Happy Freaky Easter

Today is Easter Sunday. Like the Christmas story, Easter leaves me with many questions. First we have the original, religious meaning. If you are a Christian, you believe that Jesus was God but had to live as a man and then die for everyone else’s sins. This never seemed like a good plan to me. The day Jesus was crucified is called “Good Friday”. Hmmm... still not getting it. Your favorite guy gets killed and you name the day “Good...”? After three days, Jesus left his tomb (no longer dead) and went back to Heaven. This is the part that became Easter. Except, if I remember correctly, there was also Ascension Thursday. So, is Easter when Jesus left his tomb, but just roamed the neighborhood until Thursday? Maybe I was sick the day they explained the timeline. Or possibly this was when zombies were invented. So, as strange as I find the religious story of Easter, the secular story is truly whacko. A giant rabbit comes in the night and leaves baskets of candy and fake eggs with treats inside. He sometimes hides these fake eggs outside in people’s yards. I’ve been told that the whole egg/rabbit thing denotes change and rebirth. I’m still not happy with that explanation. The neighbors across the street from my childhood home were very wealthy. The parents went to great pains to make sure their kids believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny as long as possible. Easter was like a mini-Christmas at their house. When the kids asked why we only got candy on Easter, I said we’d been kind of bad. That’s all I could come up with. One Easter morning, we looked outside to see a small tank driving down the sidewalk. The Easter Bunny had bestowed military equipment on our neighbors. All we got were jelly beans. And this somehow was all in the name of peace and rebirth??? Baby animals get born in springtime, and we see chickies at Easter time. So why not have a giant chicken dispensing eggs, instead of a bunny? I still don’t get his role. This story is just too incongruous and confusing for me. Or maybe I’m just pissed we never got even so much as a grenade launcher on Easter. Is there an Easter version of Bah Humbug?