This Easter, we accidentally crammed 45 people into our house for a meal and an egg hunt.
The tables were laden with salads, vegetables, freshly baked breads, and cake; the cooler burst with great beer and wine. My mom’s limoncello cocktail went down like the candy, stuffed in three dozen plastic eggs brought by some friends. I let go of my desire to control the egg hunt, and found out later that the big kids took all the best stuff. I came to grips with my own naiveté watching them dump from our family’s eggs the items we consider treats – cheddar bunnies, sesame sticks, weird Trader Joe gummy things, cute stickers and erasers – all over the yard in favor of the “real” candy. “Where are the gummy bears?” my three year is still asking, days later. He didn’t get his share, but he is learning about hospitality. Despite the chaos and his multiple tantrums during the affair, today he began making plans for our next party. That’s the resurrection that Easter is all about.
An old fashioned alarm clock jangled loudly, held over my head as I climbed onto our blue kitchen stool to summon guests around the food. We prayed together over the meal, a mixed bag of backgrounds – Jewish, Jew-“ish”, agnostic, undecided, Roman Catholic, conservative, evangelical, and whatever motley progressive Jesus-centrism that best describes our family these days.
“Resurrection!” rang out and bounced off the freshly painted walls; there was no rug in the dining room to absorb sound, but there were bodies of friends and family.
Later I walked in the sunshine and picked unwanted cheddar bunnies out of the grass. They were still crunchy. Resurrection indeed.
EASTER PRAYER
For the joys set before us and the struggles we have yet to endure we pray:
Resurrection
For our children and their children; for our parents and their parents; for the grace to live together in families of love, we need:
Resurrection
For our brothers and sisters living in poverty, in war, and under tyranny; for the vulnerable in our own cities living in uncertainty we pray:
Resurrection
For the world leaders whose choices reflect our culture and whose decisions affect our future, we beg:
Resurrection
For those charged with our protection, and for any neighbors who feel less protected than they should be, we need:
Resurrection
For all who take risks to stand up for truth, justice, and peace, we say:
Resurrection
For the ways in which we desire to change but lack the courage to begin, we need:
Resurrection
For that new heaven and a new earth, and for the respect and stewardship of this current one:
Resurrection
For release from our fears and compulsions; for redemption of our most broken relationships, and for rest as we learn to stop striving and be still, we pray today:
Resurrection
