Easter Parade of Fools

Regarding our habit
Of venerating a rabbit
That brings us all eggs--
Just who's pulling our legs?

Easter's always a grand day, with chocolate abounding and wine overflowing (in our household, at least), an occasion to ponder one of life's profound mysteries:

How can we be so gullible?

It's a time to reread the Book of Luke, the lovely story (most beautiful in the King James Version) that takes us from the birth of Jesus in a stable, attended by shepherds of the field, to his calamitous end and beyond, when the slain Christ apparently busts out of his tomb and, after checking in with a few former friends, takes off for parts unknown.

The most charming (or off-putting, depending on your point of view) aspects of the whole story are it fairy-tale elements. The son of God comes to earth and sets up shop as a carpenter, disappears for a dozen years or so and then returns to embark on a brief career as an itinerant preacher. Though penniless, he attracts an entourage, and travels from town to town, relying on the kindness of strangers for room and board while entertaining the masses with speeches and parables and the preforming of miracles. He walks on water and raises the dead and converts water into wine. He naturally attracts the notice of the authorities, who begin to ask questions and end up hounding him to death. His death, however, is a triumph, and far from the end of things. He has promised to return and set things right.

It is Luke's Jesus that has come down to us, for the most part--the gentle, soft-spoken, sociable soul who loves children and is beloved by women, who bestows his miracles liberally, and who is always kind and considerate, even unto death. And it is Luke's point of view that has become a bedrock of the faith, in particular his conviction that Jesus was the long-awaited messiah who would come back to earth, after a three-day vacation, and establish his kingdom. The fact that we're still waiting hasn't dampened the expectation.