Easter

Thank God!  Easter is finally here!  After forty cloudy and muddy days of Lent, we can rejoice in the hope of new life. Spring has been cool here in Minnesota, so little shoots are just beginning to peek up through the soil, and the new buds on the trees and bushes are just now appearing. 

The color of Easter Sunday and the Sundays after Easter until Pentecost is white, white like purity and radiance, white like a clean slate. The theme of these fifty days is NEW life. After its season, the tulip flower and its leaves and foliage die and wither away, but the essence of the flower, the bulb, is in the soil and a new tulip emerges from the soil. The fallacy in thinking about renewed life is thinking that the old flower and foliage will be regenerated. No, the flower that emerges in the spring is new, not the old flower brought back to life.

Scholars and theologians have been pondering and debating the nature of the risen Christ and the mysteries surrounding the Resurrection for centuries, so to me, there are far better ways to engage children in the joy of Easter than to wade into theological distinctions. However, sound language about Easter will help children clarify some distinctions later in life. 

When children help you plant the bulbs or clear away the dead foliage in the fall, and when you give thanks with them in the spring for the new flowers, please avoid saying that the plant was brought back to life; rather emphasize that it has new life. New life, a clean slate, a chance to start over, are the centrality of Easter and what we all need at times in our lives. We can’t go back in time to choose different words or a different path; we can only go forward on a new path. This is the hope of Easter.

A startling fact that I learned in my graduate program was that a culture carries a religion; religion does not carry the culture. What this means is that religious practices arise from cultural traditions. In this country, churches did not recognize the birth of Jesus in the church year or their worship services until Santa Claus became popular here. I know that’s hard to believe, but it is a fact. 

The Church has always recognized the Resurrection and made it the heart of its worship, but quite frankly, children do not look forward to Easter,  and we do not have warm memories of Easter, because we rejoice that Christ is alive, when we are honest with ourselves, but rather because we dressed in new clothes and we hunted eggs with our friends and we received candy from the Easter Bunny! Our excitement and our memories of fun lead us to deeper thinking of what Easter means.

When I was a child, although Santa came at Christmas time and left very generous presents, there was no Easter Bunny.  We were not allowed to wear new clothes to church until later in the spring, after Easter. There was certainly no candy, unless we received it at school. We may have dyed eggs a couple of times for school egg hunts, but my mother thought that the Easter Bunny was a frivolous notion, when we should be thinking about Jesus emerging from the grave. I never looked forward to Easter when I would be embarrassed to have to wear my winter clothes to church and listen to others exclaim over the treasures in their Easter baskets.

I raised my children to look forward to Easter by embracing the bunny, which I affectionately nicknamed, “Friend Rabbit”.  He brought candy-laden baskets and little gifts, and we had an egg hunt in our home to not only find chocolate eggs, but also the real eggs we had dyed.  Afterwards, we went to church, each child wearing at least one new item.

A tradition at my grandchildren’s church is one that I love. The priest asks the children to bring their Easter baskets forward, and he says a prayer of blessing over them. I had never heard of this being done before, so I don’t know if it is due to the insightful wisdom of this wonderful priest (who is also wonderful with children in other ways), or if it’s a Catholic tradition; I suspect the former. If you are without a church home right now and celebrating Easter in your Protestant home, you can still say a prayer of thanks and blessing over the Easter baskets.

I like this, because it affirms that the cultural traditions and the religious traditions are one. Easter means new life, eggs, little chicks, little rabbits, which are plentiful in the spring, and putting away the heavy garments of the cold winter to dress in lighter ones that seem new now, even if they’re not. Easter means a new start, new possibilities and forgiveness of things you would rather forget. Baby chicks and rabbits crouched beside new tulips and lilies are perfect reminders of God’s grace and forgiveness in our lives. 

Thank God for Easter joy!