I remember when schools would recognize and celebrate Easter.  That’s how old I am!

One year my elementary school was going to have an Easter egg hunt with a prize for the student that collected the most eggs.  Now my mom and dad were frugal people, certainly by necessity and equally by choice.  Their Appalachian Kentucky upbringing has instilled in them the values of a dollar and ‘living within theirs means.’  For the Easter Egg hunt, each student needed to bring a basket to collect eggs.  Roger.  Check!

As the Easter Egg hunt came closer, I was peppering my mom with reminders that I needed a basket for “the hunt.”  As a kid, if ‘hunt’ was in the name of the event, I was all in.  Back to the frugal living and the multi-use basket.  The day before the hunt, my sweet mother remembered we had a basket that I could use.  My sister, Teresa, had been a flower girl some time prior to this event and I could use the basket she had used.  Okay, let’s go!

So hunt day came and I was sizing up the competition.  There was a glaring difference between my basket and the competitors baskets.  Mine was open on either end, while theirs were round and about 4” deep compared to my 2” on the sides basket, remembering again the open ends.  Hmm, I thought, this may be a competitive disadvantage, but I will overcome.  I have always been a glass half-full kind of guy and in this case the glass was half empty.

“On your mark.  Get set.  Go!”  The great Easter egg hunt of first grade was under way and man I was shot out of a cannon.  I was finding eggs like a madman, driven by want, need and expectation.  I wanted those eggs!  I needed that acknowledgement of ‘champion.’  I expected glory and accolades for the job well done.  What I wanted, needed and expected never came.

As quickly as I would find an egg and place it in my open-ended basket, that same egg would tumble out and break (these were the days of real eggs, colored for the occasion).  To my horror and ultimately utter disgust, after finding what seemed to be hundreds of eggs, my basket was empty.  The fruit of my labor lay scattered all around that Arlington, TX elementary school playground.  My heart was broken, because my heart was focused on wrong things.

Through the years and decades, I have no idea who won that Easter egg hunt.  I have tears in my eyes and am literally laughing as I remember my beautiful mother doing her best with what she had to prepare me for that event and this event called “life.”  I remember the roars of uncontrollable laughter with my family as the pain of the moment gave way to the incredible joy that resulted from the event.  I wanted to destroy that little flower basket with my baseball bat and my dad and mom did not allow me, knowing that my view of that old basket would change from anger to love as I ran across it through the coming years.

Today as I view that old cross, where my beautiful and perfect Savior bled and died, I view it with love, gratitude and eternal thanks.  You see, that cross was so ugly, soaked in innocent blood, holding the only perfect person to ever walk this earth, with shouts of accusation and horrid sounds of mourning filling the air.  Then that cross was empty as Jesus was removed from its sadistic confines and laid in a new tomb, carved out for purposes that its owner could not know.  That cross became the symbol of death and life.  The physical presence that now represents hope and life.  That old rugged cross has become a source of light, love, joy, laughter.  Like that little flower basket, the cross moved from failure to ultimate victory.

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross,so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”  1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

There is purpose in this day between.  What you may be viewing as defeat today, may be preparing you for the victory that comes in the morning.   

“So I’ll cherish the old rugged Cross

Till my trophies, at last, I lay down

I will cling to the old rugged Cross

And exchange it some day for a crown”