James Griffin: To cut a long Easter story short

James Griffin. Photo / Dean Purcell

I can't help but feel that in and around all the chocolate and stuff, the actual meaning of Easter has gotten lost. Call me a pagan, if you must, but I'd wager that in most New Zealand homes Easter is less about the arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus than it is about getting the hell out of town for the last long weekend before winter sets in, and trying to make sure the children don't binge on Easter eggs then spin out on the mother of all sugar rushes.

With this in mind it is probably worth taking a minute or two to consider the true (or true if you believe in it) story of Easter - and then go back to scoffing chocolate bunnies and hot cross buns. The story goes something like this ...

Heaps and heaps of years ago, a bloke called Jesus was heading into Jerusalem for the Passover. He was travelling with his disciples, who were like a gang, but not the "gang called The Disciples" from the Prince song Sign 'O' the Times, as nowhere in any Bible does it say they were "high on crack, totin' a machine gun." Maybe if Tarantino makes his filmic version of the Easter story then they'll all be carrying AK-47s and things will turn out very differently and with a much higher body count.

So Jesus, probably because his feet are a bit tired after walking everywhere doing his Jesus stuff, gets a couple of his mates to bring him a donkey so he can ride into Jerusalem in style. Why he didn't then turn this donkey into 12 more donkeys, so everyone can ride, isn't fully explained. Then when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on his donkey the locals are dead impressed, both with him and the donkey, so they scatter foliage in front of them, presumably so the donkey doesn't get sore hooves on the stony Jerusalem streets.

But Jerusalem was a tough town back then and there were a whole bunch of people who wanted Jesus taken out of the equation for being such a donkey-riding flash-Harry. So they bribed one of the disciples - Judas - to betray Jesus in return for 30 pieces of silver. Judas took the gig and forever assigned the name "Judas" to right near the bottom (just above "Adolf") of the Most Popular Names for Boys list. There is nothing anywhere to suggest that another reason Judas sold out was because he was sick of the other disciples calling him Dumb-ass.

But Jesus kinda knew all this stuff was going down so he took his mates out for a feed called The Last Supper. I guess they could only find a really narrow restaurant to eat in and all had to sit on one side of the table, so that the ones on the end probably couldn't hear a word Jesus was saying.

Sure enough, the next day, as Jesus and the disciples were lying round the Garden of Gethsemane, snoozing off their hangovers from the night before, wondering what the heck all that "blood as wine" stuff was about, the cops came to arrest Jesus and Judas kissed Jesus on the cheek to tip them the nod about who to take into custody. Maybe if Jesus had surrounded himself with actors rather than fishermen they might have been able to confuse the cops with lots of air-kissing, but alas this wasn't the case and after a bit of business involving miraculously repairing someone's ear, Jesus got carted off to stand trial.

Not that they were big on trials back then, as all it took was a rabble calling for his death plus Pontius Pilate washing his hands and next thing Jesus is getting nailed to a cross - which is a truly nasty way to spend Easter, even worse than getting stuck in holiday traffic whilst by-passing Orewa.

Eventually, as one does when nailed to a cross, Jesus died - at which time there was an earthquake. I'm thinking they might skip this bit in any Christchurch sermons this Easter.

Then, when things had settled down a bit, they bunged Jesus' body into a tomb, and sealed the door with a big rock - maybe to keep paparazzi photographers from getting that Princess Di-like shot of the body. But a few days later, the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty - Jesus had shot through! (But in a good way, not in a Mark Hotchin and all-that-money-kind-of-way.)

And being a nice chap and all, Jesus didn't just leave his mates in the lurch, so from time-to-time he'd pop back into this realm to go fishing with them, and maybe bring them Easter eggs, before heading back upstairs to stay with his dad.

That Jesus, eh? What a top bloke. Okay, back to the scoffing.