A woman walked into my office Friday, somewhat appalled that the young child she had been talking to at the library did not know the meaning of Good Friday. The youngster had first guessed, “Spring Break,” which was technically correct, and then “the day the baby Jesus was born,” technically incorrect.

I know what you are thinking, “Really, a kid from podunk was at the LIBRARY on a Friday when school was out?” Actually, school is always out on Friday in podunks throughout the West, because we have found that education costs less per pupil when you don’t send the students to school. But that’s not my story.
My story is that I’m surprised that this child got mixed up about the one religious holiday that we truly try to protect from commercialization. Easter is the day we celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead. When his friends went to visit his tomb and found it empty, an angel told them, “Be not afraid. Go find the Easter bunny and see if he has seen his shadow, or has lain eggs scattered throughout a field.”

I realize that it is confusing the way different denominations put their own twist on Easter. The chocolate bunny was a standard enough symbol, but then the one church couldn’t agree on solid chocolate, so we now have the hollow chocolate bunny believers.

And then came the reformists. Bunnies had become too repressive, and had put too much distance between believers and their God. So they introduced the Peep as a sacrament.

Do this in remembrance of me…