Easter Eggs
Easter morning at our childhood home meant us older children holding back the younger ones until my parents had hidden all the eggs filled with coins and chocolate. Then the chaotic hunt could begin throughout the upstairs for all eight of us. This is the first year that “Easter Eggs” means something completely new to me, much to my surprise.
It was the retirement dinner of a wonderful professor who had taught at Sacred Heart Seminary in Franklin, for fifty years. He was my professor for many of my classes, which was a rapid accumulation of necessary philosophy credits to hurry this “old man” towards ordination. The highlight gift was a framed rendering of his favorite philosophers. The host of the dinner related how inside the picture the artist had placed “Easter Eggs.”
I thought, “How odd, but we are approaching that holy day.” I ventured to examine the framed artwork looking for small, pastel colored, decorated, ovoid objects embedded in the picture. I saw none.
Later, I realized that the author had implanted small artifacts of the professor’s teaching tools. I saw a piece of chalk, still used by the professor long after white boards became the main means of teaching. Throughout the picture was hidden treasures which someone familiar with his practices would recognize. I had never heard the term “Easter Eggs” used for such additions.
This year, let “Easter Egg” mean something different to you. Let ‘Easter Egg” be the new term for God moments—times when just like Jesus did in our world, God breaks through into your life and lets you know he is there. Look for an “Easter Egg” every day, starting with today, the day of our Lord’s Resurrection. Let “Easter Egg” be times when you get an unexpected modicum of support when you are down. Let it be those flashes of hope, goodness, or joy, in the midst of a payload of grief. Easter Eggs are a smile, an infant’s laugh, a series of green lights when you are in a hurry. They are there every day, and all you have to do is pick them up, and you will never know until you open them what treat is inside. Easter eggs from God.