Forty minutes for a soft boiled egg sounds like overkill. And if it’s chickens you keep in your garden, that would undoubtedly be the case. If however you’re an ostrich farmer, forty minutes seems just about right.

Decorating eggs is a practice with a long history. Sumerians and Egyptians who lived more than five thousand years ago placed embellished eggs in graves, and in parts of Africa engraved ostrich eggs that had been used as water carriers have been found which date from some 60,000 years ago.

Eggs had, quite understandably, been a symbol of fertility and rebirth when Christians began using them as a symbol of the empty tomb of the very first Easter. The outside of the egg appears dead, but inside there is new life about to break out. For Christians. it’s a reminder that when Jesus rises from the tomb he brings new life too.

Early Christians began staining the eggs red in memory of the blood of Jesus shed at his crucifixion in Mesopotamia. The custom spread form there through the Orthodox Church to Russia and then through the Catholic & Protestant churches into Europe and beyond.

And so Easter & eggs became inextricably linked.

The shelves of our national supermarkets are loaded to capacity with hundreds of different chocolate eggs at Easter. From Cadbury, to Green & Blacks, to Lego, every brand wants to take a chunk of the market – but for so many consumers, the reason we have the eggs at this time of year is at best fuzzy.

The Meaningful Chocolate Company is trying to change that with their Real Easter Egg. They have sold more than a million of these Fairtrade eggs over the last six years. Each of them comes with a beautifully illustrated 24 page Easter story activity book that explains the meaning of Easter. New Life.

That’s what Christians celebrate at Easter. Jesus Christ who was beaten, whipped, crucified and died, is alive again. And because of his death and resurrection, New Life in God is available to everyone.

Happy Easter!

 

(April 2017)