Easter: what's that all about, then? We all know bits and pieces of the story of Easter. Jesus, the crucifixion, the eggs, the rabbit, the whole springtime resurrection motif. But how do the pieces fit together? Is Easter just a load of old guff cobbled together from pagan festivals, dodgy theology, and decades of twee marketing? Or is there a deeper spiritual truth we can uncover for the greater glory of God through blind unquestioning faith and the misguided and scattershot application of logic?
Clearly, the latter. Hallelujah, amen, gloria in excelsis deo!
The basic narrative, as near as I can make it out, goes like this. Jesus was crucified by the Romans at the place called Golgotha. Various gospels claim his last words were either "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," "It is finished," "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," or "Rosebud." As he hung dying there on the cross, Jesus laid a clutch of brightly-coloured eggs. These were distributed to his faithful disciples by the Easter Bunny, the most mysterious and abstract member of the Holy Trinity (whose other members are Santa Claus and Doctor Who). Three days after Jesus' death, the eggs hatched, disgorging Jesus' brood of spider-like face-hugging young, as depicted in the film Alien.
What can we deduce from this, theologically?
1. It has widely been agreed since the Council of Nicea in the Fourth Century that Jesus was a mammal. The only egg-laying mammals are the monotremes. Therefore, like the platypus and the echidna, Christ was a monotreme. We can conclude from this that His urinary, defecatory, and reproductive systems all emptied through a single opening, known zoologically as the cloaca. In other words, His anus, urethra, and ovipositor were all as one. In this we can see a clear validation of the trinitarian view of God.
2. Furthermore, in the current geological era monotremes are native only to Australia and New Guinea; therefore, Christ must have been Australian, and consequently favoured tight and revealing swimwear. This raises many questions about his relationship to the Easter Bunny, as rabbits were not introduced to Australia until 1788. The two can only have met after separately migrating to Israel, possibly in a dance club or public toilet, or more likely soaping up in the showers after a hot, sweaty day at the beach. Further research into this theologically sensitive topic is clearly warranted.
3. The practice among many Christians of consuming crackers, said to transubstantiate into the body of Christ, seems deeply connected to Jesus' face-hugging spawn, and may represent an alternate vector for Christological reproduction. We see evidence for this in the use of the word "host" for these crackers, for a host is also one who harbours a parasite. It seems very plausible that, on the day of the Second Coming, the Christ tissue that has accumulated from the hosts in Christian bodies over the years may complete its incubation cycle and form sleek bio-mechanoid xenomorphs. These will burst out through the chests of the hosts, to feed and grow into full-sized acid-blooded killing machines for the greater glory of God, amen.
And that is the true story of Easter.
Posted by aloysius at April 19, 2006 10:39 PM |