I Believe in Easter

Filmmaker Gary Wilkinson's engaging documentary offers an informative look at the long historical and religious roots of the Easter holiday. The first part explores various links between pre-Christian (i.e., pagan) rituals celebrating the coming of spring and fertility, even connecting ancient myths about rabbits and birds with our contemporary Easter practices of dyeing eggs and buying chocolate bunnies. But Easter is also inseparable from the Jewish rite of Passover, and I Believe in Easter illuminates how the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament is a variation on the Passover theme. Just as Passover involved the sacrifice of a lamb and spilling of its blood to ward off death, so the bloody killing of Christ was intended, in Christian terms, to release humanity from the finality of death. By extension, the eating of bread and drinking of wine—which Christ associates with being filled with the Holy Spirit—grows out of the practice of consuming the slaughtered lamb. Detailing the rest of Christ's story (i.e., the Lamb of God's return from the dead) while also examining other historic beliefs that were predominant in Israel, this is recommended. Aud: P. (T. Keogh)