Meet Pascual

I wrote this little Easter story for my kids. They got a kick out of it. Perhaps your family will like it as well.

Meet Pascual, Order of the Lagomorph. He’s a rabbit. Well, technically, he’s a hare, but he thinks that sounds too fancy. In fact, most people call him a bunny, which is fine with him.

Pascual, like any rabbit, enjoys hopping and eating vegetables, but he is not any rabbit. For one thing, unlike other rabbits, Pascual is more than two thousand years old, but I’m hopping ahead.

When Pascual was born, he was a normal animal. Only he was, perhaps, a bit more curious than a typical rabbit. He didn’t always run away, as rabbits do. He would watch things.

One day, his curiosity brought him to a most curious scene: a woman atop a donkey, led by a man. The woman’s belly was big and round. Pascual decided to follow them.

They stopped first at a busy house and it was very loud. Then they ended up in a manger. The man helped the woman down. He was very careful with her. Pascual was very curious.

You may have already guessed what Pascual saw that night in the manger. You see, the lagomorph is a kind of rabbit that lives near Bethlehem. The woman was Mary. The man was Joseph. And a special baby was born that night.

Yes, Pascual was there for the first Christmas morning. It was a magical morning. And, it turns out, a bit of that magic got into Pascual. He was no longer just a rabbit. He understood who the baby was and he loved him.

Pascual stayed by the manger, more curious than ever. Soon, there were visitors. They brought gifts, as you know, of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. A gift, of course! Why didn’t he think of it?

So Pascual, knowing little of what humans value in a gift, found an old basket that had been left in the road. He filled it with the most interesting rocks he could find and placed it in the manger for Mary.

When she saw the basket full of rocks, Mary threw the rocks out and kept the basket. And so it became Pascual’s tradition to bring the family a basket every year for the child’s birthday.

As Jesus grew up, Pascual watched him. He watched him learn Joseph’s trade as a carpenter. He watched and listened when Jesus taught. One day, Jesus, still a boy, was teaching in the Synagogue.

Mary and Joseph didn’t know where he was. They were looking everywhere. Pascual saw that they were worried but, being a rabbit, he couldn’t tell them where Jesus was.

So he decided to show them. Pascual gathered berries and made a trail to the synagogue. Mary and Joseph followed and found Jesus teaching the grown ups, which Pascual found very amusing.

Pascual observed miracles from Jesus. His rabbit heart leapt with joy when Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead, and healed the sick, blind, and deaf. What a joy it was to be a rabbit in the days of Jesus.

But all was not to remain happy. Confused and heart broken, Pascual watched as Jesus died on a cross at Calvary. There was such sadness all around. Such despair. What could a rabbit do?

Three days later, Pascual was still wondering what he could do when Jesus appeared, risen from the dead, to Mary. His little rabbit heart leapt with joy again to see his friend, and to learn that death was not the end.

And then Pascual decided what he would do. You see, there is a little part of the story that I left out earlier, and that it took Pascual himself a long time to realize: Pascual had become a magic rabbit.

Pascual didn’t get old. He didn’t die. And he had other magic as well. So every year, on the day when Jesus was resurrected, Pascual delivers baskets to the kids of the world, like the baskets he used to give Mary.

And he leaves jellybeans because they remind him of the berries he used to help Mary and Joseph. Pascual wants us all to find our way to Jesus.

He replaced rocks with eggs in the baskets because he realized humans don’t have much use for rocks. And the eggs, a shell from which life can emerge, remind Pascual of Jesus breaking out of the tomb.

Yes, as you have surely figured out, Pascual is the Easter Bunny.

You might wonder how I know all of this. Well, Pascual wasn’t the only animal in the manger on Christmas morning.