As if it wasn’t confusing enough with having to worship the baby Jesus (all grown up and died and born again) and the Easter Bunny in one weekend, this year there is the not-so-small matter of having to also contend with the Easter Ed, writes Lis Breslin.
I love the Easter Ed. I do. I like the way he magically turns closing hours into opening hours and recreates that whole no-room-at-the-inn scenario. But I’m highly bemused at the ginger supermarket aisles and the whole DunEDin-ness going on. I checked in with a carful of 14-year-olds about his godlike status and one of them shrugged and grunted and said something about being pretty sure that people make their own deities or whatever and then they all went straight back to singing all the things in the periodic table to the tune of the Can-Can, by memory, up to 89, which is actinium. Which is useful and amusing if you are 14.
Anyway, since it is a weekend of worship, and because of chocolate and 14-year-olds, though not necessarily in that order, I’ve decided to see if I can do a Q&A thing in my column whereby I ask questions that one would typically ask of the baby Jesus or the Easter Bunny, and answer them only in Easter Ed lyrics to see how he really stacks up as a candidate for being revered.
(nb: it is important to note that this is an experiment based on years, no, centuries, of people taking what Jesus said out of context. And years, no, centuries, of people messing with the legends of the Goddess Ostara and her snow hare lover.)
(nnb: Also, I admit this is one of the most tenuous ideas I have ever had for a column. I blame it on the madness of fandom raging all around me.)
I let the 14-year-olds help me clarify the questions. Their credentials for this are as follows: two of them are going to see the Easter Ed in performance, the third played Jesus in a video for a school project last year and the fourth likes chocolate and bunnies, and chocolate bunnies. In fact, all of them polished off at least one foil-wrapped Easter Bunny on the car ride. I would never have done that as a teenager! Some things were sacred. You saved your Easter eggs until after Church on Easter Sunday, for one thing. And for another, you always did what baby Jesus’s big daddy said. Growing up in an absence of Catholic guilt is something I’d wish for anyone, though I also wish they’d be a bit more reverent of their chocolate. Like, at least consider which bit of the bunny they’re going to sacrifice first. But back to the Easter Ed.
1. Why is the earth flat?
Maybe it’s all part of a plan.
2. Sacrifice or gluttony?
I got sinning on my mind. Sipping on red wine.
3. Do we have to be good at Easter, Ed, like at Christmas?
If you’re broken I will mend you and I’ll keep you sheltered from the storm that’s raging on.
4. Does the Prime Minister make good scones?
I was holding her hand, her hand was holding mine.
5. Baby Jesus turned the water into wine, the Easter Bunny turned chocolate into overpriced hype. What are you going to do?
My mind is a warrior. Champagne out of cider cans.
6. What are your Ten Commandments?
• Come on now follow my lead.
• A tongue has no bones but it is strong enough to break a heart.
• Shake the thing your mother gave ya!
• Oh I oh I oh I
• You can keep me inside the pocket of your ripped jeans.
• People! Fall in love in mysterious ways.
• If this is to end in fire then we should all burn together. Watch the flames climb high into the night.
• Ah lahmlahlah
• Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars.
• And if we should die tonight then we should all die together. Raise a glass of wine for the last time.
