Big, Brash Gospel Friday - April 23, 2011 (A Special Resurrection Weekend Saturday Edition)

On a winding, other-worldly stretch of country road, not far from here, there is small, aged church and a shadowed, rickety church cemetery that look like they belong in Sleepy Hollow.

Beside the cemetery is a simple two-story structure labeled "Church Office" and in the upstairs window is a chilling sight. (Behold the photo.)

This scene returns each spring as Easter Sunday approaches, and for years now it is our family's simple tradition to mumble "What's up with the Bunny?" each time we pass.

Now, I have no habit or inclination to rail on about "the godless, pagan origins" of Christian holidays; but I must ask: am I alone when I shout, "Christ is Risen!" and hear His people respond, "He is risen indeed!" and haven't the slightest corresponding thought that I should start painting eggs and getting my reservation nailed down for the visit of a large, walking, (at-least-mildly) creepy Bunny?

What's up with the Bunny?

So, is Easter named after Eastre, the great Mother-God of pre-Christian celtic paganism or after Ishtar, the ancient Near-Eastern goddess of fertility? An odd question to have to ask, don't you think? The one thing we know is that the term Easter and much that is associated with it has no roots in Christianity or the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Both Eastre and Ishtar (like other proposed candidates for Easter's origin) are surrounded by extraordinary, fantastical stories of fertility and new life, deaths and resurrections, rabbits and eggs, and Spring equinox celebrations.

Ishtar Day was long celebrated on the first "Sunday" (or first day of the week) after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. Records describe grand celebrations filled with bunnies (fertile little critters that they are) and eggs that represented the moon - Ishtar's fertilized ovum...you get the point.

This is where I'm supposed to go ballistic about godless, pagan origins and false religion - right?

Well, I could, I suppose. Anything that distracts from the incomprehensible offering of Christ's death and the stunning glory of His resurrection should be hastily thrown out of the way. I would be content to never see nor hear of another Easter Bunny or Easter egg, but I am amazed and moved when I think of what even these inexplicable Easter additions and trappings reveal.

You see, all of the Easter-origin theories are rooted in ancient stories of death and new life. Ishtar claimed to have been conceived by an immaculate conception and the stories that surround her (like several other ancient myths and expectations) proclaim the rise of a savior or redeemer, who would die and come back to life.

Enemies of Christianity point to this with rolling-eyed mockery and declare that our faith is nothing true or original. It simply mimics countless "other myths" that were around long before. But these stories fascinate me and draw from me happy praises to our gracious Lord and His Christ - because centuries before the Savior appeared, the Hebrew prophets announced the One who would not only die and live again, but also would fulfill the "desires of all nations."

How extraordinary now to look back and read desperate tales of long past peoples who could find no hope without anticipating new life and a dying and living Redeemer. What great work of our Lord's common grace wrought this expectation and longing in tribes from pole to pole?

In my personal opinion and practice, when Resurrection Sunday rolls around, I need and want nothing more than singing, shouting, spellbound celebrations of my dying Savior and my resurrected King! Nothing will replace or supplement sharing these world-shaking memories with brothers and sisters in Christ - who like me have been given a splendid life, a breath-taking hope, and a glorious, long, new creation future through Jesus Christ alone.

The victory and power of the Resurrection is the power of our new birth, the source of our sanctification, and the substance of our future hope of resurrection and eternal life. In many Christian circles this glorious event is tragically overlooked or given little more than a token nod.

We must re-visit our New Testament friends. These folks were irrepressible people of the resurrection. I believe that I could make a solid case that the Christians of the first century - had they been into religious jewelry - would have hung more empty tombs than crosses on chains around their necks

All this to say that, for myself, I'd rather run after the living Christ than run down a creepy bunny - so I'll preserve my spiritual activist energies for other things. For example...

Today is Good Friday 2011 and in honor of this day of holy remembrance you will find a beautiful scene on your Google page recognizing...Earth Day.

This is a battle of spiritual faiths. One rests its hope in the eternal new creation of a crucified and risen Savior and one ties its hopes to a crumbling old creation - which itself groans in anticipation of a supernatural redemption that its own worshippers ignore (Romans 8:20-22).

Even the fertility mother-gods were a step closer to grace and truth than the raw materialists of our day. And they didn't have the Scriptural record and the gift of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their rearview mirror.

It could almost make a thoughtful Christian yearn for some good, old-fashioned pagans - celebrating fertility, bunnies, and all manner of other nonsensical things - because they couldn't shake a deep longing for a new and everlasting life through a dying and living Savior.