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.
 |
| 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!
