Rabbit-Gospel
a devotional for Eastertide
no magic trick, the vanishing of the rabbit is the stuff of legend, a white flash as tail (and tale) are all I'm left with, on the path in the early morning. later, standing in the kitchen with him over coffee, I try to relay the moment, but nothing seems sufficient except to say: "I saw the first rabbit, today."
What do rabbits and eggs have to do with Easter? they laugh, and we all agree, because it does seem silly. And some of us cite the history—pagan and otherwise—and some of us just carry on our merry way, because who doesn’t love a Cadbury egg and some sweet bunny-themed dishtowels? I certainly do.
But sometimes I think it’s obvious what rabbits have to do with Easter, because they always show up just in time for Holy Week, hopping down their homemade bunny-trails and vanishing into the woods just ahead of our frustrated dog’s pursuit.
In this region, we have prey years and predator years, up and down like a wave. Some years the rabbit population swells, the next year the coyote population rises to meet the supply and we see few of our long-eared nibblers around. Then the pendulum swings back, around and around we go.
This appears to be a rabbit year, if the dog’s increased chasings through the underbrush mean anything and the lack of coyote-songs matters at all.
To my mind, the rabbit and Easter go perfectly hand in hand (or hand in paw, I guess). The rabbits sneak about on silent psalmist feet, little brown saints who listen more than they speak, shrewd little messengers of fertility and ancestry. Simple peasant creatures with simple peasant testimonies, making hearth and family where they may, a continued survival of softness and faith and fast-beating hearts in the dark.
Over time, the tale of Easter has been dipped in glue and then in glitter, because we love to make things shiny and glossy and fun, but at its core it’s a tale of cold stone in the early morning, of linen grave-wrappings useless on the floor, a garden where the Gardener is a hidden Messiah. It is a rabbit-gospel, big feet on the ground and ears pricked for Heaven. A tale of in-betweens, of life and death, of a tomb that used to be occupied but isn’t, anymore. It’s a surviving gospel, which lives on in the quiet, not in the flash.
Rabbits know: flash never lasts. Glitter is death (as any teacher or parent knows). To live, you must go about your business quietly, humbly, and with one eye on the sky. Simple is best. Less is more. Listen well with those big years, twitch that careful nose. Be aware, but delight in the taste of spring’s new green, for in that taste is the flavor of Paradise.
If only we humans could learn that lesson. Perhaps we wouldn’t cause each other so much pain. Perhaps we would find our faith has an unexpected face, one we need to learn anew every single day, a tiny springtime in our souls. Perhaps we would find providence and paradoxical confidence and abiding grace in being very small, very vulnerable.
We pray. We, prey.
The Easter bunny may be a little frivolous fable, but do not be deceived: in the old days, the rabbit was considered a creature who could walk between worlds.
Sometimes, when I watch one dart out of sight on a green-lit path—here one moment, gone the next; the tomb empty, the garden full—I’m not so sure that it isn’t so.
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Oh, my, just now read this wonderful parable (for that’s how it seems to me). Loved these words especially: “The rabbits sneak about on silent psalmist feet, little brown saints who listen more than they speak, shrewd little messengers of fertility and ancestry. Simple peasant creatures with simple peasant testimonies, making hearth and family where they may, a continued survival of softness and faith and fast-beating hearts in the dark.” My first response: “How does she do that?” 😊
The writing in this one was *chef's kiss*, well done! Never thought about how rabbits really do seem to come back just in time for Easter... saw my first one of the season on a night walk just a few days before.