“April showers bring May flowers.”
I remember learning that rhyme when I was a small girl. Our class would practice saying the days of the week and the months of the year as well as a few of calendar-related ditties. And since I was a bit of a smart-aleck, I remember feeling really clever when I learned the old riddle:
Q: “If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?”
A: Pilgrims!
As a kid I learned to look forward to May, when the sun would be shining brightly, the flowers would be blooming, and the school bell would be ringing for the last time. The end of May brought the beginning of summer vacation, so May was golden. April? April was just a rainy month to be endured.
As it turns out, my teachers were trying to make me understand something much bigger than calendar terms and weather patterns. They were trying to share a life lesson. They wanted me to realize that without April there would be no May–no showers, no flowers. I didn’t get it.
While I was busy learning poems and riddles, there was something else going on every spring, too; something I remember clearly: Easter. So vividly I remember the smell of the Easter egg dye–little blocks of dried pigment mixed with water and vinegar. I remember the taste of Peeps and chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs and my favorite malted-milk robin’s eggs. I remember the thrill of having a brand new ensemble of finery to wear to church on Easter Sunday: dress, hat, patent-leather shoes, straw purse, and white gloves.
“It’s Resurrection Sunday,” some of the old men at our church would joke. “The ‘dead’ Christians come back to life and make it to church once a year on Easter.” We would sit primly in our new clothes, sing songs like “Up from the Grave He Arose,” and dash outside for the egg hunt.
Now I realize that, just as I didn’t understand the meaning of that little rhyme about April flowers, I didn’t really understand the Easter story, either. Although I knew all the words to “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” I mostly thought of Easter as a day for wearing pretty dresses and eating candy.
It’s been a long time since I was a little girl in my Easter bonnet and white gloves. Now, of course, I understand the meaning of the Easter story. I realize that the joyous Resurrection required that Jesus had to die. I never think of Easter as just a day for wearing a pretty dress and eating candy. Right?
Right??
Oh, dear God, help me. I’m still such a child sometimes. I forget. I can get so wrapped up in preparing Easter baskets for my kids and baking a ham and decorating my house that I forget that without the crucifixion there would be no resurrection.
So this April, I’m trying to remember. Oh, I’m still decorating and baking. But I’m trying to get it.
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; and by His stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53: 3-5, NKJV)
How about you? Will you join me in remembering?
