Greed, Competitiveness, Contentment, and Easter

". . .Be content with what you have. . ." Hebrews 13:5
". . .be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else." 1 Thessalonians 5:14b – 15

These are a few of the things that I am trying to teach my children, yet this morning all it took was a simple, fun Easter egg hunt for me to find myself having to remind myself of these things.

I found out that the local funeral parlor (of all things!) was sponsoring an Easter egg hunt just down the street from our house. I had seen photos of this in the newspaper last year, and thought it would be a lot of fun to take my son to. Remember how in my last post, I mentioned that we are trying to incorporate more simple, fun activities? I thought this would be perfect. It was a great time and everything I was hoping for, but as the horn signaled the start of the hunt and children ages 1 – 12 ran out onto the field, I found myself saying, "hurry, Bug-Bug. Hurry. Pick up more, more, more!"

My precious two year old picked up one egg – a shimmery yellow one, and enjoyed looking at it, then carefully placed it in his basket. Slowly he moved on to the next egg. As I felt myself growing impatient and competitive, I could almost hear the Holy Spirit gently bringing the above verses to mind. Who cares if we didn’t fill our basket before the eggs were all snatched up? My son was having fun, and wasn’t that what this was all about? Wasn’t that why I had intentionally steered us toward a less full and consequently less busy area of the field? I think it’s fine to enjoy some of the fun, secular aspects of Easter, but Easter is, after all, a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. If I allow greed to overtake me, I am buying into the commercialization of Easter and feeding the sin for which my Lord had to die. I would also be training my son in the very things that I am trying to teach him to avoid. Not to mention the fact that these eggs are filled with CANDY, and do I really want my son having an abundance of candy anyway?

As I thought these things, I looked around and noticed many other parents struggling with the same dilemma, some winning and some losing the battle. Parents were pushing their children to get more and pick them up faster. Some would urge their child on, then relax and let their child go at his or her own pace. Others continued to push harder and harder. Some even took over picking up the eggs for their child as they filled giant bags. Some were opening eggs and discarding both the egg and any unwanted candy or wrappers onto the ground. Was this how we thanked the people who sponsored this for us – with litter? No way! With my attitude corrected, I was able to enjoy the game much more with my son. We may have not have gotten as many eggs as some, but we had a lot of fun together.

Just after many of the above thoughts ran through my mind, I saw a flat, pink, wooden egg. Right away I recognized that this was one of the "lucky" eggs they had described before the race started. Pink ones were for girls and yellow ones were for boys. Each child could only pick-up one, but if found, they could be exchanged for an Easter basket full of more goodies. Well, my four-month old is hardly old enough to enjoy an Easter basket, so I turned to the parents near me who were helping their toddler daughter find eggs, and pointed it out to them. They seemed surprised and thanked me. Then, a few seconds later they spotted a yellow "lucky" egg and pointed it out to us. The dad even stood guard over it until Bug-Bug got to it and picked it up. While we would have had fun whether we found a "lucky" egg or not, I felt like this was a special little kiss from God.

When Bug-Bug had a decent number of eggs in his basket, we noticed a "big-big bunny" coming onto the field. Bug-Bug timidly made his way over for a photo. There is an Easter bunny at the mall that kids can see, but last year I was sickened to see that he was no longer even called the Easter bunny, but "E. Bunny". I was glad that this way he could have the fun of meeting the Easter bunny without having to go to the one at the mall.

I look forward to this week sharing with my son about the origin of some of the Easter traditions like eggs and bunnies, and how they tie into the real meaning of Easter – the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you know of any good on-line resources about the origins of the traditions, feel free to leave a link in the comment section. If I find some good ones and have time, I’ll post the links here later. For now, I’ve spent my son’s entire naptime on the computer and need to get back to work!