Adornments Of Easter

Yellow dress, white shoes, pearl necklace. . . and that’s just last year's Easter outfit! Easter has its own style and color that parallels the blossoming of spring. Like a parent who can’t bear to favor one of their children over another, I cherish each holiday equally but for different reasons. Each one is a mixed blessing of the sacred and the secular, yet I can appreciate both aspects and not feel conflicted. I have no problem snacking on a chocolate bunny all the way to the holiest church service of the year.

My childhood Easters are now speckled memories of patent leather shoes, fidgeting like a bunny in church and finding (then re-hiding, then losing) Easter eggs. One memory that stands out is the Easter I spent in the hospital with a broken arm after showing a friend my new circus maneuver: a monkey-like dismount off a clothes line pole. After anesthesia, I became violently ill and had to revisit the multitude of candy eggs I had eaten earlier in the day. I don’t eat candy eggs anymore; neither does anyone who witnessed that technicolor spectacle (and possibly not anyone who is reading this story.)

Like all holidays, the hardest part for a child is the night before the big day, the darkest hour before the dawn. Eventually the sun bursts through with excitement and the fulfillment of wishes. It is a life lesson that has resounded since the Resurrection. How let down and discouraged the followers of Jesus must have felt in the evening hours of Friday and Saturday. Then HOPE in all its brilliance rose so perfectly on Sunday morning with the Risen Lord. It is the constant message of encouragement that I cling to. When I go through the bleakest of Friday nights, I have to remember that Sunday morning will shine again.

Now I see the deeper adornments of Easter:
Yellow like the beaming dawn of Resurrection,
White like the brilliant robe of an angel in the empty tomb,
Pearls like the wisdom of the gift of salvation.