I haven’t been a Christian for many years, but it doesn’t bother me. The allusion to hot cross buns is appropriate: the Christian symbolism of those is well known. Of course, people have tended to get in a twist about those, too, but they’ve been around long enough that it strikes me as bizarre that someone would think of an edible cross as bizarre.
The chocolate Jesus, OTH…
It does strike me as a bit odd, perhaps, but not in the least sacriligeous. Then again, though, I have a hard time seeing chocolate in any form as sacriligeous. Mmm, chocolate…
The main thing I find myself wondering, actually, is how one would wrap such a confection. An egg is a nicely convex shape, and your typical blobby bunny very close to one, but it’d be hard to wrap the large protrusions on a cross.
It’d probably come in a box.
Mmmm, sacrelicious.
The thing about hot cross buns is, they’ve been so ingrained into society over the years that they’ve been secularized a great deal. I seldom see them for sale nowadays anyway (in the US), but when I do, they never seem to be marketed specifically as a Christian symbol, but rather as yet another baked good. I think hot cross buns are probably more analogous to pretzels, whose famous design imitates a child’s hands clasped in prayer (I know this because of a segment on pretzels from a Food Network “how-it’s-made” show 
). They still carry the same design, but hardly anyone dwells on the religious symbolism while eating one.
Chocolate crosses, on the other hand, are not just edibles bearing a symbol of the cross; they ARE crosses. Chances are that those buying them are doing so more for the cross than the chocolate, otherwise a plain ol’ candy bar would do. It’s pretty hard NOT to see the religious connection when eating one.
The ones I’ve seen have been in boxes with clear cellophane on the front. I remember the first one I saw was white chocolate with a colored flower bouquet at the intersection.
Easter is the most ridiculous holiday I can think of.
IANAC so that may be why it is so confusing and odd to me.
With the bunny and the died eggs and fake easter grass and candles and ham? and cards. Hell my daughter and son got money and gifts in the mail for Easter I don’t exactly know why why. This is a strange holiday.
A chocolate cross. Hell that is nothing, compared to sending out the young Christians out on a hunt for plastic candy filled eggs that the Easter Bunny left behind to celebrate the undead Jesus.
If they offend you you should burn them like Beatles records.
After reading that post I realized it came off a little harsher than I intentioned.
When I saw the thread title I thought it was going to be about the ham. I could never understand the idea of celebrating the resurrection of one’s savior by eating a food that surely would have disgusted him.
I asked a Christian friend of mine why she was roasting lamb for Easter today. She said, “You know, Lamb of God.”
I’m a Pagan, but even I know Jesus was the Lamb of God, and I am totally grossed out by this.
Mmmm, chocolate Jesus.
Now FREE with the purchase of chocolate Moses, Buddha, Krishna, or Mohammed. Collect them all while supplies last!
shrug. I was raised Christian but this is the first time it even occurred to me to think of a chocolate cross as being offensive. To me, a chocolate version of just the cross alone is not any worse than if someone ate a chocolate dreidel during Hannukah. It’s just a harmless little way of representing the symbols of the holiday, to me.
It would definitely seem weird and creepy to me if someone ate a chocolate crucifix or a chocolate Jesus, on the other hand.
Even without the religious aspects, it somehow seems very disrespectful to imagine someone chewing up the image of another human being. For example, I’d also find it totally disturbing if, for some reason, someone made a chocolate that looked like me and then bit its head off. 
What bothers me is not the presumed sacrilege of eating a cross, but the possibility that some fundamentalist Christians would buy these and yet protest the chocolate Jesus art. It’s their firm belief that they have the “correct” attitude and the artist does not, so* they* can profit off the cross but he can’t. You know, because their interpretation is allowable, even if it seems indistinguishable to outsiders, because they are privy to secret knowledge and they’re sure you aren’t.
That line of thinking stands at the top of a slippery slope, at the bottom of which waits the Inquisition, irons in the fire, looking for heretics to torture.
Sailboat
Eh, I think it’s just 'cause they’re newish. I think the cross AS religious symbol is far more bizarre, actually. It wasn’t at all unique to Jesus. Why are billions of people wearing teeny tiny replicas of the killing tool used for thieves and beggars? Who was the comedian who maintained that wearing crosses in front of other Christians was like wearing a half inch 24 karat rifle on a chain in front of Jackie Kennedy?
In addition to the hot cross buns and pretzels already mentioned, candy canes were made as candy versions of a then-popular religious symbol, the shepherd’s crook.
Now, if someone would please be so kind as to explain the Butter Lamb, I’d be evah so grateful.
The only explanations I could provide are that 1) lamb is tasty, 2) in some countries, lamb is abundant, 3) it’s luxurious and rich compared to the fish that seems to be a staple in some households during Lent, and 4) it’s a lot more symbolic than eating ham.
We just eat lamb because almost every holiday is an excuse to buy a good bit of lamb to eat.
I’m not offended by chocolate crosses, but the chocolate bible thing is a little weird.
Made me think about the koan that says “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Maybe we can change that to, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, bite his head off.”
No no no, you misunderstand. I get eating Lamb at Easter. It’s good and tasty and one of the first foods available in Spring. Makes more sense than a preserved ham from last fall. 'Specially to my pagan ethic of celebrating Spring as the return of Life (which we then kill and eat).
What I don’t get is lamb shaped butter. My memory is that it used to be an Easter-only thing, 'though I see it year 'round in my local supermarket now. A lamb. Made out of Butter. WTF?
I totally get what you’re saying, but could you scooch over a little bit? I think I left a marshmallow Santa Claus over here somewhere…
Aside from the lamb being a traditional symbol of Easter/Jesus, I suspect the butter part is mostly utilitarian, a way of making your dinner table look seasonal and festive, because you are going to have butter anyway. Remember too that butter didn’t always come in sticks, so a person (okay, housewife, I was trying to go for gender-neutral, but if we’re talking pre-stick butter, it’s probably safe to assume housewife) would have a butter mold, or several butter molds, with different designs, for serving butter at dinner. Probably every day, if our housewife was more well-off, or for special occasions, if perhaps a more modest household. The lamb would be the appropriate seasonal mold for Easter.
The only reason I can imagine them being sold year-round now is that stores will sell things if people buy them, and let’s face it, the butter lamb is really cute!
Oh, yes, we would pick those up from the market at Easter when I was a kid,it was one of the few times we had real butter on the table. Occassionaly my mom would also get the lamb cake. Yes, they are tradiontioally served only at Easter.
