What’s Holy About Easter Candy?
As children (and maybe as adults!) we associate Easter with chocolate bunnies and colored eggs.
Certainly, as adults we know that Easter is about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is the Messiah, who proves that we are so loved by our forgiving God that we are continually given the chance to be reborn—to experience resurrection in our lives — today and into eternity. Easter is really about new
life, rebirth, and the hope and joy of creation as a continuing, abundant process.
But how do we connect the concrete symbols of Easter with these underlying, deeper meanings? What do colored eggs, bunnies, and candy have to do with life and rebirth? That’s an important question, and one that can help us experience the world more deeply at Easter time.
Connecting to the Source of Life?
Let’s take a lesson from our close relatives, the Jews. In Jewish mystical tradition, we are encouraged to connect every experience — even every thought — back to our creator. That’s why an observant Jew who sees a beautiful tree, for example, utters the blessing:
Blessed be the One who created beauty in the world!
The goal is to experience every part of creation — the good and the bad, the sacred and the profane — as it relates to the Creator.
What if there is a way to connect even the most commercial Easter candy back to God? Wouldn’t that make our lives richer?
Not Really Biblical…
To be sure, almost none of our modern holiday customs are mentioned in the Bible. Christmas trees, for example, originated with Pre-Christian Germans, who hung upside-down evergreens in their houses during winter. Eventually, this custom morphed into the Christmas tree in Germany. But in England Christmas trees didn’t become popular until the 1840’s, after Queen Victoria’s husband, a German, brought one to Windsor castle in 1841.
In the same way, all our Easter symbols (except the cross) flowed into Easter from other religious and secular streams. But they can still remind us of God’s presence in our lives.