Memories of Easters past always include fond recollections of the annual egg dying experience. We remember watching our mom spreading out yesterday’s newspaper on the kitchen table and getting out the egg dying kit from the grocery store. Today’s kits have fancy add-ons like stickers and such, but we just recall the package of tablets in different colors, the one copper wire egg dipper we took turns with, the wax crayon for writing our names on the eggs we chose, and the box with the punch-out holes for displaying our finished designs.
For many of us it was the first time we inhaled the pungent smell of vinegar as we watched intently for the different colored tablets to dissolve in the cups of hot water. It didn’t take long to discover, once the white hard-boiled eggs had cooled enough to be carefully dipped in the dye, that the blue, green and purple dyes would work their magic first while the orange and yellow dyes took much longer. And red always turned out pink, right?
I’m glad I also have memories of dying Easter eggs with my boys and with several of our grandchildren over the years. Inevitably some child would turn over a cup of dye and it would flow over the newspaper on to the floor, someone would drop an egg and crack it, or a grandchild would complain that a sibling was hogging the best colors, the dipper, or the crayon. But when all was said and done and the mess was cleaned up, we had a beautiful array of colored eggs nestled in fake green grass in a basket—all ready for an Easter morning egg hunt. There might have even been some slightly multi-colored egg salad to enjoy after Easter in the days before we knew about salmonella!
Whereas kids can have just as much fun hunting for plastic eggs as real ones, especially if there’s a piece of candy or other surprise inside each one, much fancier eggs from different cultures have been a part of the art world for centuries and are often displayed under glass in golden egg cups in museums. Whether it’s the delicately painted Ukrainian pysanky egg or the jewel-encrusted Faberge one, they are truly works of art.
The eggs displayed on my coffee table each Easter are the multi-colored marble ones I collected on travels in Germany and Italy in the early seventies. But I’m thinking this year I may just toss one of those egg dying kits in my grocery basket and have an egg-stravagant dying experience again. While I’m waiting for the fizzy tablets to reach their potential, I’ll turn in my Bible to Isaiah 43:19 and be reminded of God’s promise: See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? For the symbolism of the Easter egg, of any variety, should not be missed even by the youngest of us. New life, new birth, the promise of spring and of resurrection. That’s Easter in an egg shell. So add some egg-centric fun to your celebration this year as you focus on the real reason we rejoice–the resurrection of our living Savior. Happy Easter!
Some books land in your lap at just the right time. That’s what happened when I read Gentle and Lowly, The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, by Dane Ortlund.
If you ever long for more sunshine in your life, follow a cat around. These feline finders never miss the chance to bask in a burst of sunlight, and all of us will need to do that more as the days grow shorter and the sun sets earlier this winter.
As many of you read in April, I have not been able to write very much recently due to the loss of our 9-month-old great-granddaughter from complications of the flu in February. But when I heard the writing prompt for a writer’s workshop sponsored by Academy Christian Church, my imagination soared. I thought it might just be the opportunity I needed to get the creative juices flowing again. I was right.
Other writers imagined what happened the day after to the man possessed by demons that Jesus transferred to the pigs (Mark 5:1-20), to the Centurion whose servant was healed from a distance (Matthew 8:5-13), or to Lazarus, who was raised from the dead (John 11:1-44). The writer speculating about Lazarus wondered, assuming he had been in the presence of God, if Lazarus was really that happy about being brought back to live on the earth again? Of course, his sisters Mary and Martha were thrilled and grateful that he was back, but was he? We can only imagine.
No wonder so many people love to attend Easter sunrise services. A sunrise represents hope, and so it is the perfect representation of the hope we find in the message of Easter.