There go the mothers with their egg baskets again. They've got more eggs than you can shake a stick at. One of them is dressed in an Easter Bunny suit, rented from the local Halloween shop for sure, hopping all around the yard acting like that crazed rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. But why? What is the connection between Easter and the Easter Bunny? And kids being prodded to look for eggs.

Frankly I don't want to know.

This is serious stuff; would you believe. Jesus, that wonderful young rabbi from Galilee was arrested, beaten to a pulp, crowned with thorns, crucified, his side jabbed with a lance. He died and was buried just about a couple of days ago. Ask those two disciples on the road walking toward Emmaus what happened. They will tell you. Yes, their Lord and Master was killed. And so were the dreams and aspirations of an entire nation that believed in him.

Then the most wonderful thing happened. The apostle Peter and the young John hurried to the tomb in response to some of the women in their group going hysterical, announcing that the Lord is no longer to be found therein. He had simply vanished. The tomb was empty. This account according to John the Evangelist.

According to Synoptic gospels however, there was a young man sitting on a rock by the entrance to the tomb who said, "Are you looking for Jesus? He is not here. He is risen. Why look for the living among the dead?" That is when Mary and her friends ran to the house where the disciples were hiding (for fear of the Jews) and made the announcement, "The Lord is alive. He is risen."

So tell me, where do you see even in the slightest oft-chance connection where the Easter Bunny fulfills some distant memory of the highest event in Christendom, and is a reenactment of divine events past? What is the deal with the Easter Egg hunt? Let us give credit to whom it is due. Glory be to God in the highest. He conquered death with his resurrection. He saved us from the wages of sin... death.