I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Easter grass. You know, that green plastic shredded stuff that is used for fill in Easter baskets. Yep, that stuff. I kind of miss it. You see, my children are grown and no longer at home and my grandchildren are four hours away, so I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like, and they weren’t at our home this year for Easter. So, there was no Easter grass at our house.
The thing about Easter grass is that it never stays put. It always tends to leak out of the Easter Baskets, and it ends up getting all over the place. In fact, weeks and months later after Easter is long passed, I have found Easter grass lurking around our house, under furniture, back in a corner, sometimes even under a cushion on a chair. I’ve even found a few strands in one of my slippers months after Easter Sunday. When you least expect it…there it is, Easter grass.
The reason I miss Easter grass is in part because it means there aren’t little ones running around my house to share the special day with. But the main reason is that finding Easter grass at various times and places is a great reminder that Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, isn’t just a one-day event that gets put back in the closet (like Easter grass) until next year. No, Easter, the day, the celebration, the recognition of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, is a day that impacts our lives every day of the year, not just on the Sunday marked Easter on the calendar.
For those of us who are Jesus followers, Easter is about recognizing that death is not the final victor, God’s love and life is. Easter is about recognizing that what appears to be the worst thing in life (Good Friday) is never the last thing, for those that claim faith in Christ. Easter is about realizing there is always hope and that God is always at work, even when we don’t necessarily realize it.
You see, for me, finding Easter grass throughout the year is a wonderful reminder of what the true meaning of Easter is all about. It’s not about chocolate bunnies, colored eggs, and jellybeans, it’s about a risen Lord and recognizing that Jesus is alive and with us always. Jesus is alive and that gives us hope that we too can have life in God’s love that continues beyond this world and beyond death and the grave. The Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed!!!!