Easter presents us with the most significant event in the Bible – and the highlight of our Christian calendar.  Sorry, Christmas – but Jesus was born so that He could die; go to the cross, become the substitutionary atonement for our sin, and be resurrected for our hope and future.

All of which presents a difficult problem for parents.  Easter is hard enough for adults to understand, let alone communicate to children.  Christmas is so much easier – no torture or death involved! 

And then with Easter you also have the prevalent invasion of bunnies and eggs to contend with – which do not easily fit into the Easter narrative.  In fact, many Christian families feel the need to ban the bunny altogether.

The early missionaries and church planters in Europe must have felt the same way.  The events of Easter coincided with the Anglo-Saxon pagan celebrations of Spring – specifically with feasts to the Saxon goddess Eostre.  She was the goddess of Spring and fertility – hence the use of bunnies and eggs as symbols of her prolific power.

How did the early church point people to the cross instead?  By using the concept of new life presented in the new growth of Spring – bunnies and eggs and all – as the message of the cross.  Springs come and go – but the new life brought to us on the cross is eternal.

It worked for the early church – and it can work for us too.  What’s not to love about bunnies? (unless you’re a Southland farmer but that’s another story).  Trying to demonise cute little hippity-hoppity harmless creatures is futile – and let’s not even get started on the chocolate.

Let’s use bunnies and eggs to help children understand the cross in a way that helps them make sense of their world around them.  It would be hard on any kid to go to kindy or school after Easter and hear about the other kids getting Easter egg hunts and bunnies when all they did was learn a confusing story that involved death.

Instead how about we give them more to talk about?  Oh yes, I know all about bunnies and eggs – but do you know they have a secret message?  Do you know that they really are telling us about someone very special and what He did for us? 

Bunnies and eggs are a fun part of Easter.  So let every bunny, every egg be an opportunity to remind your kids of how Jesus gave us His eternal life at Easter time.