Preacher: Revd Canon Karen Schmidt
Date: 09/04/2023
In my previous parishes, come the time in the service on Easter Day for the sermon the children went out on an Easter egg hunt, which always left me feeling quite sorry for the adult members of the congregation who by the glum look on some of their faces would have much preferred to look for Easter eggs hidden around the church and vicarage gardens rather than have to do what was expected of grown-ups which was to listen in all seriousness to a sermon on the meaning of Easter.
So I thought this year we would combine the two. You will all be receiving Easter eggs but first let’s hunt together for what they might be able to reveal of the Easter story.
The name of this particular brand of egg is an interesting choice. Mini eggs obviously describes the size of this particular chocolate but it got me thinking about the different sizes of Easter Eggs I could have chosen and their decoration and whether the size or appearance of an egg had any bearing on its effect.
If you had been walking down Bond Street in London a few years ago and passed by a certain jeweller’s shop, you would have seen an Easter egg by Faberge.(Faberge was a jeweller who created a series of Easter eggs for the Russian royal family ). You wouldn’t have been able to buy that egg but if it had been for sale it would have cost you about £20 million.
And there’s a wonderful story about how that egg came to be in that London jeweller’s shop. Faberge made 50 royal Easter eggs but until a few years ago only 42 had been located. Then a scrapdealer from the Midwest of America walked into the Bond Street jeweller’s shop holding photographs of a golden egg. A member of staff, a Mr McCarthy, recognised it at once. The American had bought the egg for $13,000 which was roughly the scrap metal value. He had tried to sell it several times. Four days before he walked into the Bond Street shop he had Googled Faberge eggs and an article in a newspaper mentioning Mr McCarthy and the Bond Street jeweller’s had popped up. The owner of the egg hadn’t slept since. He got on a plane straight away to visit the Bond St shop. After seeing the photos Mr McCarthy got on a plane in the other direction to see the egg for himself.
He still couldn’t believe that such a treasure ended up where it did. “You would never know to look at him”, referring to the American owner of the egg. “He wears the plaid shirts and the jeans and likes fishing. When I saw the egg just sitting on his kitchen counter, it was like finding Tutankhamen in Tesco.”
The golden egg contained a priceless watch as the surprise inside. A diamond served as the button to open the egg which sat on a gold stand with sapphires and more diamonds. It was brought to Britain and sold for about £20 million.
My mini eggs didn’t cost me £20 million but apart from the jewels, which we’ll come to in a minute, they aren’t so different from the Faberge. Like all eggs they have a hard shell which you need to break to reveal what’s inside. In the Easter story, Jesus did that hard bit for us. He broke down the shell that was keeping us separated from the goodness of a relationship with God by dying on the cross. At the moment of his death the curtain in the holiest place in the Temple where God was kept was torn in two. From now on nothing could separate us from the goodness of God’s love.
So the hard outer shell is cracked open and what do we find inside? Well, it’s a bit of a two-way process. If you were being given Faberge’s egg you would be gazing on a priceless watch. In a minute you will be enjoying some chocolate, but those goodies represent a goodness with which even a fabulous watch can’t compare.
When those women went to Jesus’ tomb early on that first Easter morning and found it cracked open they found nothing inside. It was empty. And that was the most fabulous gift there has ever been. We look in to our eggs in the hope of discovering a treat but Jesus had broken out of his tomb just as some creatures such as the chickens we see in our Easter decorations had to break out of their eggs at the moment of their birth, the start of their lives.
The empty tomb meant that new life had come into our world. That hard shell of death had been broken down and from now on we would only know life for ever – eternal life with God. That new life was God’s Easter gift to us.
I rather like the Bond St jeweller’s description of the American owner of the egg. Jesus didn’t, as far as we know, wear plaid shirts and jeans but he did like to go fishing. Jesus was a very ordinary man but rather than become a multi-millionaire he gave away all that he had – he gave himself – so that everyone, each member of God’s beloved creation might receive the riches of life with God for ever.
But – and this is where the jewels of Faberge’s egg come in. – because Jesus wore the crown of thorns out of love for us, God gave him a crown of glory as Jesus took his place alongside God in his kingdom.
We have received God’s Easter gift which is beyond value but that doesn’t mean we are to pull down that “gone fishing” sign. Rather we are to carry on Jesus’ work of fishing to bring in others into the net of God’s kingdom so that they too can share God’s Easter gift.
So now it’s time to receive those symbols of the new life God offers us this Easter Day because of Jesus breaking out of his tomb. And as we receive our eggs perhaps we can say
Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!