The Egg Is Empty!
My kids love a good Easter egg hunt. And, I’ll admit, I love to give them one. I get such joy out of stuffing the eggs, hiding them, then standing by (and maybe video-taping) as my kids go traipsing through the house, searching for the eggs with their initials on them (I’ve got to make it fair by giving them each the same number of eggs to find!). It’s especially fun to see one of them get so close to an egg but not quite see it. Sometimes I even have to play the “hot and cold” game if they grow frustrated.
Once all of the eggs are finally found, the kids pile them up on the table for the best part of all: opening them! After all, who wants to sit and look at a basket full of plastic eggs? It’s the inside that counts, right? Most of the eggs are filled with candy, a bit of change or, their favorite, dollar bills.
One year I decided to try something different. I left all of the eggs empty. It was pretty humorous to watch them break open each egg and find nothing but air inside. Their faces went from perplexed to confused to downright disappointed in thirty seconds flat.
“There’s nothing inside,” my daughter said with a frown.
I picked up a couple and looked inside. “Hmmm. You’re right.”
“Why not?”
I smiled at my daughter. “Because your present is much too big to fit inside of those eggs.”
Her eyes grew as wide as the eggs she held and she jumped up and down gleefully as I retrieved her Easter present – a gigantic doll house for her gazillion Barbies.
Of course, I explained the meaning of those empty eggs – that the tomb in which the soldiers put Jesus’ body was empty, too. That Jesus and the gifts He offers are just too big to stay in that small, cramped place. That the grave just couldn’t hold His present! I pointed out to my daughter that although she received a doll house that she’ll someday outgrow, Jesus gave us an eternal gift. One that’s so big and so special that we’ll be able to keep it forever.
Fortunately, we don’t even need to go hunting for the gift Jesus left us. The Bible lays it out for us in plain sight. But now it’s up to us to direct others to the egg hunt. And for those who are hunting, maybe we can help them navigate so they don’t “miss” the egg. Those who are so close but don’t quite see it may need us to point them in the right direction, don’t you think?
I’ll probably be hiding eggs for my kids on many more Easter mornings. Most of those eggs will go back to holding candy, change and dollar bills. But once in a while, I may just leave a couple of the eggs empty and replace them with a bigger gift to remind them of that first Easter morning.
Praise God that the tomb is empty but the gift He gave us is one that will fill us for all eternity!
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