Hunting for Easter eggs and surprised by the Joy

The church is dark. Everything is draped in black. The world waits with anticipation. Tomorrow is only hours away. And we wait and wait and wait, but tomorrow will come. We won’t be as surprised as those first visitors to the tomb. They went expecting to find a closed and sealed tomb. All they wanted to do was pay their respect, properly anoint the body of their teacher and friend. But they were surprised by joy!

The sounds of joy today come from the children hunting for their Easter eggs. They will be surprised to find little plastic eggs with all kinds of goodies in side. I’m not sure who is more fun to watch, the children hunting for the eggs or the parents and grandparents standing on the sidelines watching it all transpire ... that will be me! But they are all surprised by joy … it kind of sneaks up on you.

One year the eggs were all hidden. I learned a long time ago to keep count of the number of eggs hidden. Tracy and Erin went to work first thing Easter morning and before too long found all the eggs or at least they thought they had. We counted the eggs many times. I double-checked the number that I had. One was still missing. All four of us searched the family room many times. We moved furniture, turned over cushions, removed many books from the bookshelves. My conclusion was finally that I had simply missed counted.

Three months later, sitting watching some television one of the girls mentioned a peculiar odor in the family room. We couldn’t imagine what it would be. As more days were added the odor got stronger and finally, we found the cause … the missing egg. Hidden treasurers after awhile begin to stink. Oh, the color of the dyed egg was still beautiful, but the smell …well, that was another matter.

Why is it so hard for people to discover the “hidden” treasure of Easter morning? Oh, they come to the churches in mass. There is actually a name for those who come on Easter and Christmas … they are called “C-n-E’ers” as in Christmas and Easter. They come, join in the celebration, shake a few hands, exchange a hug or two, listen to the sermon and the beautiful music, enjoy a free cup of coffee, but then they will go home having never really discovered the hidden treasure of resurrection morning. I’ve never been able to understand how they weren’t surprised by the joy … after all it was hidden in plain sight.

Maybe these individuals – and I include myself to some degree – do not really desire to find the Easter treasure because it would mean that they would have to change. That is hard work. We would rather stay buried in our miserable lives than move on to embrace the joy of a resurrected Jesus. Like the father who said, “I try really hard not to find all the hard boiled eggs because I hate what comes later … egg salad sandwiches!”

Could it be the same with Jesus … we just hate what comes later … changed lives … changed thinking … change in the way we think of others … change in the way we treat others … the need to forgive and love the unlovable … change is hard! But don’t you think that it was hard for Jesus to stay up on the cross? Don’t you think that it was hard being buried in the tomb? Don’t you think that it was hard changing from a dead teacher to a resurrected savior? It wasn’t as easy as we show it in our bathrobe-clad passion plays.

And yet, the eggs will continue to be hidden and the children (and adults) will be surprised by joy … and maybe, at a sunrise service or worship service somewhere an individual will be surprised by the joy and make a discovery of a life time!

Quote for today: Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. ~C.S. Lewis