This rebirth is most powerfully symbolized by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. According to the Bible, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead the first Sunday following the Jewish Passover. He ascended into heaven. He reappeared to his disciples and showed them the wounds he had received in his crucifixion. He conquered death and he told us that we all could do the same. Now, each year, millions of Christians in nations all over the planet remember this miracle in services and celebrations. The resurrection of Christ affirms for those of the Christian faith the power of spiritual faith over death and the ultimate triumph of the spirit over the body.

Many of us celebrate Easter as a profound religious holiday but, the truth is, most of us spend a good deal more energy on dyeing eggs and hiding them, on the purchase of chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chickens. Just like during the Christmas season, sometimes we feel as though the true spirit of Easter has been lost. We are concerned that the lessons of the Bible have taken a back seat to popular mythology and commercialism. It makes many of us worry about the world our children will inherit. Will the moral and spiritual traditions of our ancestors continue to erode in the face of an increasingly multi-cultural and media-obsessed world? What should we teach our children? After all, to many children the Easter Bunny, just like the Beatles in the late sixties, is bigger than Jesus Christ.

How did this happen and what, if anything, should be we do about it?

While you are pondering this profound question...and on a much less significant note, we must report that strange rumors have begun to circulate around Round Top regarding the recent death of the quarterly publication, the Round Top Register. According to undocumented hearsay, a bizarre series of events occurred just before the first issue of the new monthly Register went to press.

“It was just another Sunday in the newsroom,” stated editor Chris Travis. “I was exhausted from writing late into the night before. I was far behind my deadline and it was looking like another Sunday in the journalistic salt mines. Anyway, I unlocked the door and as I walked in, I noticed that the ‘morgue’ was open. The ‘morgue’ is the file drawer where we mothball the old issues. Anyway, I walked over to shut it and suddenly remembered something I needed to check in the last quarterly issue. I reached into it’s folder to take a look, and...it was gone!”

The quarterly Round Top Register is now deceased. It died and was replaced by a new, more colorful and much more interesting monthly publication. The angry quarterly newspaper had threatened to avenge its “murder” by editor Chris Travis but did not live to fulfill this threat and has now been reduced to recycled newsprint pulp, birdcage liners and highway litter. A final copy had been preserved in the morgue at the Round Top Publishing Company.

“I just don’t understand it” continued the editor. “That drawer was closed Saturday night. I know we put the thing in its folder. Everybody in the newsroom swears they left it alone. I don’t see how it could have gone anywhere.”

Let’s take a look at the history of the Easter holiday. Easter always falls upon the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. This means that it can be as early as March 22 or as late as April 25. Historically, cultures which depend on agriculture have celebrated seasonal holidays that are determined by the equinoxes, solstices or lunar cycles. Many Jewish holidays, like Passover, began on this seasonal schedule and then later acquired historical or religious meaning from the experiences of the Jewish people. Thus, since Easter is always celebrated after the Jewish Passover. It is held just after the vernal equinox.

Over the ages, due to the timing of the Easter celebration, it has become bound up with older spring celebrations from many cultures. According to the Venerable Bede (673-735 A.D.), a monk who is a major source for the early history of Britain, the origins of the word “Easter” come from the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre (also called Ostara). Eostre is a Germanic goddess of spring and she was venerated at the vernal equinox, so it is not surprising that she and her accompanying symbolism were incorporated into the new religion, Christianity, when it came along. After all, the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ corresponded well to the already familiar springtime themes of rebirth, new life, new hope and light.

Traditional Anglo-Saxon and Germanic lore relates a story about the goddess Eostre. She is said to have saved a bird whose wings were frozen from the harsh winter by turning it into a hare...a magical hare who could lay eggs. Eostre is almost always accompanied in legend by a hare. It’s easy to see the connection between this myth and the Easter bunny. However, the tradition of Easter eggs may not have come from this story. Eggs have long been symbols of fertility in many cultures.

The Ukraine has perhaps the most famous Easter eggs, the fabulously decorated pysanky. In Slovakia, children create maypoles with 6 to 8 eggs, “blown” clean, decorated and strung on a cord. In Poland, Easter eggs are traditionally blessed by a priest before being shared with family and friends. Orthodox Christians dye eggs blood red to represent the blood of the risen Christ. Many cultures roll eggs like marbles or tap them together. The person who cracks the other’s egg first has good luck and often keeps their opponent’s cracked egg. In Britain, the custom of egg rolling still exists and gave rise, beginning with President Madison, to the famous White House egg roll in the United States.

Back at the Register...

On the evening of March 24th, as the Register’s editor was leaving work late in the evening, he heard the barking of coyotes. A strange glowing light appeared in the cedar brake above Possum Draw which runs beside the Register’s offices. Suddenly he was confronted by the apparition of “Old Joe.”

“Sonny,” said Old Joe “...you shouldn’t a killed off that old paper.” He fixed the trembling editor in a steely glare. “Lotsa folks liked that old paper.”

“Holy Cow!” gasped the stricken media mogul. “It was just a joke. It was only a trick to get people to notice the fact that we were going monthly. I didn’t really kill anybody!”

“Bull!” bellowed the glowering phantom. “You done him in all right. I read it in the newspaper and I believe everything I read in the newspaper. Besides, where I come from...the only newspapers around...are dead!”

“Dead?” whimpered the paralyzed print purveyor. “You mean like the Houston Post, Brann’s Iconoclast and Poor Richard’s Almanac?”

“Yeah, they’re all here in the spirit world and so is the old Round Top Register. ‘Taint none of ‘em too happy neither,” accused the luminous old blacksmith. “Don’t think you’ve seen the last of it. You can expect that fancy new monthly newspaper to be visited by a ghost from the Register’s past.” With this enigmatic statement, the ghost disappeared, leaving the startled editor quivering with shock and disbelief.

Not all Easter legends are positive. In Sweden, certain frightening superstitions have long been associated with Easter. People believed that witches were especially active and their black magic especially powerful during “holy week.” Even in modern times, some people in Sweden believe that “Easter Hags” are lurking about, practicing their witchcraft. On Maundy Thursday, the Hags were thought to fly off on brooms to consort with the devil at a place called “Blakulla” returning the following Saturday.

Some Easter traditions are even more bizarre. In Slovakia, before the Communist takeover, marriageable maidens were pulled out of bed, doused with water and “whipped” by young men to ward off illness and harm in the coming year. After Easter Mass, children up to the age of ten ceremoniously “whipped” their baptismal parents, uncles and aunts while saying the following poem:

The night of March 24th was a troubled one for Register editor Chris Travis. “I had a frightening dream. I dreamed the new Register had been possessed by the old one. Weird, meaningless stories kept appearing on the newspaper’s pages and we could not edit them out. Bald-faced lies slipped into the editorial copy when no one was looking. Outrageous claims and mythical references snuck into places meant for objective journalism. It was terrifying!”

Of course, all of these bizarre myths, legends and customs, including the ones created in each issue of the Round Top Register, are not the point of the Easter season. Easter is a time of renewal and rebirth. It is a time when we celebrate the triumph of life over death and of spirit over the physical form. Some feel that the mixing of pagan and other religious and spiritual traditions with Christian doctrine diminishes the power of the story of Christ. Just as the legend of Santa Claus is attacked as a pagan reference by some, the story of the Easter Bunny offends certain people because they believe it takes away from the power of the lesson we can learn from Christ’s resurrection.

Perhaps this is true. After all, Peter Cottontail and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer have little chance of saving mankind from a world of sin. Even Jesus himself only claimed to save individuals. The world is still filled with sin. The question is whether these simple and most likely pre-Christian myths are valuable parts of our culture or superstitious holdovers from a time of pagan darkness. Of what value are myths and legends? Is there any place for magic and mystery on a holiday with profound religious significance?

We don’t know the answers, but we do know that these ancient traditions have their own charm and power. Particularly for children, magical beings who bring gifts have a special power to excite and engage. Kids have a simple love for the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the ghosts and goblins of Halloween and the whole pantheon of mythical figures and magical animals that have muddied the waters of religious practice over the ages. Children love these stories and so we tell them again and again.

Perhaps Jesus wouldn’t like that. Perhaps if Jesus were here to answer our questions, he would tell our children to grow up and shoulder a more mature religious point of view. After all, in 1 Corinthians, 13:11 the Apostle Paul writes: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things."

Perhaps we should suppress such childish beliefs in ourselves and our children. Perhaps we should turn our children from these old pagan traditions. It’s hard to say, but Jesus himself had some advice about the subject. The Gospel according to St. Mark, 10:13 tells this story:

"And they brought the little children to him, that he might touch them; but his disciples rebuked those who had brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was displeased, and he said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me, and do not forbid them; for the kingdom of God is for such as these.

‘Truly I say to you, Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it.” Then he took them in his arms, and put his hand on them and blessed them."

A happy Easter to you and yours. God bless the Easter Bunny.