Editor's Note : When Did Easter Become About Chocolate Eggs and Bunnies?

Between Resurrection and Rabbits

There was a time when Easter meant something.

Not in the soft, pastel, chocolate-filled way it does now, but in a way that sat heavy in the chest. In a way that demanded something of you.

Growing up in Nigeria, Easter was not a holiday you stumbled into. It was one you prepared for. One you felt.

Good Friday was quiet, almost reverent in its sorrow. The house would dim into reflection as my mother played Jesus of Nazareth on repeat. I remember watching, wide-eyed and undone, as Jesus was beaten, mocked, and nailed to the cross. I cried, deep, uncontrollable tears. Tears that carried anger. How could they do this to him?

And then Sunday came.

The shift was electric. Church became a theatre of joy. The pastor would shout, “HE IS RISEN!” and we would scream it back, voices stretched to their limits. In my mind, I could see it-Jesus, robed in white, stepping out of the tomb, victorious.

Easter was everything.

Now, I live in England, raising a child in a culture that feels, at times, more secular than sacred. This Easter, my daughter told me she was excited-not because of resurrection, but because the Easter Bunny would be hiding eggs around the house.

I smiled. But something in me sank.

When did Easter become this?

Beneath that question sits something deeper-my own uncertainty. There are things I no longer accept without question. Why would God need sacrifice to forgive? Why would forgiveness require blood? These are questions I didn’t have as a child, but I carry them now.

And so I find myself in an unfamiliar position-not just as a mother trying to pass something down, but as a woman still trying to understand what she believes.

There is guilt in that.

A quiet feeling that I am failing my child-that I am not giving her what my mother gave me: certainty. My mother believed, and because she believed, so did I.

But belief doesn’t always pass down unchanged. Sometimes it shifts. Sometimes it breaks. Sometimes it asks to be rebuilt.What I am learning is this: I may not be able to give my child the same Easter I had, but that does not mean I have nothing to give her.Because beyond doctrine and tradition, Easter is a story about renewal. About starting again. About love, sacrifice, and transformation.

Maybe her understanding will begin in play, not in pain. But one day, she will ask questions. And when she does, I won’t meet her with rehearsed answers or borrowed certainty.

I will meet her with honesty.

I will tell her what Easter meant to me. I will tell her what I am still trying to understand. I will show her that faith is not always fixed-and that questioning is not the absence of belief, but part of it.

I am raising a child between two Easters.

One of resurrection.

One of rabbits.

And somewhere in between, I am learning that faith is not always about having the answers-

just the courage to keep asking.