Easter is different now

Easter is different from when I was a kid. We used to get all dressed up on Easter Sunday—brand new clothes right down to our Superman underoos-- all to celebrate our Risen Lord. I guess nothing said “He’s alive” like brand new skivvies. The girls would wear new dresses, Easter bonnets and white lacy gloves. I haven’t seen an Easter bonnet in a long time.

At the church I attended we would have a sunrise service on Easter Morning-- a service at 6 AM. Which meant getting up at 4:30 AM (or earlier) so that all six in my family could use the one and only restroom in the house, get dressed, ready, and in the car by 5:30 to head to church. It didn’t take 30 minutes to get to our church (maybe five minutes), but my dad was convinced that we had to be the first ones in the church parking lot no matter what time the service started. Usually I was a little groggy singing “Up from the Grave He Arose” at 6 AM in the Sunrise service.

Following the service, we would eat breakfast in the church fellowship hall (Read: basement of the parsonage). I tried to tell Karla we needed to invite the whole church over to our basement for breakfast on Easter, she could make eggs and bacon and I would eat and talk to people—she looked like she was going to punch the Peeps right out of me for making such a suggestion.

Then we went back to church for our regular Sunday School and Easter Service. The church usually had a few more people than normal and we always sang, “He Lives.” But other than that, I don’t remember Easter Sunday worship being much different from any other Sunday Worship service. Unlike at Christmas time, the church didn’t give out boxes of candy and an orange and an apple. We just went home.

Once at the house, we would eat devilled eggs. Sometimes the white part of the devilled egg had some food coloring residue on them from our decorating the night before. I must say I was not a very good egg decorator. My eggs always had the same brownish-grey look to them. I could never do half green half purple eggs like my sisters. It seems I always dropped the whole egg into one of the food colors on accident—thereby creating the brownish-grey egg that no one wanted to eat. My mom would eat them. She was kind-hearted to her artistically challenged youngest cherub.

Mom always made ham on Easter. Never turkey. Never roast beef. We ate ham-- just like Jesus and the disciples (ummm… maybe not). And we ate bunny cake for dessert. I don’t remember my mom making a special cake for any other holiday, but every Easter she would make a white cake that looked like a rabbit. She’d stick paper bunny ears on it and sprinkle it with coconut. She’d place the bunny cake on a cookie sheet and put some dyed green coconut all around the cake on the cookie sheet to give it a grassy look and then she’d place jelly beans all around it. One year I put several black jelly beans near the back of the bunny on the dyed green coconut “grass,” my mom was not amused.

Following dinner, we’d look for our baskets and then head to relatives’ houses. Except for the fact that we couldn’t change into our “play clothes” so that my grandma and Aunt Alice could see our Easter outfits, Easter was always a good day.

Today Easter is different. No Sunrise service. No bonnets. No Bunny cake. My boys won’t be wearing new suits and ties and have shown no interest in decorating eggs. Still, I hope this remains: I pray Easter will be a good day—not because of all of those things mentioned above but because we will rejoice that Jesus is alive. His Resurrection completely changes everything. Sin and Death have been defeated. Life can be ours. Like the women who showed up at the tomb on that first Easter morning I hope we experience the exuberance of the news: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! (Luke 24:5-6) Maybe we won’t have on a shiny new suit, but we can still proclaim “He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!”