“What was your favorite Easter basket or Easter candy?”

Really?  A Christian radio station talking about Easter candy.  Is that what Easter is about?

My husband did have a memory of Easter candy.  His mom required him to take his younger brother and sister to  a community egg hunt.  He was walking around looking cool and stopping occasionally to eat a candy egg.  He picked up a plastic egg and opened it – he read $1.00 and put the prize in his pocket.  Several hard candy eggs later – he heard over the loud speaker, “The prize egg has not been found.  Look around for the $100 prize egg.”

He looked again in his pocket– and he had misread the note.  He went to the announcer and returned the contents of the plastic egg for a $100 check.   When asked what he planned to do with the money – he responded, “I will give it to my mom to pay for my summer school bill.”

Easy come, easy go!

I watched The Passion of the Christ recently for the second time.  Incredible the suffering Jesus experienced for us.  I remember a retreat and the speaker giving a physical description of Jesus’s crucifixion – this did not include the beatings and scourgings from Roman soldiers and the rejection of his own countrymen before being nailed on a cross.

I don’t remember ever receiving a basket.  Maybe when I was very young??

My best memories of Easter are attending church with my Dad.  Christmas and Easter were the few days we attended church as a family.

Unlike the casual attire today, people dressed up for church in those days. Dad could wear his dress Army military uniform. Mother used her limited funds to make sure her children wore nice Sunday clothes, especially at Christmas and Easter, which left no money for an appropriate outfit for her.

It was kind of ironic my Dad always looked so proud and got so many compliments for his uniform and bringing his children to church.  While my mother was the one who sacrificed and covered for him and his drinking problem which caused her to squeeze every penny out of his paycheck to pay bills.

One of my best memories of Easter was the weekend my husband and I were married.

Other family Easter memories:

My brother & his children attended with us one year.

 

 

 

 

The cute blue suit is what Timmy wore when he quickly said his part on stage, popped his bow  tie and jumped off the stairs.

 

 

 

In the early years of our marriage the tradition continued of having new clothes at Easter.   I made a yellow dress for the special day.  I found a pair of yellow pumps to match and squeezed the luxury out of my paycheck.

It seemed the Lord was saying to me, “You could return them and give the $20 to missions.”  I leaned over to John and said, “we can give $20.”

A few weeks before Easter, we attended a missionary banquet and the speaker, Rev. Jimmy Lentz, a powerful advocate for missionaries, made an appeal.  He realized there was only a small group of people and we were most likely giving to our church.  He asked if we would give sacrificially. My yellow shoes popped up before my mind.  I didn’t really need them I just wanted them to wear with my new dress.

Now that doesn’t seem like a lot of money – but to us in the 1960’s it was a – a car payment or electric bill???? This began our love of missions and desire to give.

New clothes are not a priority for Easter to me now.  I do cherish family attending services with us and cooking for them to enjoy.

 

Now Easter is a wonderful celebration of our faith as the highlight of the year when we commemorate our Lord’s resurrection.  As our pastor said this year, “Without Easter we would not celebrate Christmas!”

Why would we? The purpose of the coming of the babe in the manager was for God to be with us in human form so that he could show us the Father and then die for our sins and leave the Holy Spirit to be our counselor, advocate and guide.

Thank you Lord for Easter memories in my life.  May I share with my children and grandchildren that Easter is more than baskets, bunnies and egg hunts.

It’s all about the glorious resurrection of our Lord – King Jesus.

Behold our King!  Come let us adore Him!

 

Ephesians 5:1-2 (NIV)

5 ¹ Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.