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.

When Easter Became Real

I remember Easters from my childhood: gooey candy eggs hiding in the yard, dyeing hard-boiled eggs in the kitchen, shopping for the perfect new Easter dress, putting on the white patent-leather shoes for the first time. I remember church parts too: Easter lilies filling the altar area, glorious music, church full of families and friends. We went home to Easter dinner and a lazy afternoon. I always loved Easter, but one year Easter became more than just a day of beauty and celebration, and became real and powerful.

In 1973, my youngest sister Nancy came down with the chicken pox. She had a condition (unrecognized at the time) that made her unable to fight such infections. The chicken pox progressed to a massive staff infection and she died on April 6 at the age of 5. I was 15 at the time. I had lost another sister 12 years previously from measles and the same condition, but I had not been affected as much when I was a 3-year-old. This time, my sister's death hit hard. We were surrounded by the love and care of our church family, and yet I heard comments like: "God needed another angel." Well, I wasn't impressed by a God who thought he needed my sister more than I did. I was angry and I was sick at heart.

I don't remember much about the next few weeks, except that I was trying to remain strong for my parents, and trying to get through my own grieving process without much help.

What made a difference was Easter Sunday. It came on April 22nd that year and we went to church as usual. If I am remembering correctly, we were actually in San Francisco taking a vacation from the sorrow and the memories in our home. But because it was Easter and because that is just what we did on Easter, we found a church and showed up on Easter morning. I don't remember the service, or the music, or the sermon. What I remember is this: Easter became real that day. I needed the resurrection in a way that I never had. I needed to hear that death and sorrow and suffering had been overcome and that day I knew that the story I had known since my earliest childhood was true. I can't explain how I knew, just that I did; that God revealed Godself to me in a special way on that Easter Sunday.

Easter is my favorite "holiday" because for me it truly is a "Holy day." It isn't just a nice story, but the reality upon which I base my life. One of the prayers in the Service of Death and Resurrection (in the UM Worship Book) says, "Help us to live as those who are prepared to die and when our days here are accomplished, enable us to die as those who go forth to live, so that living or dying, our life may be in you, and that nothing in life or in death will be able to separate us from your great love in Christ Jesus our Lord." Amen. Have a blessed Easter!