This is the question that came to me a week after arriving in Tanzania where I am volunteering with the Anglican Church of Tanzania in Mara Diocese. It struck me earlier in the week that there is no chocolate to be seen or advertised anywhere.
No Easter Bunny.
No Easter eggs.
No advertising it is Easter week. Where has Easter disappeared to in this country? What is going on?
Based at the area office of the church, everyone there is acutely aware that this is Easter week. Church last Sunday had everyone waving palm leaves, as it was Palm Sunday. This was the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt and the crowds covered the streets in palm leaves in honour of their king. A week later this same crowd were shouting for his execution. No chocolate eggs that day, only blood and death.
But where is the commercial reality that reminds us it is Easter. Can we really have an Easter celebration without chocolate? I realise this is a heresy for which I could be crucified (metaphorically speaking).
The theft of Easter in our consumer driven west has meant that those “celebrating” Easter are celebrating a myth. This is the myth that chocolate eggs and rabbits are the reason for Easter. Spiritual issues are avoided. The guilt driven may attend a church service along with the annual Christmas pilgrmage. But outside that it is eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow …..
Gone is the Easter celebration of the man who gave his life in the humiliation of death on a cross. The God man dying the death each of us deserved to offer us each an escape from eternal death. We squander this gift for chocolate eggs. We satisfy carnal desires in lieu of seeking the spiritual reality that Easter offers.
Maundy Thursday had a 3pm church service where choirs ranging in age from seniors to junior groups sang about their understanding of Easter. No chocolate. No exchange of gifts. Simply joy at the gift provided by God who gives them hope for the future and joy in the present.
Could there be another reason why western marketing has not made it here to the streets of Musoma and most other towns in Tanzania to extol the importance of the Easter Bunny? Oh that’s right, chocolate is expensive. There is no market for people whose lives are lived on survival incomes. Where it is rare to see anyone smoking cigarettes. Where AU$200 monthly is a living wage. Where the manager of a mobile phone shop trades her increased income for the lowly salary of a church worker because she sees the value in serving others, not chasing a material life.
Are the culture wars in the developed world seeking to shut down Christianity so that the spiritual challenges of our mortality can be literally out of sight and out of mind. So everyone can be a monkey. See no Christianity.Hear no Christinity. Definitely don’t speak Christianity. Slincing Christians won’t stop the good news of Easter. Jesus came Jesus Ddied. Jesus rose from the dead. 2000 years of attempts to stop Christianity have failed. Using the Easter Bunny to divert us from the Easter message may blind many but won’t stop Easter being celebrated for what is is all about.
AfricaEddie 