Easter Sunday has always been a slow morning. As a child, you’re excited weeks leading up to the blissful moment when you open your eyes to see if the Magical Bunny has arrived. You gorge on chocolate and then spend the rest of the day rubbing your stomach.
When I was younger, granted, I also spent a part of the day sitting in church. I attended with a gritty, bleak constitution (“We’ve left our eggs alone at home defenceless! This hour can’t go quickly enough so I can check dad hasn’t eaten them!”) and inspected the other children in the congregation, checking to see if any had chocolate smears around their mouths from earlier nibbling.
Once, this family came in. The two children were each carrying their prized chocolate (singular, not plural) carefully cupped in their hands, the shiny metallic wrappers lurid for all to see. I might have tutted at the parents, questioning the wisdom of letting their kids bring such a temptation to church (… so the rest of us can also stare at it longingly…).
These kids sat there, a model of patience the entire time, only putting down their treasure to go receive a blessing during communion.
By the end of I would’ve killed for a taste of my own chocolate waiting back home. A sentiment Jesus would hardly endorse, I know, but hey. I was young.
The recessional hymn ended and everyone got up to leave, as did the family with the kids who brought their egg each. I wondered how gooey and edible the chocolate was after being handled so much before I realised that for those kids the chocolate wasn’t what was important.
It was the gift itself. It was valued and it was respected. For all I knew, it was all they were going to get.
They didn’t take it for granted.
*
Last weekend we went to the park and happened across an Easter egg hunt that was being put on by a local real estate agency. We were invited to participate and it was fun, as they are. But I’ll never forget one little girl, crying in the middle of the field, because her bag had somehow split, the contents fell and were strewn over the ground.
Within seconds, other kids, full of the blood-lust of the hunt, and perhaps not even realising they belonged to her, had swooped down and taken them all, leaving this girl crying and alone.
Adam was the closest adult and leaned over to console her. Other people involved with the day were quickly alerted and came over to give her some more.
Then Riley stepped up and handed to her over some of his eggs.
The girl smiled, sniffed, and thanked everyone. Her mother by now was on hand to administer further cuddles.
A man, part of the organising team, I think, came up to Riley. He bunched his pants up a little so he could bend down on a knee to look at my son at eye-level.
“That,” he said, “was a wonderful thing you just did.”
Riley nodded and looked away (he’s bashful in front of strangers).
The man stood up. There was a patch on his knee from the wet grass. “I’m proud of you,” he said to Riley before leaving.
I was too.
That’s what Easter is for me.
