bunnies do they really understand what happened?

Let me give you some context as to why we have an Easter bunny: Once upon a time the Christians were moving en masse north into Europe where they encountered what is today called Pagan. This included Druids, Wiccans (witches) and people believing in the Norse mythology. In an effort to try and combine cultures the Christians combined many of their holidays with the Pagans, including Easter and Christmas, figuring that peace was a better alternative to war. They eventually did declare war and burned anyone who tried to keep their non-Christian beliefs, but that’s a different story. What we ended up with though was Easter, Christmas, Halloween and a few smaller holidays woven in for the fun of it. Now no, I’m not saying that if your kid believes in the Easter Bunny that it’s somehow evil and needs to stop, for heaven’s sake it’s fun for everyone involved. What I am saying is to remember the reason for the season. Make sure that Easter is more about Christ than bunnies and candy, because if not it’s just another day with candy and toys.

For the adults I ask the same thing: Remember what Easter is really about. For me it’s a good time to remember things like the temple, and what the rituals performed inside mean to me, or the sacrament, our way to renew our covenants in a way that symbolizes a dinner that started the first Easter. There’s a time to have fun and a time for quiet reverence, and Easter can have both as long as the reverence is shown with a higher level than watching Peeps melt in the microwave.

-JOE