DEVOTIONAL FROM PASTOR DAVE APRIL 19, 2023

So many eggs. That’s what I kept thinking this past Sunday as we hosted our community Easter celebration in the Crest Center and on the parsonage lawn. Many of you brought candy and helped stuff eggs for the egg hunt, and thank you for doing that, and thanks to Rachel and the Children’s Ministry team for organizing it all! The Mountain Arts Community Center also very generously gave us about 8,000 eggs already stuffed after their egg hunt the previous weekend was canceled because of the weather.

You read that right—8,000 eggs. How egg-straordinary! It far egg-ceded our egg-spectations! You might say we were shell-shocked! (Yolk-yolk-yolk!)

Sunday afternoon, after the rain moved on and the sun came out, we spread the egg throughout the preschool playground and the front yard of the parsonage. There were so many eggs we had to be egg-stra careful not to step on them! And then when the children came out to hunt them, they were so egg-cited to see so many eggs! They filled their baskets and buckets in no time.

And then something happened that I’ve never seen at an egg hunt. There were eggs that were just left there ungotten. The kids had seemed to have gathered enough eggs—more than enough—so they just left the rest on the ground. And there were still so many eggs. But eventually the eggs got gotten. Some middle-school boys rode by on their scooters, and we invited them to get some eggs. They filled their backpacks, and then came back, not once, but twice to get more! And then the youth gathered up the rest Sunday evening.

But still I keep thinking to myself, so many eggs. And isn’t that really what Easter is about? Not the eggs, but the abundance. Jesus said, “I came that they (that we) may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). It’s the abundance of hope and joy and love and life that the Easter good news promises to us, that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead provides for us, that we celebrate throughout this Easter season.

How are you experiencing the abundance that Jesus has come to give us this Easter season?

Here are a few scripture verses that speak of abundance. Maybe one of these speaks to the abundance you may be experiencing or are yearning to experience (egg-sperience).

“O how abundant is your goodness that you have laid up for those who fear you,

and accomplished for those who take refuge in you.” – Psalm 31:19

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” – Psalm 51:1

“For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 1:5

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20-21

“May grace and peace be yours in abundance.” – 1 Peter 1:2, 2 Peter 1:2

“May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.” – Jude 1:2