Ok, it’s almost Easter. So it’s somewhat appropriate to write a piece on Easter. And this serves as your warning that there’s some religious content below, so beware!

Being a Christian, it’s probably not the best idea to say that I think it’s possible that the secular holidays of Christmas and Easter have helped keep the Christian faith alive and well.

Does that sound too bizarre? 

Being into writing books and publishing books and advertising books, I see a lot of odd things. One of them that I had to get used to was that advertising your book didn’t need to be really much of anything that the book was about. That is, the cover doesn’t have to attempt to illustrate a scene from the story.

In fact, it’s usually frowned on. The reason? No one who’s picking the book up for the first time knows anything about what’s going on. So they won’t have any idea of why your cover is so clever since it’s done a great job of illustrating this really cool scene from the book.

Stay with me here.

Bunnies, and eggs, and odd bits of rites stolen or borrowed from other religions down through history has given us what we have today. For a secular person, it’s probably a little confusing, but since you’re just in it for the candy eggs, does it matter?

In a way, it probably does. And what I’m getting at is, we’re keeping the story of Jesus, his death, and his resurrection in front of the masses all the time. We’ve got this great hook (Can Jesus come back on the third day? Read this and find out!) and while it might be crass to eat those stupid bunnies (you have any idea how many calories are in a Reeses egg? I do. And I still ate a whole Costco bag over a three week period) you still eat the bunnies. And over your life, even the most atheist of atheists has to have said, “Hm, I wonder about that whole Jesus thing.”

Same with Christmas. While we’re extolling the virtues of getting the perfect hand mixer, or cocktail shaker, or wine opener. Or possibly the best wine you can buy, or seriously contemplating finally buying that Caribbean island, thoughts of the birth of Christ have to kind of sneak in there. I mean, completely unbidden and probably annoying, but just like over-emphasis of Christmas gifts and chocolate eggs, you can’t help that thought sneaking in, on the order of, “Haven’t seen Jesus in a while, wonder how he’s doing?”

Personally, I kind of think it’s been a great ad campaign for the last few hundred years. Are we losing Jesus in the crass holidaity of Christmas and Easter?

Maybe not