Easter Eggs with a Message
The Guardian reports that supermarkets will offer chocolate easter eggs with messages about the holiday’s religious significance. Money quote:
The packaging tells customers: “Easter is all about cute bunnies, fluffy chicks and eating too much chocolate, right? Well, not quite. We happen to think it’s a bit more meaningful than that.”
The chocolate is fair trade, and two charities benefit. There is some (as far as I know) made-up syncretistic symbolism. (They say the egg represents the stone in front of Jesus tomb?!? Any militant pagans out there to refute that??) I’m intrigued by the approach. And perhaps it’s a theological/symbological/sacramental shortcoming of mine, but I’m made a bit queasy by chocolate crosses attempting the same reminder of “the reason for the season.” (I’ve seen no chocolate crucifixes, thank God.)
I think this caught my eye because I was recently in one of those giant, year-round Christmas stores that was very insistent on the religious meaning of that holiday, (while reveling appropriately in all the silly fun that goes with it.) They had a tiny Easter section that seemed to be entirely about the bunny/chick/egg fertility festival, without much acknowledgement of any further meaning to the day. Curious.
It’s also curious that this is a news item in the first place–that religiously themed Easter candy is deemed odd, and that this is somehow a “victory” in a “fight against secularism.” Oh, please. I imagine Christians could celebrate the resurrection of Christ even without religious candy. Cue the Who’s down in Whoville…
Nonetheless–Easter, fair trade, charity, AND chocolate? Yum!
I rarely eat a piece of meat without a thought for the farmer who raised the animal, as well as for the animal whose life found its meaning in ending up at my table (most of those animals would never have been born if they were not going to end up on people’s table.) It’s almost our duty to eat and enjoy every little scrap of meat, else the sacrifice of the animal (and the farmer’s work) lose their meaning.
So, I would have no qualms about eating a chocolate crucifix!
All of our ancestors were militant pagans.
And probably all of them dyed eggs in spring for the Bright One in the sky, whatever they called Her/Him.
Ukrainians, e.g., were great at decorating eggs long before Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pysanka
Lisa,
you really need to get out to candy stores more often. I have seen plenty of chocolate crucifixes out there. I always wonder who buys such things,
A quick search shows you can buy your own molds if you want to make some yourself, $2.
And I just found “Frosted Lamb Of God Suckers.” Luckily they think the Lamb of God is really a lamb, so it is not that much of a departure from their cross-shaped swirl pops and ““Colors Of Faith” Jelly Bean Treat Packets.”
“. . . the animal whose life found its meaning in ending up at my table (most of those animals would never have been born if they were not going to end up on people’s table”
Claire –
This is why I don’t feel obliged to be a vegetarian. As I see it most people would choose to live even though they know they’ll die, even die a painful death. So I figure the cows would too.
Aquinas says somewhere that the reason the body and blood of Jesus appear under the appearances of bread and wine is because it would be too horrible otherwise. I agree. I can understand the objections of Protestants to belief in the Real Presence and our consuming the “bread and wine”. I couldn’t eat a chocolate crucifix.
If Jesus appeared at the Eurcarist as Himself our fallen human condition would be altered because faith would no longer be necessary.
I’ve never understood how the Apostles and the early Christians accepted Jesus’ instruction to commerorate Him by eating Him,even if under the guise of eating bread and drinking wine. This cannibalistic belief of eating the God to become like Him was never part of that culture. Or was it?That animaals were sacrrificed to God to appease Him and then were eaten by people [why waste a roasted lamb?] made sense but when Jesus willingly offers Himself up as the last and ultimate sacrifice [most pleasing,most perfect, unblemished] and gets eaten by people who believe He Himself is the God being sacrified, then eating the God is reminisent of other cultures and is outside that tradition.I don’t understand how they accepted His command to eat Him [the God] in order to be like Him [the God] i.e. to strenghen them in their quest for holiness. I thought the tradition of sacrificing animals to God was simply to appease God [gods].Holiness did not come from sacrificing an animal to God[appeasement] but by fasting ,prayer and observing the laws.In other cultures you became like that which you killed;warriors or other animals; their spirrit entered you if you ate them.How was it possible that this alien religious concept[eating the God] was so readily understood and accepted by Jesus’ followers?
Maybe because they really believed that Jesus is really God, and if God tells you to do something and you trust HIm, then you do it?
I’ve never understood how the Apostles and the early Christians accepted Jesus’ instruction to commerorate Him by eating Him,even if under the guise of eating bread and drinking wine.
——
Reading about more ancient rituals like the Eleusinian Mysteries might help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries
Thank -you Gerelyn.It’s extremely fascinating reading about these ancient religions and how these Mass like rituals were happening throughout that pagan world.I can make the connection with the word “ciste”,[chest] in the Eleusian Mysteries and of course Christ.And I see that becoming holy like the god[goddess] through ritual was already part of pre-Christian religion.
Is it germane to this discussion that our word “Easter” comes from “Aestre” – the pagan goddess of Spring?
Yes. Like our pagan (peasant) ancestors, we eat hot-cross buns (yummy) in Her honor.
I always liked the look, though not the taste (too dry), of paschal lamb cakes.
“How was it possible that this alien religious concept[eating the God] was so readily understood and accepted by Jesus’ followers?”
I don’t know that it was readily accepted or understood. In John’s account, if I recall correctly, a lot of people turn away when Jesus talks about this. He asks Peter how he feels about it, if it would be stumbling block. Peter never says he understands what Christ says, just asks, “Where else would we go?” Peter seems to be taking it on faith that it’ll all work out.
At least that’s my reading.
And, of course, most Protestants assume that Jesus was speaking metaphorically and see communion as a commemoration. Even Episcopalians, who believe that Christ is present in the elements of the Eucharist, fall short of insisting that Transubstantiation actually occurs.