Today I ran into the store to make one simple purchase – Plastic Easter Eggs. You know – the pastel colored ones that open up so you can slip candy, trinkets, or coins inside.

When I was a little girl an Easter Egg meant a hard boiled egg colored on the outside. Today’s children get a Plastic Easter Egg filled with goodies!

I am making a presentation for the young Hispanic mothers at the Pregnancy Care Center. All I needed was a large bag – 2 dozen – Plastic Easter Eggs.

The first choice I was given was an extra large bin of weird colored plastic eggs. Upon closer inspection I realized they were an ugly color green for a purpose. Each egg had been tattooed with a Ninja Turtle.

Wwwwwhat do Ninja Turtles have to do with Easter?

Hmm. Nope. This won’t do.

I moved to the next large bin in the middle of the aisle. Didn’t need to stop – these were not Easter Eggs. They were balls shaped like Easter Eggs. Now, young moms may be taken by this subversive plot to turn perfectly round balls into Easter Eggs – but not me. I know a baseball isn’t shaped like an Easter Egg. Neither is a basketball. Only footballs are shaped like Easter Eggs.

Wwwwwwwwhat do balls have to do with Easter?

Shaking my head, I moved on and around the corner.

I searched the racks, finding lots of candy, but no plastic Easter Eggs.

Then I ran into my neighbor who has 4 little girls. “You look confused,” she announced.

Of course she wondered what I was doing here with all the loving parents who were looking to fill Easter baskets. She, knowing that my sons are gown and out of the house, looked at me with a bit of compassion in her eyes.

“Whatcha looking for?” she asked good naturedly.

“I’m frustrated. All I want is 24 pastel-colored plastic Easter Eggs. I can’t find them anywhere!”

“Good luck,” she said. Everything is really fancy this year, besides…”

Very wisely she informed me that she has hundreds. She never throws hers out.

I thought to myself. “Wait til they have all left home. You will clean out all their stuff so fast!”

We looked at each other. She was smiling, choosing candy for her little girls. I was intent on finding those plastic Easter Eggs.

Then I said, “There is not a pure Easter Egg in this whole store. Everyone has to be marked with some semblance of consumerism and materialism!”

“They have taken the holy out of Easter.”

Then I remembered that one day not too long ago the only available eggs for Easter were those we bought at the grocery store and colored ourselves. I wonder - had my mother and grandmother cried foul when real became plastic?

“Plastic Easter Eggs! Is this what it has come to?” Did they mourn out loud like I just had? Did they make the same pronouncement?

“They have taken the holy out of Easter!”

Tonight I am going to place Bible verses in each plastic egg. When the young moms open their Plastic Easter Eggs tomorrow morning they will be confronted with the steps taken by Jesus during the first Holy Week that took place so many hundreds of years ago.

I just want to put the holy back into Easter, even if I do have to use Plastic Easter Eggs to remind us of the New Life we have in Jesus’ resurrection.

Do you know what is so absolutely fantastic about the Gospel. It is real throughout the ages, never changes, yet whatever is common and ordinary today can be used in a lesson to tell the Good News!

How are you celebrating these HOLY DAYS?