Ever wonder why an egg started to represent the Religious Holiday of Easter? As far back as I can remember, we got chocolate eggs for Easter. Then Cadbury Easter Creme Eggs came along and it got even better!
Some families take the time to dye real hard-boiled eggs as part of their Easter rituals.
In Canada, we didn’t have plastic eggs with chocolate inside, they were always solid or hollow chocolate eggs. Now that we live in the US, we have adopted the plastic eggs — and it’s fun to discover what inside.
Speaking of mystery, why Easter eggs? Is this a Christian tradition? What can we learn from the history? An old Latin proverb says, “All life comes from an egg”. I guess that answers the question of “which came first?”
You probably guessed, like most of our Christian Traditions, eggs were honored long before the first Easter. In fact, eggs represented “Life” to the point that countries all over the world believed that the universe was “hatched” from an egg.
In the Passover Seder, a hard-boiled egg is dipped in salt water to represent “new life” and the Passover sacrifice. In ancient Persia, eggs were painted to celebrate the new year at the Spring Equinox. And the egg also represented the end of lent since in medieval Europe eggs were forbidden during lent. Remember how eggs were used up in pancakes before lent starts? In fact, there is story after story of civilizations who used eggs to represent “spring” and “life”.
Other stories emphasize that an egg represents the tomb that Christ dies in. And from the hard exterior, bursts forth life once it’s cracked open.
I guess for us, we can see that Easter eggs are here to stay. And I certainly enjoy them! I was allergic to chicken eggs when I was young so it wasn’t until high school that I realized “the forbidden” was so scrumptious! Thankfully, I grew out of the allergy.
This winter has been rough on all of us. Recession, storms, changes, banks not lending, etc. Perhaps we can use the hard exterior of an egg to represent the last few months. But like all the traditions emphasize, the egg is easily cracked open to expose the truth of “life”:
- God is with us. He’s alive so that we can have life!
- Life is not represented by the “shell” of possessions. We must look beyond our earthly things to see how Christ’s life is given to us.
- Life remains. After we look past the things that draw us to Him, we breathe a sigh of relief. He’s alive!
Take time this week to thank God for His “life”. Then allow the shell of whatever you’re feeling (coming from the Winter months) to be thrown away and realize that God is good and He breathes life into your ministry.
Happy Easter! Remember the egg. Celebrate life that comes through Christ and the spring that He creates.
Perhaps you can do what the fish and chips shops in Scotland do to celebrate the egg. They take a chocolate Easter egg and batter it. After then deep-fry it, they celebrate! Now that’s sounds like a tradition we should have here in the South!
