Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
For Christians in the United States, today will probably involve:
- Easter Eggs
- Easter Lilies
- Spring-like clothing (and maybe even bonnets)
- A feast involving one or more of the following offerings: lamb, ham, asparagus, coconut, jelly beans
- Exposure to bunnies, chicks, and Peeps.
And then on Monday, we will go about our business unless we have tickets to the Easter Egg Roll at the White House or we have the day off to go shopping.
Nobody grouses much about “The War on Easter” but it’s clear that pagan Easter/secular Easter has “won” in terms of the popular focus. I’d love to know if you are part of a church community that does NOT have an Easter Egg Hunt this weekend.
It’s The Biggest Sunday of the Year for our churches. Some people will come for the cultural experience. Some will expect superb music and elegant preaching. They will love seeing little children bedecked in pastels.
Do we really need church today? I’ve been pondering last week’s Newsweek story: Forget the Church; Follow Jesus (with the unfortunate white Jesus on the cover) and have some things to say about it. But for now, I am racing to preach in lovely Round Lake, IL for a congregation with no pastor. And we will sing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.” And we will once again tell the story of the first Easter. And I will say, “Christ is risen!” hoping against hope that the congregation will know to follow with “Christ is risen indeed!”
But what will happen tomorrow – on the day I grew up calling Easter Monday? Hope you’ll return to this blog so we can reflect on exactly that.
A Church for Starving Artists 
Count me as one whose church did NOT have an Easter Egg hunt this weekend! Hope everyone at the church you preached at knew the proper response to your proclamation. Happy Easter!
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Jody – I can’t tell you how happy I am that your church hasn’t gone with the Egg Hunt. It seems that Every Church now has The Hunt. (My last church did as well. And the church where I preached for Easter this year also did too. It’s become part of the DNA.)
And – sadly – the good people at the church where I preached today did not know the ancient response. Major disappointment. And yet, it was a great Easter.
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I had a really good Lenten season–contemplative & reflective. On Easter I was ready to celebrate and talk about resurrection. Yet all those around me wanted to talk about ham and lamb and Easter clothes. Today I am longing for 2 separate “Easters”–one that focuses on what it means to be resurrection/Easter people and another where we can attend to the family (secular) rituals. Christ has risen indeed and in deed.
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No Easter Egg hunts at Pleasant Hill Pres in Duluth, GA 🙂
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We had an Easter egg hunt. I admit it. But when I took over as faith formation chair, we tried to interject a little formation into it. Instead of forcing one of the teenagers to dress up in an Easter Bunny costume (which they hated, because it is made of flannel, has never been washed in about 30 years, and we are in south Louisiana, where it is hot by Easter. That thing reeks!), someone does a short (like 5-7 minute short) lesson about one of the symbols of easter, the kids do an activity related to the lesson, and then we let them loose to hunt eggs. We also have the local rabbit rescue come, and we do a little bit about creation care.
If it were up to me, I’d do away with it. I tried when I was still chair, but the congregation (especially the grandparents) loves it. Now that I’m not chair, and the chair is a grandmother herself, it’s there for the long haul.
What I really miss from my days as a Roman Catholic is the Easter Vigil. It was solemn, prayerful, contemplative, and celebratory all at once, and it really helped me focus on Christ’s ressurection, rather than egg hunts and Easter breakfasts in the church hall (which I admittedly boycotted this year in favor of quiet music at home and contemplating Mark’s account of the resurrection).
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no easter egg hunt out here in crystal lake either! just four worship services and breakfast. 🙂
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