The Day is Precious All Around

We made Easter baskets at our Ben Frankin store.

Easter grass, chocolate bunnies, jellybeans – a lot of jellybeans – and a big toy of some kind like a kite or a plastic ball and bat. Then everything was wrapped in colored cellophane and tied with a ribbon.

Yeah. I did that. And those baskets were gorgeous.

I loved Easter at the store. Easter at church was puzzling. The crucifixion gave me nightmares, and the resurrection seemed incredible, impossible to digest. And while I loved the stories of Jesus in vacation Bible School, the central thesis of Christianity didn’t make sense to me. That Christ died for my sins, that I could have everlasting life if I accepted Christ, it didn’t speak to me in the way it seemed to for others. It seems magical though and sometimes I envy that.

It’s not the only time I’ve been on the same road as everyone else but ended up at a different location.

What resonates with me are stories of Jesus’ kindness and unconditional love, though, even as I write that, I wonder if I’ve seen too many “He gets us” commercials lately. I joke. Christian churches are beautiful and peaceful to me, their communities accepting and generous. And often, I consider joining a church, but I hold back because over the forty years of being married to a Jewish man, I am more Jewish than not.

Because Passover and Easter often overlap, the compare and contrast opportunity presents itself. Passover liturgy is essentially about freedom, about Moses leading his people out of Egypt and away from oppression. The Haggadah, the seder manual, if you will, leads participants through a series of blessings – gratitude for freedom, acknowledgement of a still imperfect world, and exhortations to do more and better for justice. I am at home with these messages.

There were no Easter baskets here today. No hidden eggs. No chocolate bunnies. We are having ‘an Easter dinner’ and the day has felt special from the first daylight over Lake Michigan two blocks away. I’m watching the rabbi across the street helping his aged father down the front stairs. It is the last night of Passover.

It is all what we need. I know that much.

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Photo by Brian Wegman 🎃 on Unsplash