by Joanne Wiklund
No doubt most purple Peeps have been eaten and leftover ham is in the refrigerator in lots of homes today. But does the Easter message still remain in my heart and in my mind? Does the fact (and it IS a fact!) that Jesus rose from the dead to save us from our sins make a difference in my life? Despite the efforts of many nonbelievers, Easter in Spring brings with it that eternal emotion that stirs in my heart when I think of Easter: Hope. After the year we just survived, Hope is still what I cling to.
Years ago, our daughter brought a last minute guest to a late afternoon meal on Easter, a young immigrant who spoke only Spanish. I’m not fluent in Spanish, so we did lots of motioning and smiling as I put food on the serving table with him standing nearby. Our special visitor must have been in his early twenties. As I set yet another kind of food on the table, he looked at me with a wrinkled brow. Why? he asked in English. I thought about it. Our daughter spoke only a spattering of Spanish, so her efforts to explain the celebration evidently didn’t help much either. I thought about his question. He wanted to know why were we celebrating. So I tried. Easter, I said. He shook his head No. I tried: Church? Again he shook his head. Then it hit me. What I hoped was a universal word: Resurrection?
He broke into a wide grin, and shouted: Resurrectione! in Spanish. He grabbed the bowl of food I was holding and set it swiftly on the table. Continuing his grin, he slapped me on the back a couple of times and went looking for my daughter in the kitchen. I heard him say the same word to her with the same emphasis. I stepped back to the door of the kitchen. He had her by the hand and she was grinning like he was, shaking her head Yes, Yes. I only wish that everyone would react to the Resurrection of our Lord with the same enthusiasm. Resurrection is derived from Middle English: from Old French, from late Latin resurrectio(n-), from verbresurgere ‘rise again’. Our visitor knew He did!
