Here comes Peter Cotton Tail...er...Jesus on a Cross...

In my best SNL impression, "Can we tawk?"

Easter is an interesting holiday for Christians. Second only to Christmas, Easter is our most treasured celebration. The really odd thing is, that like Christmas, Easter has been twisted into something geared towards the kids rather than extending the celebration for adults. After all, what are we celebrating here? The death and resurrection of Jesus right?

Ok, now here's where I've split off from my strict-Pentecostal upbringing: I feel that the whole tale of a crucified man rising from the dead is a little heavy to lay on a kid. I'm not even sure a 10-year old should have to bear that kinda guilt, much less our preschoolers. But that's just what many of us Christian parents do in an effort to balance out the bunny.

See, it's OK to do it with Christmas because we're talking about the birth of a baby. Heck, even my three year old can deal with that; but nailing a guy to a cross, stickin' him in a hole and then having him disappear three days later..that's heavy man!

So my wife heads over to the local Christian bookstore and picks out some stuff to give our older son, and ends up getting some little picture-Bible and a Noah puzzle.Yeah, I get it, we don't go to church often enough, but it's both our faults. And quite frankly, other than the music, I don't get much out of it. But enough about me...

My wife suffers from familial peer-pressure to attend church. I'm sure we're the talk of the family for not having our children baptized yet, but neither of us want to go stand up in front of 500 people at church (that's how Pentecostals do it) and have people wonder "Who are they?" while the pastor sprinkles water on our kid's head. I've offered to go the more private Catholic route, where it's a small family gathering and the priest does his thing, but my wife doesn't seem to want to do that either. What's a boy to do?

Anyway, I'm over the whole "attend church each week thing." The Bible says, "When you pray, go to your room and close the door. Pray privately to your Father who is with you. Your Father sees what you do in private. He will reward you." After I read this, it made those long-winded flowery prayers the pastors say in church just seem kinda hokey.

But to be fair, the Bible also says, "Let us not give up meeting together..." Heb. 10:24 and, "...not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together..." Heb. 10:24 KJV so take what you will from that.

But anyway back to the topic of Easter. I never liked the bunny, but if it presents a nice segue into teaching my children about the God I believe in then hey, it can't be all bad right? And if I never teach them, they'll never have a proper basis from which they can make up their own mind.

That's the crux of the parental, spiritual responsibility. If Einstein never wrote down or taught others his theories, we wouldn't have them today, regardless of whether or not we agree with them. The same holds true for religion, and for that, I am truly guilty.