We had a good morning celebrating Easter Sunday, but were presented with a very logical question. Where did the bunny come from and what does it have to do with Christianity? Off on the hunt....
I checked out a few places, and came up with the following answer paraphrased, maybe pirated, from unnamed sources. It came from the internet, so it must be true:
The customs of Easter Sunday, as with many holiday traditions, have evolved over time. Our Easter origins actually start before Christianity, represented in many religions that celebrate a rebirth and the new life found at the beginning of spring. Easter is celebrated according to beliefs of differing religious denominations. Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day that Jesus Christ died and Easter Sunday as the day of resurrection. The concept of an Easter sunrise service, celebrated by many Catholics, was actually brought to the US from Protestant settlers.
The word "Easter" actually comes from the name Eastre, who was the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. Her existence was celebrated at the vernal equinox of each spring.
So, how does the bunny work into this holiday?
As with my children, many eager young children wake up on Easter Sunday to find baskets of treats. Lucky children will spend time burning off the day's wasted empty calories hunting for hidden eggs.
The Easter Bunny originated as a representative symbol of fertility, with the knowledge that rabbits have frequent, multiple births. Rabbits often nest in small dens on grassy knolls. History supports a childhood belief that hares laid eggs in the grass in order to reproduce, a misconception imaginatively held when a child would come across a rabbit den filled with tiny newborn rabbits. Romans held the belief that all life comes from an egg, while Christians hold the egg as a symbol of the seed of life. I wonder how many children felt the rabbits found in the ground mimicked a bird's nest.
This strong symbolic representation of the bunny as a fertile spirit, accompanied by the belief that eggs are the new birth, may be how our traditional associations of the Easter Bunny and the resurrection of Jesus Christ actually make sense.