Easter Memories

My earliest Easter memories involve the clothes.  There was always a new dress, often matching for my sister and me.  And new white shoes and a purse, even before I was old enough to need a purse.  White shoes were never worn until Easter, whether Easter was in March or April.  There were Easter baskets with candy when I was small, but  I don’t remember that being a very big part of Easter.  I’m sure there were Easter egg hunts too, though I don’t have a clear memory of that either.

I remember that Dad bought Mom a corsage for Easter Sunday.  One time, there were corsages for Nancy and me too.

Easter songs fill my memories. . . “Low in the grave He lay. . .” and “Christ the Lord is risen today!”

As I grew into a teenager, I remember the Gaithers’ “Because He Lives.”  I remember sunrise services as we hurried about in the cool darkness of morning.  We wondered what the women felt like as they approached the tomb to care for Jesus’ body.

I remember sharing Easter eggs with my own children, teaching them about the Resurrection.

Growing up in the church, the story of the death and resurrection of Christ is foundational and familiar.  We were reminded in every baptism (“buried with Him in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life.”) and every Communion service(“this do in remembrance of Me.”)  

We were reminded in every evangelical appeal (“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. . . ") and every call to repentance ("He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin.”)

As a child, I don’t suppose you usually think much about death.  Even as an adult, not having to face my own mortality head on very often, I haven’t given it a great deal of thought.  But sometimes, the death of someone you love smacks you in the face.  Then you cling to the Resurrection hope.  

Death has been swallowed up in victory
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?

Death did not have the final say with Christ.  And it will not have the final say with us either.  

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.