Easter is the forgotten holiday, a sort of stop along the way to summer in which we sort of celebrate Spring.
Which is puzzling, since Easter should be the biggest deal on the Christian calendar.
Easter celebrates the rising from the dead of Jesus. It’s the founding event of the Christian religion. We make a big deal out of Christmas but, really, without the fulfillment of the promise of Easter, where would Christians be?
Yet there are very few Easter songs. Here Comes Peter Cottontail is not exactly on everyone’s lips. If you want to get Hymn-y about it, there’s Jesus Christ Has Risen Today, Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow, and a few others. Not exactly the top ten.
The commercial forces have tried to transform Easter from a religious holiday into something as secular as Christmas became. They created this bunny guy who hopped all over the world giving decorated hard-boiled eggs to all the good children.
And there’s the problem. I mean, as a child, who really wanted a hard boiled egg?
Then they turned the eggs into chocolate, but it was too late. That Easter Bunny train left the station.
When I was in the 5th grade at St. Alphonsus, I was recruited to sing in the boys’ choir. Our major moment occurred on Easter Sunday, as we processed down the aisle singing the aforementioned Jesus Christ Has Risen Today. I can still hear my loud soprano voice singng the “A-a-a-a-a-le-lu-u-ia.” We were dressed in white robes and our song filled the church. We were rock stars.
That was in 1966. In all that time, no one has come up with a popular Easter song, one that everyone knows and sings.
So, Happy Easter everyone. Hope you enjoy your hard-boiled eggs. If you celebrate the holiday at all, there is little danger you will forget the “reason for the season.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a puzzling one.
Mark Bruce, Writer 