The Shattered Easter Egg

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But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

Do you remember molded sugar Easter eggs? Remember; the kind ones with lovely scenes nestled inside, and pretty frosted trim and colorful flowers on the top? If you do, you will recall how fun it was to peek through the peep-hole to see the pretty spring scenes inside.

Many years ago, my older sister, Kathy, won a beautiful sugar Easter egg at our school’s annual Easter egg hunt. It was a sparkly white sugar egg with lavender, pink, and yellow flowers on the top. When you peeked through the hole at one end of the egg, you could see a delightful miniature scene of an empty cross with lilies at the base and a sweet lamb sitting in the grass. I recall walking home with Kathy from school that day, and how proud she was of the egg. She let me peek at the scene inside. Having never seen a sugar egg before, I was fascinated.

When we got home, Kathy ran excitedly through the front door and made it almost to the kitchen, holding up the egg to show our mother. But when she was three quarters of the way through our living room; she tripped over a chair that was keeping our 9 mo. old baby sister out of the kitchen and stumbled towards the kitchen floor. I gasped as the egg went flying out of her hands and onto the hard surface of the linoleum, subsequently shattering into a multitude of sparkling sugar pieces.

Baby Robin was oblivious to the situation; she just gigged, as if her sisters were playing a game with her. Kathy, however, though physically unharmed, was heart-broken and in tears… and so was I. Both of us had been totally enamored by that egg and our joy had suddenly been shattered along with its fragile shell.

Somehow, our mother was able to console us as she carefully picked up the pieces. She pointed out to us that the scene inside was still intact and still attached to a solid piece of the broken egg. She found some glue and little by little we pieced the egg back together again. It never did look the same on the outside, but when you looked into the heart of its center, the beautiful scene stood repaired, intact, and lovely as ever.

I now understand more fully the lesson learned from that event, and what the scene inside of the egg represented. Though merely a sweet and sugary symbol, it served to remind us of the Lord’s great sacrifice made on our behalf. Just as the egg was repaired, along with our broken hearts that day, so our Lord sweetly mends our shattered spirits and broken hearts through his resurrection and the beauty of the empty cross. Praise God!

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