Chillin’ with the J-man somewhere between Eagleson and oblivion

I still believe in the Easter bunny.
The same way I still believe in Santa Claus and the Great Pumpkin – they are all pleasant creatures of varying degrees of fuzziness who bring me stuff.
Not lately though.
I thought about calling this column: What ever happened to the true meaning of Easter?, alternately titled Where the frick is my Easter chocolate?
Then I remembered that other symbol of Easter – hidden beneath a chocolate and nougat veneer of commercialism, courtesy of fudge factories planet wide.
Jesus Christ.
Keep in mind, my family is strictly Roman Catholic – you know the drill: Fridays are for fish and on Sunday’s your butt better be nailed to the church bench.
As a child, I used to dance in the pews and laugh and laugh – at least until my mom shut me up – and watch the big people stand in line to eat Jesus.
“Body of Christ,” said the priest. “Amen.”
Then the priest would drink Jesus’ blood – which kinda freaked me out. As he drank I’d look real hard for fangs pointing out from his lips.
Okay, I watched too many Dracula films as a kid.
And I remember the Bible stories about Jesus – they were a pleasant and uplifting history along the lines of Jesus multiplies the bread and fish; Jesus rescues lady from stoning, Jesus raises Lazarus; ‘He’s a nice man/God’ I thought at the time.
Meanwhile, Christmas was just freakin’ wonderful – with stories about the baby Jesus, the sheep in the nativity scene all a-bahing and the cattle lowing, the three wise men, shepherds tending their sheep and angels thrown into the mix – their eyes all big ‘n watery like the kids on the Welch’s grape juice commercials.
You know, it was just really nice.
But Easter threw me for a complete fruit loop – torture, betrayal spears in the side, whips, nails driven through hands and feet: the crucifixion and suffering of Christ.
I remember listening to the story, and waiting for the cliffhanger scene – you know, where the hero swings from the tree tops to rescue Jesus from the Romans.
“You Jesus. Me Tarzan.”
Or maybe – if you’ve seen the Mad-TV skit – God would send a modified terminator from the future to rescue Jesus.
He’d burst in on the last supper, lift his shotgun and blow away Judas.
Jesus being the good guy he is would heal Judas and the Terminator would kill him again.
“Stop killing Judas!” Jesus would say.
Over time, I would learn that according to Christian belief the suffering of Christ earned mankind a chance at paradise or heaven – a forgiveness of Original Sin (the whole Adam, Eve and one juicy Macintosh scene – at least I like to think of it as Macintosh.)
But I also like to think of the human side of Jesus.
There is nothing more human than a good sense of humour and fun.
And from all that I’ve heard, Jesus had a pretty good one – and I’m certain that given a chance he wouldn’t object to a nice two-fisted solid chocolate bunny.
I’m not saying Jesus would sign a contract with Hershey to push chocolate Easter treats on the faithful – just that he would appreciate some of the earthly pleasures of Easter that bring laughter to our children.
Simple human pleasures cannot compare with the promise of paradise – but they are pleasant nonetheless.
Keep in mind, Easter is a spring Christian holiday.
And with the warm weather – oh sweet man child – wouldn’t it be wonderful to motor through the local DQ in a fully-loaded (whatever that means) pink open-top Cadillac, fuzzy dice waggling in the wind – showin’ sevens, driver’s side of course – a few honies in the back all-a-giggles, shimmyin’ to the sound of the Beach Boys Good Vibrations, and Jesus riding shotgun, decked out in pinstripe baggies, sandals, a white T-shirt, black sunglasses slid down halfway over his nose so you could see his eyes when he winked at you.
Oh the summer sun, Good Vibrations shaking the front speakers, the feel of the warm wind blowin’ your hair in waves, as you zoom down an empty stretch of March Road – with Jesus as your co-pilot.
The signs, they’d say we were approaching the end of the road.
Jesus, he’d sink further into the shag seating, lean over as his sunglasses slid further down his nose and say, ‘Ain’t no end of the road Mensch. We gonna break us another road.’
And turns out he’d be right – just as he always turned out to be right – but that’d be okay because Jesus never rubbed stuff in.
Could there be anything better?
My point being, on Easter we not only honour the crucifixion, the passion and the memory of Jesus Christ – he is a living God, a perfect God, and therefore a God with a pretty good sense of humour – I’ve always imagined him as a slightly more spritely version of George Burns (from the Oh God films) with a friendly dash of Jack Nicholson thrown in. Church learnin’ tells us church is the proper forum to honour him in.
I kinda’ like the church of thought that says we honour him best in everyday life.
(Please note no Christians were harmed in the writing of this blog and no offense was intended towards anyone, religious or otherwise.)