Recently I had someone ask me about the significance of bunnies during Easter week. The honest answer: absolutely nothing. I suppose we can chat about the whole idea of spring, new life, fertility, birth…blah blah. Unfortunately, chocolate isn’t mentioned in the Bible, as far as I know. So, I don’t know how it got associated with the most significant holiday of the Christian movement. However, it did get me a’ musing about another iconic Easter decoration: Spring Lambs.

Google to the rescue again. Spring lambing is not as glamorous as I thought. Turns out, it’s all about the slaughter. If your timing is right, spring lambs are ready to go at barely four months old. You’ve spent little time in raising them, so little cost to the farmers. These babes are barely weaned and then out to fresh spring pasture when all the getting is good –so the meat is tender and ideal for eating. Spring lambs can be sold cheaply and effectively. So, Easter shanks it is. So much for cute little spring flower crowns and meadow frolics.

Sorry for the slightly morbid thought process here, but this is the mood today. Death is a significant part of life. Even a young life. It saddens me to hear about school shootings, violent outbursts and clashes on the transit systems. Politics is so full of, pardon the pun, cutthroat tactics and sick games people play, and therefore upsets my ideological theories of how the world should be. Silence of the Lambs, indeed.

Why? Why, I question? Perhaps it’s my lack of sleep today, perhaps it’s my being constantly bombarded with sickening news, perhaps, it’s simply wishing for brighter days ahead. Less dark. Less lifelessness and a craving for more life-fullness. Maybe this is why we want chocolate and bright pastels and fluffy lambs and bunny rabbits and chicks at Easter — because the harsh reality is: Easter is a celebration of death.

How do you describe that to one who has never heard? Yes, we rejoice in a brutal death where the crowd frenzy took a nasty turn and chose a hardened murderer over innocence. We hold memorials and mark dates for scourging, torture and brutality. It just doesn’t sound right. And in some sense, it’s not. Still, how do we describe it? You can’t. Faith isn’t a clear picture. It’s mottled and deeply felt somewhere in our souls. When you get it, you get it. Oh, when you get it!

I’m struggling to share with my friends the reality of my faith. Some days, I just want to shake them and say “You need Jesus!” That doesn’t seem effective either. And so, I must bring them to the dining table and let them taste for themselves the tenderness of a spring lamb. To savour the sweetness of fresh herbs, fragrant and organic. True, there must be death to bring this new life. And such is the joy of Easter. And when you get it, you get it. Have you got it, my friend?