The True Meaning of Easter

I celebrated Easter long before I married a nice Catholic girl, which is why I labored so hard this year, as the sole and Jewish parent, to offer Miguel and Maya something substantive about the holiday.

My parents took me to Filley Pond in Bloomfield, CT, where I grew up, for the annual Easter egg hunt. Colored eggs, chocolate shaped bunnies, jelly beans, Easter bunnies in costume–all very cute and safe in a homogenized way for children of any and all religious backgrounds. But not what Easter is truly about, I think, any more than Christmas is just presents galore and a jolly fat man in a red suit.

The first thing I wanted to do was bring Miguel and Maya to church, to honor my late wife and her mother.

“Miguel,” I said, “we are going to church on Easter.”

“But the Heat (Miami’s professional basketball team) are on (TV),” he said. He is an uber fan of the Heat.

“Miguel, we are going to church to honor your mother and grandmother,” I shot back.

“But, Dad, it’s the Heat.”

So we went to Church, and it was packed, with people lined up in the lobby and tucked into the small altars on the perimeter of the sanctuary. Father Dave, who resembles a sincere Michael on The Office, led the service, high energy and perfect for a Jewish guy like me who finds most synagogue and church services interminably boring.

I closed my eyes at one point to let Father Dave’s words wash over me. I wanted some insight into Easter to share with Miguel and Maya beyond Christ died for our sins. Kids with little religious instructions will find the words “Christ died for our sins” or “Christ was resurrected to guarantee us all life everlasting” very meaningful right now.

During his sermon or homily, Father Dave said a few things that I quietly and quickly jotted down on the back of a business card. He said, “Easter is the time to be bound up in the rapture of joy.” And, “God raised Jesus from the dead for us, in order for us to see the way to lead our lives.”

Later I asked our friends, John and Liz, how they share Easter with their three daughters.

“We tell them the story,” said John. “We tailor it for each kid.”

Before Maya bounded out the door for the 4th annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt, I said to her, “Maya what is Easter about? What did they tell you about Easter in preschool?”

“Candy and Jesus,” she answered.

“What about Jesus?” I asked, hoping for an insight from my little princess that would sustain my ability to better communicate the holiday to her and her brother, who’d just helped hide dozens of candy-filled plastic eggs on the two-acre park lawn outside our home.

“Jesus is going to come down and have candy with me,” she said.

Amen.