by Michael Chambers
He’s hippity. He’s hoppity. He’s bip-bap-boppity. As Winter’s harsh breath fades to little more than a drab memory and the posies and honeysuckle bloom once more, he bounds across the land with a basket full of sunshine. Children laugh and tumble and sing in his wake as he heralds the welcoming embrace of Spring with tasty sweets and frivolity. He is the Easter Bunny, and his time is once again nigh.
This iconic creature has been the subject of wonderment and lore worldwide. We’ve seen him in parades, cartoons, books, and movies. He has brightened the childhoods of millions, ascending the ranks alongside other such cherished figures as The Tooth Fairy, Optimus Prime, Super Mario and many more. But what do we really know about this innocuous little beast? Is he hiding something behind that bushy tail and those beady, calculating little eyes?
The Easter Bunny has its roots in pre-Christian fertility rituals centered around the goddess Eastre, whose earthly symbol was the rabbit. It wasn’t until the 1500’s that the rabbit was firmly associated with Easter in Germanic writings, and this legend persisted and traversed the globe to the new world with the arrival of German settlers in the Pennsylvania Dutch colonies in the 1700’s. A visit from Oschter Haws, as they called it, was second only to the arrival of Christ-Kindel on Christmas Eve, thus affirming the first cultural association between the mythical Easter Bunny and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in what would become the United States.
Things escalated quickly. Fast forward until shortly after the civil war, and the ascension of the Easter Bunny as an idol was complete. Since then, children across the country have awoken on Easter Sunday to open baskets full of gifts and treats. They gleefully rush from their homes to search for the precious hidden eggs this mythical creature leaves scattered about during his yearly trespass. They revel in the pagan abundance of it all, gorging themselves on chocolate until their little tummies churn and bubble and froth with sickness, never once given the chance to understand that the true tradition behind this day has been hijacked by a floppy little monster with an agenda.
Friends, neighbors, fellow Americans, it is truly a sad moment in the history of this glorious nation when we allow our children to abandon the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ in favor of the trappings of gluttony, materialistic excess and unbridled idol worship. It is a disgrace and a shame that we should allow the physical manifestation of a false pagan goddess to defecate upon our hallowed religious principles and guide our children into the gaping maw of Satan himself. Something must be done, and it must be done now.
The Easter Bunny must die.
Deuteronomy 7:5-6
But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images,and burn their carved images with fire. Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it an accursed thing.
Through the power of His Holy Word, God has already given us a vision of what this day is meant to become and called upon us to act without hesitation or mercy. We must cast aside the wicker baskets and colored eggs and ribbons and banners and grind them into the dust. We must gather unto us the chocolate bunnies and toys, graven images of this worldly aberration, and set them ablaze upon an altar of glory for others to see. All across this great nation we must bring destruction upon the material accoutrements of the vile Oschter Haws until the smoke and flames rise to the heavens and render a sweet fragrance to God.
And what of its followers, the men and women who adorn the likeness of Oschter Haws and dance to its malevolent tune? We must pluck them from the shopping malls and parades and, praise God, even the churches of this land and cast them out with a righteous fury. We must surround them and spit upon them and cast our stones at them until they repent of their wickedness and embrace the love of the One True God. As they lie there in the dirt, choking and broken, we must join our voices and raise a cry of victory over the forces of evil.
We must purge the children, who have feasted upon spoiled fruit and grown bloated with the sin of Socialist liberal doctrine, wicked carnal knowledge and blasphemous idolatry. As they rise from their beds on Easter morning and scurry to the door, we must snatch them up by the nape of the neck and bring them into obedience to a loving God. Bind them to the floor. Lock them up. Cleanse them with a righteous cane until the depravity and barbarity of their misguided upbringing flows like water from their frail little bodies.
Only then may we be absolved of this heinous affront to God. Only then may we send our collective plea to Him and pray for a final solution. But what is the answer? And who will deliver it to us?
Your god. Our God. My GOD. These are the Three Gods of the New Era. Your god is a myth, a false legend, a wily trickster birthed of ignorance and sin and set loose upon the earth to lead the weary astray. Our God is impalpable, murky, a nebulous bundle of loose ideals and collective philosophy propagated through the ages by metaphorical circumstance and allegory. Our God is a construct of the masses. Our God is simply my God obscured by the slimy film of worldly compromise and dim understanding.
My God is absolute. My God is the bread of life. My God is whatever I want Him to be, because I am His creation and my every thought was ordained by Him before I came to know this life.
My God can shoot lasers from His eyes. My God can have bionic limbs and a titanium exoskeleton capable of deflecting small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. My God can have three heads, each mouth opening wide to spew forth acid and flames upon the tragic damned. He can be taller than a skyscraper. He can be more vengeful than the most dangerous and rabid of beasts. He can snatch you up out of your skin as if you are nothing at all to Him because, verily, you are not.
As the children are fettered and weeping, as the flames consume the cursed makings of a liar king, as the followers of Oschter Haws squirm and die in the muck, my God will descend from a burning sky on a chariot of souls and the stage will be set. He will face the wicked Oschter Haws on the field of battle, and many shall perish in the wake of their struggle. Cities will fall. The cries of the accursed will fill the boiling air as they are ripped and torn asunder. Rivers will flow with blood and chocolate which shall spill forth into our streets and devour the elderly and the weak.
As the empire of the dreaded Oschter Haws crumbles, my God will rise and smite it with a blow from His mighty hammer and the devilish beast shall fall. Before the light fades from its predatory gaze, we shall consume its innards and set fire to its evil heart. We will drag its ragged corpse through the streets and hang it from a tall post. It will fester and rot in the sun, and the maggots will dig into its eyes, and false prophets will look upon this monument of flesh and bone and shy away from this land forevermore.
His righteous thirst for blood temporarily sated, my God will ascend to Heaven in a glorious inferno. As His eternal eye settles upon us from the stars once more, we shall bury our honored dead and give praise to Him who leads us from bondage with mercy and deadly grace.
He is the Lamb. He is the bearer of eternal life. Only through His loving wrath may we truly seek redemption. May we bless His fury and keep His jealous rage in our hearts forever and ever.
Amen.
From the Artist:
Author Mike Chambers is a good friend of mine- as to say we've on more than one occasion been inebriated to the point of poetic slander and mutual cynicism of the discontents of both society and system. At our friend Nathan's birthday party last weekend, we decided to collaborate on this Easter project having The Lord Jesus Christ reclaim his holiday from the devilish little incarnation known as The Easter Bunny. I quickly drew a drunken thumbnail out on a paper towel in ball-point pen depicting Jesus smashing the Hoppity One's brains out with the Hammer of God. This was simply to save a memento of the idea just in case the moment of brilliance slipped my mind. Good thing, because the author didn't remember a damn thing after a dozen or so Black Tooth Grins and ended up covered head to toe in all-purpose self-rising flour... don't ask. Anyhow- a Biblical seven days later, you have this visionary magical treat! In Vino Veritas
Oschter Haws: An Easter Tale of Calamity and Woe is purely a brainchild of satire. Please don't harm, heckle, haze or otherwise create prejudice against your local community Easter Bunnies due to the above-mentioned content. No real animals or eggs were harmed in the making of this commentary.
Click HERE for more Incarnations of Jesus from last Easter!
He’s hippity. He’s hoppity. He’s bip-bap-boppity. As Winter’s harsh breath fades to little more than a drab memory and the posies and honeysuckle bloom once more, he bounds across the land with a basket full of sunshine. Children laugh and tumble and sing in his wake as he heralds the welcoming embrace of Spring with tasty sweets and frivolity. He is the Easter Bunny, and his time is once again nigh.
This iconic creature has been the subject of wonderment and lore worldwide. We’ve seen him in parades, cartoons, books, and movies. He has brightened the childhoods of millions, ascending the ranks alongside other such cherished figures as The Tooth Fairy, Optimus Prime, Super Mario and many more. But what do we really know about this innocuous little beast? Is he hiding something behind that bushy tail and those beady, calculating little eyes?
The Easter Bunny has its roots in pre-Christian fertility rituals centered around the goddess Eastre, whose earthly symbol was the rabbit. It wasn’t until the 1500’s that the rabbit was firmly associated with Easter in Germanic writings, and this legend persisted and traversed the globe to the new world with the arrival of German settlers in the Pennsylvania Dutch colonies in the 1700’s. A visit from Oschter Haws, as they called it, was second only to the arrival of Christ-Kindel on Christmas Eve, thus affirming the first cultural association between the mythical Easter Bunny and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in what would become the United States.
Things escalated quickly. Fast forward until shortly after the civil war, and the ascension of the Easter Bunny as an idol was complete. Since then, children across the country have awoken on Easter Sunday to open baskets full of gifts and treats. They gleefully rush from their homes to search for the precious hidden eggs this mythical creature leaves scattered about during his yearly trespass. They revel in the pagan abundance of it all, gorging themselves on chocolate until their little tummies churn and bubble and froth with sickness, never once given the chance to understand that the true tradition behind this day has been hijacked by a floppy little monster with an agenda.
Friends, neighbors, fellow Americans, it is truly a sad moment in the history of this glorious nation when we allow our children to abandon the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ in favor of the trappings of gluttony, materialistic excess and unbridled idol worship. It is a disgrace and a shame that we should allow the physical manifestation of a false pagan goddess to defecate upon our hallowed religious principles and guide our children into the gaping maw of Satan himself. Something must be done, and it must be done now.
The Easter Bunny must die.
 |
| Inks on Bristol / 2012 / Brandt Hardin |
Deuteronomy 7:5-6
But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images,and burn their carved images with fire. Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it an accursed thing.
Through the power of His Holy Word, God has already given us a vision of what this day is meant to become and called upon us to act without hesitation or mercy. We must cast aside the wicker baskets and colored eggs and ribbons and banners and grind them into the dust. We must gather unto us the chocolate bunnies and toys, graven images of this worldly aberration, and set them ablaze upon an altar of glory for others to see. All across this great nation we must bring destruction upon the material accoutrements of the vile Oschter Haws until the smoke and flames rise to the heavens and render a sweet fragrance to God.
And what of its followers, the men and women who adorn the likeness of Oschter Haws and dance to its malevolent tune? We must pluck them from the shopping malls and parades and, praise God, even the churches of this land and cast them out with a righteous fury. We must surround them and spit upon them and cast our stones at them until they repent of their wickedness and embrace the love of the One True God. As they lie there in the dirt, choking and broken, we must join our voices and raise a cry of victory over the forces of evil.
We must purge the children, who have feasted upon spoiled fruit and grown bloated with the sin of Socialist liberal doctrine, wicked carnal knowledge and blasphemous idolatry. As they rise from their beds on Easter morning and scurry to the door, we must snatch them up by the nape of the neck and bring them into obedience to a loving God. Bind them to the floor. Lock them up. Cleanse them with a righteous cane until the depravity and barbarity of their misguided upbringing flows like water from their frail little bodies.
Only then may we be absolved of this heinous affront to God. Only then may we send our collective plea to Him and pray for a final solution. But what is the answer? And who will deliver it to us?
Your god. Our God. My GOD. These are the Three Gods of the New Era. Your god is a myth, a false legend, a wily trickster birthed of ignorance and sin and set loose upon the earth to lead the weary astray. Our God is impalpable, murky, a nebulous bundle of loose ideals and collective philosophy propagated through the ages by metaphorical circumstance and allegory. Our God is a construct of the masses. Our God is simply my God obscured by the slimy film of worldly compromise and dim understanding.
My God is absolute. My God is the bread of life. My God is whatever I want Him to be, because I am His creation and my every thought was ordained by Him before I came to know this life.
My God can shoot lasers from His eyes. My God can have bionic limbs and a titanium exoskeleton capable of deflecting small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. My God can have three heads, each mouth opening wide to spew forth acid and flames upon the tragic damned. He can be taller than a skyscraper. He can be more vengeful than the most dangerous and rabid of beasts. He can snatch you up out of your skin as if you are nothing at all to Him because, verily, you are not.
As the children are fettered and weeping, as the flames consume the cursed makings of a liar king, as the followers of Oschter Haws squirm and die in the muck, my God will descend from a burning sky on a chariot of souls and the stage will be set. He will face the wicked Oschter Haws on the field of battle, and many shall perish in the wake of their struggle. Cities will fall. The cries of the accursed will fill the boiling air as they are ripped and torn asunder. Rivers will flow with blood and chocolate which shall spill forth into our streets and devour the elderly and the weak.
As the empire of the dreaded Oschter Haws crumbles, my God will rise and smite it with a blow from His mighty hammer and the devilish beast shall fall. Before the light fades from its predatory gaze, we shall consume its innards and set fire to its evil heart. We will drag its ragged corpse through the streets and hang it from a tall post. It will fester and rot in the sun, and the maggots will dig into its eyes, and false prophets will look upon this monument of flesh and bone and shy away from this land forevermore.
His righteous thirst for blood temporarily sated, my God will ascend to Heaven in a glorious inferno. As His eternal eye settles upon us from the stars once more, we shall bury our honored dead and give praise to Him who leads us from bondage with mercy and deadly grace.
He is the Lamb. He is the bearer of eternal life. Only through His loving wrath may we truly seek redemption. May we bless His fury and keep His jealous rage in our hearts forever and ever.
Amen.
From the Artist:
Author Mike Chambers is a good friend of mine- as to say we've on more than one occasion been inebriated to the point of poetic slander and mutual cynicism of the discontents of both society and system. At our friend Nathan's birthday party last weekend, we decided to collaborate on this Easter project having The Lord Jesus Christ reclaim his holiday from the devilish little incarnation known as The Easter Bunny. I quickly drew a drunken thumbnail out on a paper towel in ball-point pen depicting Jesus smashing the Hoppity One's brains out with the Hammer of God. This was simply to save a memento of the idea just in case the moment of brilliance slipped my mind. Good thing, because the author didn't remember a damn thing after a dozen or so Black Tooth Grins and ended up covered head to toe in all-purpose self-rising flour... don't ask. Anyhow- a Biblical seven days later, you have this visionary magical treat! In Vino Veritas
Oschter Haws: An Easter Tale of Calamity and Woe is purely a brainchild of satire. Please don't harm, heckle, haze or otherwise create prejudice against your local community Easter Bunnies due to the above-mentioned content. No real animals or eggs were harmed in the making of this commentary.
Click HERE for more Incarnations of Jesus from last Easter!
get help
ReplyDelete"Christ" was a title, not a name. It referred to "Christos" or "Oil on the Water". Jesus was known for his ability to bring love and peace, not hatred and condemnation.
ReplyDeleteLeave the celebration of innocent loving Eostre, whom Jesus would gladly love to walk with alone.
Look to your own attitude, you'll need it more, if and when you ever get to see Him.
NobleSun
NobleSun, thanks for the comment. If I walk with Him, He'll have to come here to me. I prescribe to much more Buddhist ideals where is no invisible judge and jury in the sky. If Christ was the physical embodiment of God, who sentences folks to burn for all of eternity wouldn't that classify as condemnation?
DeleteI'm sorry I ever stopped by.. First I thought you were interesting but then you turned into a wicked devious creature. Your "artwork" is questionable I honest thought it was Christ with His balls cut off
ReplyDeleteI turned into a creature? From the art or from Mike Chamber's prose? What sort of statement would it be to castrate Christ? Man you're one sick puppy.
DeleteOkay it wasn't until I got to the lasers in his eyes that I was finally sure that it WAS satire and not some religious zealot. If that qas your goal, kudos.
ReplyDeleteLolz... glad you caught on- I have a feeling many other's aren't. We're pretty dry-humored around here!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete