Chocolate bunnies...Chocolate Jesus...

Easter is such a strange holiday. As with most Christian holidays, it has become commercialized to the point that you don't actually have to understand the religious aspect to celebrate it.

Christmas is so much more friendly though: a baby is born and a nice obese man comes and gives you stuff. With Easter, however, comes a giant bunny of some sort who leaves you candy inside those little plastic eggs, and the baby that was born in December gets killed and then comes back to life. No wonder kids get confused.

Of course, most of this is completely lost in the hunt to find that huge golden Easter egg with all the special candy in it before everyone else. And I guess this is a good thing. If you're going to sit a kid down and tell them this gory story about the Messiah being brutally beaten and killed and then coming to life again, you may as well get them all sugared up first.

As usual, all of this is actually leading up to something. Bare with me.

You would think that churches would be a lot more concerned about this. I mean, bunnies carrying around eggs and leaving them in baskets for children? Ancient pagan fertility symbols, anyone? But they seem to be the first ones to organize the Easter egg hunts. I've seen my share of kids standing next to some preacher dressed in a bunny suit, wailing in fear as their picture is taken.

No, instead of worrying about this, the Catholic Church is much more worried about this. This sculpture by Cosimo Cavallaro entitled "My Sweet Lord" is an anatomically correct representation of Jesus Christ made out of over 200 pounds of milk chocolate. The gallery that was supposed to display the sculpture received so many calls and e-mails and even death threats from furious Catholics that they were forced to cancel the exhibit. What's funny about all of this is that they were offended not by the fact that Jesus was made out of chocolate, but that he was not depicted wearing a loincloth.

So...you can make the Son of Man into a confectionery marvel, just be sure he's covered up. And the Easter egg hunt is scheduled for next Saturday.