Easter eggs, Easter bunnies and Easter crosses.

We had the Easter egg hunt and festival today at church. You know the drill: plastic eggs stuffed with melting chocolate eggs inside, go-fish games in little vinyl pools of water, ring-toss, face-painting, the space-alien bounce house, and wafting over all of it the smell of freshly popped popcorn and new-spun cotton candy.

As I was watching the kids bouncing and squealing, I realized what picture was presented to those driving by on the main road in front of the church: There was the bounce-house, but in front of it were the three large wooden crosses that we put out for Holy Week. For a moment I had a theological crisis. What does it mean to juxtapose eggs, bunnies, bouncing and crosses? What does it mean to have laughing children in the shadow of the cross?

I will admit that I was a bit uncomfortable. And maybe the conclusion I came to is simply justifying my own discomfort; but I think that the joy of the day in the shadow of the crosses reflects hope. Don't get me wrong: I want those children and their parents to understand what it means to put empty crosses (symbols of Roman execution) in the front yard of the church. I want them to understand how it was that Jesus turned the sign of despair and death into a sign of life and hope. But that understanding will only come if those who attend Easter Egg hunts and play in bounce houses feel for themselves the joy of the family of faith. It will only come if those young (and sometimes not-so-young) parents recognize that they are important to us. They won't know right away that it is obedience to the Lord who died on the cross that drives us to reach out and share joy with them, but they will feel the joy and the love.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and we start into Holy Week. The Easter eggs will be put aside and we will turn to the deeper things of God. But even as we contemplate the betrayal, arrest, and execution of Jesus, I pray we remember that it is precisely joy and love that are the deeper things of God.