by John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford
We know how to let our hair down at Christmas. There are parties and dinners and presents. We decorate our homes, inside and out. We send cards and make phone calls, promising to meet before next Christmas. We plan our TV schedules and empty the supermarket shelves on Christmas Eve. We even let Jesus make a guest appearance.
But what about Easter? Here is the great Christian festival, without which there would be no such think as ‘Christian’ anyway. Here is the turning point of history, the hinge on which the destiny of the world swung open. And we don’t seem to know what to do with it except see it as a holiday weekend, the first big exodus to the airports.
So here are some ideas on how to raise the stakes. Nothing is adequate to the task of celebrating such an event, but at least we might do better than a few cream eggs and yellow chicks!
- Egg rolling Down a hill. The hard boiled egg that goes furthest without breaking is the winner. Egg rolling symbolizes the breaking open of the tomb.
- Treasure hunt In the house or garden for chocolate mini eggs.
- Egg painting A competition to decorate the eggs in the most attractive way.
- Easter garden Supply a tray and some raw materials; offer the rest of the garden for further raw materials. Then see what originality emerges.
- Easter DVD or video Might be available for children: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe would do excellently.
- Easter lunch or dinner We have Christmas lunches and dinners so why not Easter? Lamb should be the meat, or fish, as a reminder of the resurrection meals in Luke 24 and John 21. An empty place can be set for the risen Christ. Grace can take the form of a reading of one of the resurrection meals, and a prayer of thanks.
- Easter competition. The church could have a creative arts competition on the theme of Easter. The categories could be art, clay modeling, egg painting, photography, poetry, Easter gardens on a tray, spring flower arranging, etc. Age categories could also apply.
- Home decoration We decorate our homes with great ingenuity (and expense) at Christmas, so why not at Easter? Yellow and white daffodils are obvious, but how about yellow and white balloons - they can even be attached to car aerials! Or we could use yellow and white streamers, cloths which flow down in our hallway, full of life and light, symbolizing the life flowing out of the empty tomb.
- Easter presents Again, why should Christmas have all the good moments? The giving of gifts could be a lovely sign of the gift of new life in the risen Christ. Easter gifts should be more measured than the profligate Christmas extravagances. In particular, they might be more symbolic of beauty, grace and simplicity – those hallmarks of the resurrection. Flowers, music CDs, simple foods, pottery or articles of beauty, life-affirming books – these are the things that enhance a life and speak of a graceful God.
- Easter surprises Nothing catches us out more than receiving something totally unexpected and unearned. We’re not used to getting ‘something for nothing’. So it can be a wonderful sign of the sheer grace of God in the resurrection when we do something radically generous. Some churches take a gift of flowers to the houses around them ‘With love from God/the Church’ (depending on taste). Some Americans (wouldn’t you know it?) have been known to go to a toll booth in their car and pay for the card behind them as well – sheer grace, and baffling to the recipient! Generosity is infectious, and that’s at the heart of the Gospel.
Why Easter eggs?
It is relatively easy to find symbols for Christmas. You can use a star, a stable, three kings (silhouetted), assorted animals (I once saw a giraffe) and any number of angles singing at the top of their voices. But what have you got to symbolize Easter? A dark cross, dirty nails, a ferocious whip, a vicious crown of thorns, a bloody cloth, a grave – none of it has the simple appeal. It just wouldn’t go down well in the High Street. So what are we left with?
The answer, it seems, is rabbits and eggs. This is not ideal! Nevertheless, the story of the humble egg does give us some good material for Easter reflection and celebration.
The pre Christian egg
Pagan use of the egg focused on the many rite-of-spring festivals. The Romans, Chinese, Egyptians and Persians all regarded the egg as a symbol of the universe. As the egg opened up to release new life so it came to represent the rebirth of the earth in the spring. The egg, therefore, was seen to have special creative powers. It was buried under the foundations of buildings to ward off evil; young Roman women carried an egg to help them foretell the sex of their unborn children; brides in Gaul used to step on an egg before crossing the threshold of their new home. Eggs were revered, dyed different colours and exchanged as special gifts.
The Christian Easter egg
With Christianity the egg came to represent not the rebirth of nature but the rebirth of humanity through the resurrection. The breaking open of the egg reminded Christians of the breaking open of the tomb. As ever, numerous legends were attached to this powerful symbol. One Polish legend tells of the Virgin Mary giving eggs to the solders at the foot of the cross as she begged them to be less cruel to her son. As she wept her tears fell on the eggs, dotting them with brilliant colours. Another Polish legend tells of Mary Magdalene going to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body and taking with her some eggs to keep her going as she undertook her precious task. When she got to the tomb, however, she found that the pure white shells so the eggs had taken on a rainbow of different colours.
Colouring and decorating eggs for Easter came to be part of English custom, too. The household accounts of Edward I for the year 1290 show an expenditure of eighteen pence for 450 eggs to be gold-leafed and coloured for Easter gifts. In some parts of England, families continue to make their Easter picnic an opportunity to enjoy egg rolling competitions, where coloured eggs are rolled down a hill to see whose can go furthest and whose can remain unbroken longest.
The most famous decorated eggs, however, come from Russian. In 1883 the Russian Czar Alexander commissioned Peter Carl Fabergé to make a special Easter gift for his wife, the Empress Marie. The first Fabergé egg was an egg within an egg. The outside shell was platinum, enameled white, and this opened to reveal a smaller gold egg. This, in turn, opened to display a golden chicken and a jeweled replica of the Imperial Crown. This special egg delighted the Czarina so much that Alexander ordered the Fabergé firm to deliver a new egg each Easter. Fifty-seven eggs were produced in all, and became hugely famous all over the world.
The Easter egg today
In contemporary Greece, eggs are boiled hard, coloured and used in an egg-breaking game. One egg is smashed against another to reveal the winner, and also to symbolize the breaking open of the tomb for each of us.
But is has to be admitted that the chocolate egg now reigns supreme in the West. Commercial pressures, and the almost universal enjoyment of chocolate, have led to a massive increase in the range and complexity of chocolate eggs on sale over the Easter period. It seems like the last hold of an ancient symbol on the imagination of the public. But how many children know why they get this annual treat? Perhaps we should tell them.
Extract from Living Easter Through the Year
© SPCK, 2005, reproduced with permission.
