3 Concepts to Teach Children About the Easter Bunny

Our oldest daughter asked me a pointed question this week. She inquired, “Dad, why do people make a big deal about the Easter bunny? Isn’t Easter about Jesus?” I cannot begin to describe the feelings of joy that pierced my heart when this question left her mouth and infiltrated my ear canal. I was thankful she recognized the distinction between a biblical understanding of Easter with the cultural Easter norms being celebrated around us.

From the outset, I am not anti-Easter bunny guy. Please don’t accuse me of being like an Easter bunny Luddite. However, Christian parents have to think about raising our children by navigating the biblical and cultural meanings of special days like Easter. I want to provide you with three concepts that you should teach your children about the Easter bunny.

1. The Easter bunny is not real. Some parents might think this is a harsh reality to teach their children. However, I think we should be honest with our children about the Easter bunny. Just because the Easter bunny is not real does not mean we can’t have fun participating in Easter egg hunts or taking pictures. We should allow our children to enjoy their imaginations, but we don’t have to connect their imaginations to biblical truth. In other words, we don’t make Easter about the Easter bunny. Rather we should make Easter about Jesus Christ. We need to highlight the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to our children not a cute bunny. As we highlight Jesus, we can have fun with all the Easter festivities in our communities (I am indebted to John Piper for his discussion of Santa Clause in a recent podcast for my thoughts on this subject; see his comments here).
2. Get into gospel conversations at community events. I will unashamedly admit that I use my children as “gospel bait.” The Easter bunny is a cultural conception to our neighbors and community who may not know the gospel of Jesus Christ. To put it another way, many people may not know that Christians have a different reason for celebrating and remembering what Christ has done for us on Easter, but many people in our communities and neighborhoods will gather to hunt eggs and see some poor soul dressed up in a white bunny costume. Teach your children that these are perfect events to share their faith and invite others to church. Training our children for cultural engagements and evangelism is another part of our instruction and raising them as faithful followers. You will be encouraged the first time that one of your children beats you at inviting someone to church. (I can’t wait for the day when one of our children invites the poor soul in the bunny costume).
3. Make worship at a local church top priority. It amazes me that so many people can make plans to attend a neighborhood Easter egg hunt or find out where the cutest Easter bunny pictures will be taken and not make it to church. People will spend hours in the cold, rain, or sunshine to see their kids joyfully get eggs or take an Easter bunny picture, but they won’t spend an hour and fifteen minutes gathering with the body that was bought by the blood of Christ. We should teach our children that we can plan to have fun at these events, but Good Friday Services and Sunday morning worship gatherings are going to take top priority in our schedule. We remind them that the Easter bunny is not real, but we serve a risen and real Lord, Jesus Christ. We will devote our lives to Christ, and if it comes between a pretend Easter bunny and worshiping the resurrected Savior, we will choose the Savior every time.

I hope these three concepts are helpful as you seek to raise your children in our American society under the authority of God’s Word. By teaching our children that the Easter bunny is not real we are able to highlight the true meaning of Easter, which is Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. As we keep Jesus at the center, we are able to have fun with our children, but teach them how to engage with the culture around them in a more biblical and faithful way. Work hard at teaching them to be little evangelists, but also faithful worshipers during this Easter season.