Not your typical Easter egg, I suppose. Most definitely different than the brightly colored eggs of my youth. I don’t recall any flirty topless young women on any of the Easter cards back then.
Maybe I was just looking in the wrong places.
Back then I never knew much about the origin of the egg in the Easter tradition. Never gave it much thought at all. But there is a story behind that iconic egg. Like the rabbit which has come to symbolize Easter as well, the egg stems from the pagan Easter festival which celebrated both as symbols of fertility and the emerging new life of spring. The coloring of the eggs, done in earliest times by boiling the eggs with flowers petals, also symbolized the budding colors of spring.
For the Christians part, the egg also had a part in their tradition. There is a legend that states that after the crucifixion of Jesus, Caesar summoned Mary Magdalene to appear before him, and upon hearing her claims that Jesus had been resurrected is claimed to have said, pointing at a nearby basket of eggs, “Christ has not risen, no more than that egg is red.” At that point, the eggs supposedly turned red. Many orthodox Christians traditionally color their eggs red to symbolize this story as well as the sacrificial blood of Christ.
There’s also a pragmatic part to the story of the Easter egg. The festival of Lent, the 40 days prior to Easter that symbolize Jesus’ 40 days spent fasting in the desert, had long had a prohibition on all meats and animal by-products including milk and eggs. This created quite a surplus of eggs which would have gone to waste in those days long before modern refrigeration without their preservation by boiling.
Now, where the topless lady in that Victorian era card at the top falls into the story, I have not a clue.
The Victorians certainly had unusual tastes in their greeting cards. I’ve shared some in the past here but some of the ones below have me scratching my head. The couple below with the bunnies riding on chickens behind a sword wielding Rabbit Generals raise a lot of questions. Should we be readying for such an invasion?
Hmm.
For this Sunday Morning Music, I opted to not play an Easter song. I usually play a bit of gospel music from Sam Cooke or Mahalia Jackson. But here is a gospel-tinged song from the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Here’s her This Little Light of Mine.
Rockin’ good way to start your Sunday.
I am taking a short break today so if this looks familiar, it is a slightly edited replay from a couple of years back. Now get out of here or I’ll set those crazy chicken-riding rabbits loose on you…
Redtree Times 