Cracked

The game of cracking- or “tsougrisma” as the Greeks call it symbolizes the breaking open of the tomb and Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The custom takes place after the Resurrection (on Easter Saturday at midnight or the following day during the Easter feasts). 

Two people compete by holding their respective egg in their hand and tapping at each other’s egg. The goal is to crack the other player’s egg. The winner, then, uses the same end of the egg to tap the other, non-cracked end of the opponent’s egg. The “winner” is the one, whose egg will crack the eggs of all the other players.

My family would play this game every Easter. I never knew why. I just thought it was a way for the kids to eat their eggs.

Yet this is a Christian holiday. This the holiday celebrating the death of the Son of God. 

Let that sink in. 

THE SON of GOD. 

This is not Zeus’s Ares, Hebe, Hephaestus Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, or the Muses. This is not about Jupiter’s sires.

This guy was the one and only Son of the Big Guy in the sky who made heaven and earth according to The Book. This is the guy who was consummated with a human virgin mother (biologist can have a field day) and raised as a carpenter only to be killed in a most painful way that makes water-boarding seem like a walk in the park. This is the guy who is supposed to have ascended before rotting. This is the guy the Christians celebrate with eggs and bunnies and spring flowers and fancy dresses.

Now as far as I know there are no photos of this guy or fingerprints or even a driver’s license so the holiday is all about faith (the same belief we’ve been hearing in our political debates). I personally was raised on this guy and this belief and he seems like a nice enough person from the movies and the paintings look sort of like a hippy so I can relate. I always wondered by the ‘church’ used the cross of death as it’s logo, but it also offered the flesh and blood every month for communion. A rather zombie ritual but we followed the traditions.

Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are decorated eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime. Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide.

Decorated eggs have been associated with themes of rebirth and kinship for at least 60,000 years.

Eggs are “synonymous with fertility symbols such as the Easter Rabbit” and themes of birth and rebirth.

Jacob Grimm first linked the use of eggs to the springtime festival of the worship to Eostre, the pagan goddess for whom ‘Easter’ is named.

In Christianity eggs are widely used as part of the celebration of Easter, with varying symbolism attributed to them, including eggs as the empty tomb of Jesus, or dying eggs red to represent the blood of Jesus.

So when I go to the grocery store and see the shelves of eggs they are separated in groups of a dozen or a half dozen. The twelve? And there are white eggs all together and there are brown eggs all together, but never in groups. Wasn’t that guy teaching about diversity?

And on this particular holiday the eggs are colored in many fashions and traditions and hidden for children to seek and find.

I’ve known some good eggs. I’ve known some bad eggs. I’ve known some rotten eggs. I’ve known some hard-boiled eggs. I’ve known some scrambled eggs. I’ve known some fried eggs. I’ve even known some broken eggs. I’ve known some pickled eggs. I’ve even known a few who combined to make an omelet or a crepe.

 

So maybe this spring sunny day we can all go outside and enjoy each other and not only celebrate this holiday but every other holiday of every other religion or following as long as it doesn’t cause anyone else to be nailed up to a tree.