This isn’t about Bluey. It’s about not being able to stop seeing the Risen Christ in everything.

…Which, happens to include the world’s greatest kids show.

Let it be clear that this author supposes no clandestine Christian agenda in Ludo Studios’ animated triumph. The show doesn’t seem to discriminate in the nods it pays to any compassion-nurturing, others-respecting worldview.

And the plot of an episode titled “Easter” might owe more to nature religion than it does to Christianity. But that doesn’t matter so much when the light of the Lord of the Cosmos breaks across even paganism itself.

Shaped Like Resurrection

One needn’t be a churchgoer for their brain to subconsciously perceive a cross anytime a horizontal line is intersected by a longer, vertical one. The ubiquity of Christianity has made that visual a universal. But it may be a unique trait of mine that any circular shape overlapping a semi-circle paints for me a kind of minimalist stone-rolled-away-from-empty-tomb.

So it was that watching the Bluey holiday special “Easter,” I held my breath when the final scene led us into a home office with an exercise ball at a desk, scooted where a chair would be, covering the furniture’s opening.

Bluey and Bingo had followed the clues of the Easter Bunny’s elaborate treasure hunt to what seemed like a dead end. Just when all childlike hope seemed lost, the sisters discovered one last clue, leading them to their dad’s study.

The room is dark…A single desk lamp shines on the conspicuous exercise ball…Full of anticipation, the girls get closer.

Dramatically, the exercise ball is rolled to the side, a triumphant score swells, and joyful faces are illumined by a joyful realization.

Against every expectation of loss, hope is fulfilled. Dramatically, the exercise ball is rolled to the side, a triumphant score swells, and joyful faces are illumined by a joyful realization. The riches of all their Easter hopes—luminous, gold foil-wrapped bunnies, colorful paper grass-filled baskets, delight-chocked plastic eggs—gleam before them.

But the real discovered treasure goes beyond the gifts. With incredulous wonder, Bingo says, “He remembered us.”

(It’s ok if there’s a tear in your eye. I personally only got chills, but something autonomic seems warranted.)

The Resurrection Enchants Everything

Is it only an overactive imagination that finds the Resurrection in this? Is it naivety to let your Savior’s love thrill your heart at an eight-minute, animated holiday special? 

A special about an egg hunt and the Easter Bunny?

“He remembered us.”

Indeed, arguments could be made that such paschal allusions in the episode are merely coincidental: The exercise ball was already an established fixture in the show before any “stone rolled away” connection would’ve been made; If the climax has anything to do with the Resurrection, why would the alleged makeshift “tomb” be occupied, not empty?¹

And while I could counter with observations about the presence of several visual motifs in the episode, and about respecting the nuanced-and-never-arbitrary nature of art… and about how the real treasure was indeed something the symbolic “tomb” did not contain… Let it be granted that the critique could still be waged that it’s all mere coincidence.

Yes, it could. And it wouldn’t matter. An artist doesn’t need to give Christ permission for him to illuminate their work. The Sun doesn’t ask if it can rise; once it’s up, the whole world is seen by its rays.²

For what it’s worth, Jesus didn’t have permission to leave the tomb. He kinda did it anyway, though.

Jesus didn’t have permission to leave the tomb. He kinda did it anyway though.

Jesus is the language every good story speaks. The life, death, and resurrection of Christ is the trajectory of every narrative worth loving.

No one needs to be taught that what Jesus is is good—his heart is not an acquired taste for the human soul. He’s behind every good we’ve ever desired. The trick is in knowing that every other good is only as good as it’s likeness to him. Every beauty is only as beautiful as how much of his light can be seen reflecting off it—or refracted through it.

Why is Jesus of Nazareth universally compelling? Could one mystic from the Middle East command the wills and satisfy the desires of souls from every people group for over two millennia? 

Maybe one actually could—the world is surprising. But if one did, I’d want to know who he said he was.

And I’d want to know if he made sense of all the things that I found beautiful, of every story that gave me chills, of every moment that gave life itself significance and made it worth living.

If someone did that, I’d probably make him my God.

Not that he needs my permission.

1. Arguments inspired by a Reddit thread addressing this very topic, found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/bluey/comments/1ar2ta4/did_the_episode_writers_purposely_write_this/ ↩︎
2. This line of thought is especially inspired by C.S. Lewis’s famous quote from his paper to The Oxford Socratic Club titled “Is Theology Poetry?”, which reads: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.” ↩︎