Do bunnies, colored eggs diminish true meaning of Easter?

It all sounds so … familiar.

But the holiday we’re talking about today — and the holiday that happens to be today — is Easter, on which Christians celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.

Like its yuletide counterpart that arrives a few months earlier, Easter has become, however reluctantly, one of a handful of religious holidays that somewhere along the way has turned into a major secular holiday, too.

It’s not a recent transformation. For instance, the Easter Bunny has been around for a few centuries now (although his milk chocolate counterpart is a relative newcomer), and commerce has been entwined with Easter at least since Irving Berlin talked in 1933 about wearing a fancy hat to the Easter parade.

But there are subtle, if anecdotal, signs — a growing, earlier-arriving gaggle of commercials for Easter sales, Easter cards encroaching into the birthday card racks at greeting card stores, the perplexing transformation of Easter into a gift-giving holiday — that Easter’s sacred-secular balance has tipped a bit more toward the latter lately.

"I came into ministry at a time in the early Nineties when, maybe, some of that shift had already begun to happen, and it probably has just accelerated," says the Rev. Scott Postma, lead pastor of Northpointe Community Church, which meets at Hagen Elementary School, 150 W. Rome Blvd.

Easter probably still is "not as commercial as Christmas," says the Rev. Carol Walton, priest in charge of All Saints Episcopal Church, 4201 W. Washington Ave.

But, she adds, "when I was a kid, the commercialization (of Easter) was probably in getting a new Easter dress, new shoes, maybe a new bonnet."

It might seem odd to think of Easter as an easily commercialized holiday because, while Christmas brings to mind cuddly images of a baby in a manger, Easter evokes images of joy appearing only after torture, death and suffering.

Michael LaTour, a professor of marketing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, notes that Easter does have "huge" significance to Christians.

But, from a marketing standpoint, he continues, holidays such as Easter can have "deep emotional roots for people, and it’s important to understand the nature of those emotions. They can be very deep-seated and operate at a level below conscious awareness."

Visiting the Easter Bunny. Hunting for Easter eggs. Gathering with relatives for Easter dinner. All can evoke Easter memories that don’t necessarily hinge on observing, or even understanding, the holiday’s religious significance.

But if Easter has become more commercial, don’t blame retailers.

"I think it definitely is two-sided," Postma says. "Marketers are certainly looking for the niche, and I think largely as a society — at least in our North American culture — we’ve become highly consumerized. We are consumers."

Then, Postma continues, "I think the other problem is that we’ve become more secularized in our society."

Still, the line between the secular and the religious can be a bit porous. Consider, for instance, that several valley churches include among their Easter weekend activities Easter egg hunts for children.

"I think that’s the tension we all struggle with," says Postma, whose church will be having one.

But, he explains, such events serve to attract families — including those he calls "CEOs" or "Christmas and Easter Only" Christians — to the church who might, then, attend Easter services, too.

The Rev. Mark Wickstrom, senior pastor of Community Lutheran Church, 3720 E. Tropicana Ave., says attendance at his church’s Easter egg hunt spans generations and includes grandparents who bring the children of their, perhaps, less-observant own adult kids. "So I think it’s a nice bridge being built," he says.

All Saints’ Easter Sunday egg hunt and potluck also are part of an effort to build community among church members, Walton says. "It’s for family members, and one of the whole points of church community is that family-building."

Beyond that, the challenge for pastors then becomes focusing, or refocusing, congregants’ attention on the spiritual, rather than the secular, dimensions of Easter.

Walton, for instance, says her church conducts a full week of Holy Week services from Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday that help take parishioners on the entire Easter journey that culminates in the joy of Easter.

The congregation two weeks ago also brought in food and made Easter baskets that are distributed to valley families for Easter dinner.

Wickstrom says parents can help by telling the Easter story to their children, much in the same way that he will tell the story to children during his church’s Easter egg hunt.

Parents also can help by answering children’s questions about the spiritual significance of Easter to counterbalance the holiday’s secular story.

"I would hope parents would have some decent answers, much in the same way that Jesus’ birth has nothing to do with Santa," he adds. "But I think we can make a connection."

Postma says the overall goal is to "tell a better alternative story" of Easter "that’s really going to become the new norm."

That, he says, means telling "the story of Christ’s death and resurrection and (showing) its relevance to people who are living. So, kind of tell it better and clearer, and show the relevance.

"And I think it’s still relevant. Easter eggs aren’t that relevant, but the Resurrection is."

Wickstrom figures that the commercialization of Easter even can be useful. Unlike Christmas, Easter is celebrated on varying dates that change from year to year, which means Easter can fall anywhere from mid-March to late April each year. (Even more confusing: Eastern Orthodox Christians use a different calendar to calculate the date, so their Easter usually falls on a different date altogether.)

"I think, because it is that way, the commercialization helps us to identify that it is coming," Wickstrom says.

"I think it does give the populace, if they’re not particularly religious or spiritual at all, a reason to know that Easter exists. And that gives me, as a religious person, an entree to talk about it in my own way."

Wickstrom likens it to the biblical story of St. Paul who, seeing "the tomb of an unknown god," takes the opportunity to make his own argument in support of Jesus.

"What I think the commercialization of Easter does is, it allows us to say, ‘You know the things about Easter bunnies? Well, I’m here to talk about the unknown god, and his name is Jesus.’ "

Besides, Wickstrom jokes, "I love chocolate, so I’m not opposed to that piece (of Easter)."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.