Eating Lamb At Easter

Once again, I’m addressing a topic that has little to do with my proposed focus for the blog, although it did come out of something that I’ve been reading.

Namely, I’ve been reading forum postings about inviting family for Easter dinner, and it took rather a strange direction: people started wondering why it was okay to eat lamb at Easter, which many posters said made them feel a bit funny, but not to eat rabbit.

I think this is a case of confusing the metaphorical with the actual.

Sure, Jesus is frequently referred to as The Lamb of God.

But he isn’t actually a baby sheep. It’s a metaphor.

But the Easter Bunny, on the other hand, is actually a rabbit. A real rabbit. (Yes, he is a real rabbit. I’m not accepting any suggestions that he doesn’t actually exist, even though the Easter Bunny that I grew up with bought his eggs at Woolies on Easter Monday once they’d gone on special.)

So eating rabbit on Easter might lead to some fairly horrified children if someone can’t distinguish an anthropomorphic animal from his less vocal colleagues, and the next Easter rolls around without any eggs at all.