The uncoordinated rambling of a man about a man-rabbit and a man who was God. Plus some low blows to the makers of Peeps.

I was never really that into Easter as a kid. It was kind of cool, but not as cool as my birthday and not as cool as Christmas. If my birthday was Superman and Christmas was Batman, then Easter was always more like Martian Manhunter -- dependable, supposedly important, but ultimately forgettable and difficult to connect with as a child.

There was never a build up toward Easter. My family wasn't religious although there were a couple Easters where I'd get a small, green or red, King James New Testament. And of course it wasn't just the New Testament. It was the New Testament AND Psalms. Because it's never enough to give somebody a Bible that's missing the entire first half of the plot, but give them the poetic prologue to make sure you confuse them as much as possible.

Easter was never about Jesus. Easter was always about a Saturday in the kitchen coloring eggs. Blue eggs. Purple eggs. Eggs as yellow as a heavy smoker's teeth. Eggs that were blue on top, purple on the bottom, and a very district belt of brown around the middle from where the colors mixed tragically.

Easter was about getting up in the morning to find baskets of chocolate rabbits, jelly beans, Peeps that would ultimately be thrown away unopened (because Peeps are gross), and a new toy or two. All of these goodies would be sitting on a plush bed of shredded green paper (so as to simulate the natural environment of said goodies).

These goodies were left by a nefarious creature called the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny was a six-foot rabbit that had never been caught and from the dawn of time had plagiarized Santa Clause. But whereas Santa Clause had an army of elves and reindeer, the Easter Bunny worked solo. The Easter Bunny was the "Dirty" Harry Callahan of mythical gift-givers.

The Easter Bunny was also not as impressive as Santa. Santa worked during the coldest parts of winter and delivered tons of impressive toys. The Easter Bunny waited until the weather was more pleasant and delivered a fraction of the goods. He also delivered Peeps, even though I had written him a letter politely asking him not to do so.

To:
The Easter Bunny
The Bunny Hole
Bunnytown, USA

Dear Mr. Easter Bunny,

Please stop giving me Peeps every year. I always throw them away. Peeps are gross. Thanks for the Hot Wheel cars.

Cordially,

Ben Koehn, Age 5

After my brother and I raided the baskets the Easter Bunny had left us, we went outside for the traditional egg hunt. Legend had it that every year, the Easter Bunny -- either in a fit of drunken rage or in a rude and failed attempt at one-upping Santa, littered our yard with the hard-boiled eggs we had spent the previous afternoon painstakingly dying.

So our parents would force my brother and I to retrieve these eggs from where the rabbit had hidden them -- under rocks, on top of tires, in exhaust pipes, up in trees, deep in bushes of poison ivy and thorns, and badger holes. The badger holes were always the trickiest.

Twenty plus years later, I watch this weekend with a detached curiosity. Gone are my days of waking up to baskets of candy and toy cars and gone are my days of expressing my artistic creativity with painted eggs only to find them scattered across the yard the next morning.

I remember when I actually tried to figure out what Easter was all about. I remember when I realized that the Easter I grew up with, although fun, was a cheapened novelty act. I'd compare it to that feeling you get when you read a great book and then watch a two hour movie that butchers the entire plot, character development, and mood of the original.

Not that bunnies aren't great. And not that forcing kids to scour the yard for plastic eggs like a minesweeper on the battlefield isn't fun. When I have my own kids, I'll probably make this a fairly common occurrence -- eggs, pennies, whatever keeps them busy.

It's just that when I learned that Easter was about the time that a man, who was also God, came back from the dead, I wonder why we settled for this version of Easter. It's like there was some election and everyone had to vote between two candidates and decide which would be the best representative of this weekend --

1. A six-foot bunny that brings children candy, cheap toys, and hides eggs in their yard.
2. A man who healed the blind and the sick, claimed to be God, said a bunch of stuff that turned the world upside down, was beaten and murdered, and then came back from the dead.

Now, I get that not everybody believes what I believes what I believe. This isn't a conversation to them. This is a conversation to everybody who thinks that Jesus might, just might have come back from the dead. This is a conversation to everybody who is leaning, just a bit, toward the conclusion that this Jesus guy might have been legit.

My question to them is this: between the big bunny and Jesus, why are we always more comfortable with the idea of the bunny? Is it nostalgia for your own childhood? Is it the pleasantry of the pastels and the candy? Is it the fact that you haven't seen Donnie Darko and have yet to realize that a large rabbit might be bad news?

Or could be that the bunny seems like the least difficult of the two candidates? The rabbit never said that he came "with a sword". The rabbit never said that he came to turn "a son against father and a daughter against mother". The rabbit just said, I'll give you sweets and treats and be as inoffensive as possible.

For some reason, most of us like Easter as long as we don't have to talk about what it really means. We think that kind of talk should be kept in churches or in home schools. Nobody can get mad if I say that Easter is about a bunny. Because if somebody asks me if I believe in the Easter Bunny, I can easily say, "No, duh, that's just what we tell our kids for fun."

But if I claim that I think Easter is about Jesus, then I have to have awkward conversations and listen to difficult questions. Nothing bad ever happened because somebody talked about the Easter Bunny. We all know he isn't real. But it costs you quite a bit of pride and comfort to talk about Jesus if you believe in him. Because he did come to bring a sword and he did come to turn son against father and daughter against mother.

But Jesus also brought other things. He brought comfort into an uncomfortable world. He brought healing and hope. He brought compassion the likes of which hadn't been seen. He brought second chances and an example of how to live a beautiful life.

Jesus brought us Easter. The day when the man who was God walked out of a tomb and stunned the world. To make that claim do I invite myself to field some uncomfortable questions? Sure. Can I claim to have met Jesus in person? No.

But I look at it this way. I never saw the Easter Bunny, bought I never really believed in him either. It was always very tongue-in-cheek and the rewards were always very small. Some candy bars. Some jelly beans. Little green army men. The only reason anybody could have sold me on the reality of the Easter Bunny was by the evidence he left in his wake. There's nothing compelling to a child about plastic eggs and candy. Sure, they are nice and I wouldn't turn them down today, but the wake of Easter Bunny never drew me in, never showed me anything remarkable, and never challenged me.

I've never met Jesus. If asked, I could never prove his existence anymore than I could prove the existence of the Easter Bunny. Sure, there are plenty of historical documents that can prove the existence of the man Jesus, but what true skeptic is overcome by a piece of paper?

So I would point you to my friends who have overcome all types of addictions. I would point you to my friends who have persevered through great tragedy and horrible circumstances, not just barely getting by but renewed with a strong, passionate hope. I would point you to the lives that have been changed and people that have been healed. I would point you to the wake of Jesus; to the trail of evidence he has left behind in the lives of thousands and millions who have chosen to believe in him. And if there is one thing that the big bunny and Jesus do have in common, it's that they are seen most clearly by what they leave in their wake.