Chocolate Saviour
(I was going to title this, Saviouring Chocolate, but thought that might be a bit weird as a mental image to carry around on Good Friday.)
So as the last post might suggest, I am probably not the acid test for what might offend the Catholic Church, but this hoopla over the chocolate Jesus statue has flummoxed me. I mean, don’t you have some poverty to get worked up about? Some really horrible wars? Something? But I’m also confounded because I think the sculpture sends a very powerful Easter-as-religious-holiday statement that I would think most Catholics could get behind.
So what is Easter about? On the one hand, it’s definitely about spring. Note the bunnies, the chicks, the eggs. Sex. New life. Getting jiggy in the spring amongst the tulips. Eostre (Easter) is a mother-goddess (see Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, if nothing else). So Easter is a ritual of rebirth, breeding new life from the dead land.
Not unakin to this is the death and resurrection of Jesus, which, for Christians, is really what Easter is about and the eggs and bunnies and things are incidental, much like Father Christmas. Yet as far as capitalism is concerned, Easter (and Christmas and oh so many holidays) is about consumption, including the consumption of chocolate. It’s hard to draw a connection between Jesus’ crucifixion and chocolate. As Eddie Izzard said (and I’m paraphrasing a bit here), “Well children, we eat chocolate at Easter because it’s brown and the wood of the cross on which Jesus was hung is brown. And there were bunnies playing at the foot of the cross…”
Insofar as chocolate eggs and Peeps are distractions from what is, for many people, the true meaning of the season, then the chocolate Jesus is a striking juxtaposition and comment upon the layers of this holiday. What do you believe in, it asks? God? Chocolate? Is this a season of consumption? Or of faith? Of life?
Of course, the answer might very well be “I believe in chocolate,” and that’s a good answer too (particularly on Thursday nights when you’re worn to a nubbin and the week is not yet over). And no matter what the answer, the question is worth asking. Not just on this day, at this season, for this holiday. But for every holiday. Every day.
What do we believe in?
There is often a difference between what was say we believe in and our true beliefs…
And, FURTHER MORE!
Jesus traveled to the East as a youngster where he met an Amazon, and she taught him how to make hot cocoa. And so there’s this whole gospel about Jesus and chocolate.
And then he was crucified, and on the third day, he rose again to see if his shadow was there, and saw that it was NOT, and summer didn’t come for another two months. And that sucked.
Really, actually, I must say this: I am a Christian, and I don’t buy the physical resurrection AT ALL. But I do get the chocolate.
And also: I am amazed at how many people don’t understand why bunnies have become a huge symbol for Easter. So thanks for educating others. Now let’s talk Beltain and Saturnalia!