Baskets, Bonnets and Bunnies

Easter 2022

I very much agree with the two thirds of voters in the U.S. who believe that the moral lessons of Passover and Easter are important to “ensuring a strong America for future generations”. So allow me to share three lessons today, based on baskets, bonnets and bunnies.

Easter baskets, as you know are a special basket made and used at Easter, filled with eggs, food, toys, or other colorful gifts. Whether they really are meant to pay homage to the pagan goddess of Spring and fertility, Eostre, and the image of her holding a basket on her arm, is not my point. My point simply is, these Easter baskets are usually filled with all sorts of good things!

Lesson 1 – Because of what Jesus did on the cross and by His resurrection from death, He has provided everything that we need. A basket of sorts, filled with good things, for this life and the eternal one to come.

“… seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

2 Peter 1:2 NASB

” I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

John 10:10 NASB

God offers you the most colorful and abundant life basket, filled with the most powerful realities, promises, adventures, challenges, & relationships that you could ever imagine.

Easter bonnets – Wearing a new or fancy hat at Easter represents wearing new clothes for Easter and the new Spring season with its renewal. It represents offering our best on Easter. Irving Berlin made famous the Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, as he sang of the Easter parade that followed this display of new clothes, down 5th Avenue from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC. During the Depression, a new hat or refurbished one represented a simple luxury.

Lesson 2 – New hats and clothes are but trappings for the whole new life that Jesus offers us. A brand new way of thinking, being, doing and living – He made us a new creature from the inside out. THIS is lasting and won’t ever wear out or need to be refurbished. It is a life-long luxury. He offered His best for us!

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.”

2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB

” Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father. so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Romans 6:4 NASB

Have you received the new life that Jesus purchased for you? Are you living your best life?

Easter bunnies – I’m sorry, but the first thing I think about with bunny rabbits is their superior reproductive abilities. After all, it is the European rabbit that has the distinction of being the number one mammal for reproduction. Cuniculturists (those who breed and raise domestic rabbits) tell us that rabbits draw little distinction between sexual behavior and social behavior. Humph… No wonder a female can potentially deliver up to 60 young a year! (Of course, an average 31 day gestation period helps, too.)

Lesson 3 – I want to steal the phrase, “Breed like rabbits.” As Christians, we have been given a job to do, go multiply and make disciples. We are to reproduce – especially spiritually.

” Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”

Genesis 1:28 NASB

” Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19-20 NASB

Perhaps, between now and next Easter, we could commit to share our faith with others and reproduce disciples for Christ!? It is what we’ve been designed to do.

This and every Easter may we ensure a strong America for future generations by remembering the moral lessons of baskets, bonnets and bunnies.

He is Risen, indeed!

Debbie