HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

This is  a strange Easter weekend.  No churches gathering, no sunrise services.

 I want to talk today about Easter in the past, when there was no corona virus to plague our land.

I wrote my friend Pat out in Steilacoom, Washington about a memory and she shared one with me.

My memory...
When I think of Easter as a little girl, the first thing that comes to my mind are dotted swiss dresses!  My Mother made my sister, Teresa and me, dotted swiss dresses to wear on Easter.  (We also wore them to my sister Millie's graduation from college.) Millie was 10 years older than I and 15  years older than Teresa, so we would have been around 6 and 11 at the time.  They were matching purple dotted swiss.  We also wore black patent "Mary Jane" shoes and white sox with lace around the top.

I remember it being bitter cold, as most Easters are, and I was SO disappointed.  Mother made me wear my winter coat to church!  How dare she!  I was going to be so cute, and that winter coat would spoil the whole presentation of me in my beautiful, purple, dotted swiss dress.  I was certain that the whole church would be waiting with baited breath for me to enter.  Now my Mother was sabotaging the whole thing!  I went on to decide that maybe I could shed the coat as soon as I entered the church building so as to make the grand entrance  I had planned all along!

Pat Holtzapple's memory...
"When I was 5 and my sister 7, the preacher had 2 daughters.  We thought they lived the life of princesses.  They gave us yellow dotted Swiss dresses (hand me downs).  I thought that I looked so good, and still think that!   Many years later, and I am sure she did not remember those dresses, my Mom said, "you never did look good in yellow."

Too funny!  I LOVE Pat's dotted swiss story, even better than mine! 

I look back on those Easter Sundays from years ago and even with the obsession of looking cute, I remember hearing the story of the resurrection.  As the years passed, THAT story made the story of my cuteness pale in comparison.  All of a sudden I was also remembering getting up early to go to sunrise services in the cold.

One was held in the front yard of our little church in Fountain City.  Another was at Lynnwood Cemetery in Fountain City.  Yet another was at Hampton Christian Church when the boys were little.  Jesus (played by Larry Calhoun) came in late and walked up the aisle of the church after everyone was seated.  He went up to Tommy and started whispering in his ear.  Tommy would then tell us what "Jesus" was saying.  He would say things like, He had gone away but that He was coming back and we needed to be waiting and watchful for His return.  He then walked out the door behind Tommy. 

It was really surreal, because as we went out that door and down to the basement for the breakfast we had prepared downstairs, we passed a closet that had the clothes that "Jesus" had worn, in a pile on the floor of the closet....almost as if He had just disappeared and left His clothing behind.

I love remembering my dotted swiss and my sox with lace and my brand new Mary Janes  but I am more thankful for the risen Savior, who came to this earth, lived among us, was crucified and rose again on Easter.  I can go to church looking cute any Sunday.  (And I do try!)  But I dare not forget the real reason I go to church and I cannot forget the sacrifice He made for me over 2,000 years ago.

Happy Easter! 
HE IS RISEN!  HE IS RISEN INDEED!