Easter Recollections

It's Easter Sunday today and we had an outdoor Easter service at our church. The sun was blazing bright and the worship team led by Moriah Peters kept us mostly on our feet clapping and swaying to the music. Pastor Bob chose the title Easter in 3-D for his sermon and as usual he presented us a great sermon on resurrection.

In my six decades of life, I've worshipped on Easter Sundays at various churches, some in different countries. But never an Easter Sunday passes by without me thinking of the sunrise Easter service at the small country church in my home town. I grew up attending such early morning Easter services and when I moved to Canada, on this part of the world, I was disappointed to find no sunrise Easter services to attend.

Oh, how I cherish the memory of me  getting up around 5 am in the morning, pour buckets of cold water on my head to wake me up and  scrub myself with sandalwood soap to smell good and dressing myself in something soft and white to reflect Easter. Since my parents rarely attended church and my older siblings had already left home for college or for work, I joined my friends to go to church.

On Easter morning, those of us kids who want to go for the service met at one of our friend's house and from there, with a candle in one  hand, and clanging tambourine with the other,we walked towards our church singing " Hallelujah, He's risen, " in our native tongue. As we passed a huge Hindu temple and turned the corner towards the street leading to our church, we'd see flickering candles and hear the sound of drums and singing coming from opposite direction.

All of us would gather near the front of the church and wait for the church bell to gong thrice. Once that's done and the organist start playing the organ, we would file in a line and walk down the aisle of the church and take our place at the choir section. The sanctuary decorated in white Easter lilies and people mostly dressed in white looked serene and beautiful.

Easter Sunday was the day usually selected for any children to get baptized or adults to get confirmed to become a member of the church. Baptism was done by the pastor sprinkling water on the head instead of immersion baptism. I didn't know why my parents didn't get me baptized when I was a child as they did for my older siblings. So, at age 13, wearing the white beautiful taffeta dress my older sister sewed the previous day, I walked to the altar by myself and got baptized. Because my pastor and wife had been to the Holy Land the previous month, I was lucky enough to be sprinkled on the head with the water brought from Jordan river.

On another Easter Sunday morning, five years later   I walked along with a few of my friends to the altar, wearing a white georgette sari and blouse and a pearl necklace around my neck and got my confirmation as well as a brand new Bible. My very own Bible to read! Until then I had been reading the old family Bible my mother had got from her family.

I never grew up hunting for Easter eggs or hearing about Easter bunnies. It was in Sweden, while my husband was doing his postdoctoral studies, his professor and wife invited us for an Easter brunch and it was then I came to taste an Easter egg chocolate for the first time. The professor's wife had cleverly placed the eggs which looked like real boiled eggs in their holders and laid them out neatly in front of us on the table. Our hosts had a hearty laugh in watching our amazed look on  seeing the chocolate instead of real yolk inside the egg.

I remember the time, when my oldest daughter was in grade 2, her teacher had asked the class to write about Easter. It was two years earlier that we had immigrated to Canada and my daughter hadn't still got familiar with Easter tradition here. So, while the other kids wrote about Easter bunny and egg hunting, she had written what Easter meant to her. The teacher, who was a Christian was so thrilled to read a seven year old immigrant child writing - " Easter is not about Easter bunnies or Easter eggs. It's about Jesus rising from the dead on a Sunday morning." Being in a public school, the teacher couldn't talk to my daughter about  how pleased she was to read what she had written. But when I went to meet the teacher later one day, she mentioned about it and encouraged me to keep up with our bringing up in faith.

Our second daughter who was born in Canada, grew up hunting for chocolate-laden eggs on Easter mornings, munching on Easter eggs and reading stories about Easter bunnies. I don't know what she would have written if her teacher had asked her to write about Easter.

It is sad that the world we living in today is becoming more market centered and less Christ centered  and our children are growing up in such culture. Yet, I'm so thankful for the freedom we have in celebrating these seasons in whatever way we want and in whatever place we choose to worship with our families. Such freedome should never be taken for granted!***