An Easter To Remember

I remember quite a few Easters. There was the one when I was four years old and I got a large egg made out of sugar, with candy decorations and an Easter scene inside. I never ate that egg; I loved that egg and would look at it and study the details and the paper cutout figures inside. I kept it in my sock drawer for eighteen years until Rhonda made me throw it away after we were married. I remember those Easter breakfasts that the youth group prepared. There were mounds of scrambled eggs and bacon, biscuits, gravy, orange juice and coffee. We would drink coffee; well it was mostly cream, like we were grown-ups as we served breakfast to the people of Florence Avenue United Presbyterian Church. I remember getting hired to play trumpet at sunrise services. One time we were standing on the cliffs of San Pedro overlooking the Pacific Ocean and we played “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today”. Over the years there have been Easter memories that I treasure but the one that is the most vivid memory occurred in 2001. That was the year I spent Holy Week in a hospital bed from Good Friday until Easter Evening. I’ll never take Holy Week services for granted again. Maundy Thursday morning I woke up to find my left leg and arm strangely stiff and unresponsive. I kept working at my tasks trying to pretend nothing was wrong but by Good Friday I found myself in the emergency room. I couldn’t walk and I was somewhat incoherent. They told me that I had suffered a stroke. I told them I needed to conduct a choir that evening. They told me that wouldn’t be happening. I quit arguing and lay there thinking that life, as I knew it was over. The rest of that day and the following Saturday were a blur of tests, doctors and nurses hurrying in and out, visitors, but most of all there was a deep loneliness. I slept fitfully Saturday night, watching television as I drifted in and out of sleep. The next morning I was startled awake by organ music. I looked up at the television and saw my old high school friend, Johnny Carl, playing “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today”. I thought that I had died and Johnny was the organist in heaven. I looked again and Robert Schuller was there, “I don’t remember him passing away.” I thought, but then it struck me; it was “The Hour of Power” television program. I wasn’t dead, nor was Robert Schuller and Johnny Carl didn’t have the gig in heaven, just the one at the Crystal Cathedral. I went home later that day walking with the help of a cane and began the long road towards recovery. But that Easter caused me to love Holy Week services. Join me on Thursday as we communion together, Friday as we reflect on the gift of life Jesus gave us by sacrificing His own life. And finally shout with me on Easter Morning, “He Is Risen Indeed”! Those three days in 2001 remain etched in my memory. I felt the loss of communion together, the loneliness of Friday and Saturday, but most of all I remember being awakened by “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today”. Come this week and celebrate. It will be a weekend to remember.