A Note from Peter Holmes

One of my fondest childhood memories is the annual Easter Egg Hunt my grandparents hosted at their home in Lake Oswego. All the grandkids and cousins would come over on Easter Sunday for the big Hunt, and we’d wait with anticipation inside while the grownups hid plastic eggs full of candy out in the yard. But it wasn’t those eggs that I had on my mind. Every year my grandpa would tell us a story about how he had hidden an egg full of money somewhere outside. How much money? You’ll get a different answer depending on which one of us kids you ask, but my memory is $50. A small fortune. I had to find that egg.

So every Easter I would spend hours scouring my grandparents’ yard for the egg that would make me rich. I call it a yard, but it really wasn’t. My grandparents’ house backed up to a natural space that was part swamp, part forest. And I would search every inch of that wilderness while my grandpa watched from a second-floor deck up above. But try as I might, I could never find that egg. Did anyone? Again, accounts vary, but to my memory grandpa’s egg always eluded us. I think someone found some quarters once. Maybe even a gold dollar. But $50? Not a chance. Still, I searched high and low every year in hopes that the legend of the money egg might be true. And every year, I came away empty handed.

Maybe that egg really did exist, and was just impossibly hard to find. Or maybe (read: probably) grandpa was having some fun at our expense each Easter. Regardless, as I think back on it now, I realize that those long Easter afternoons in Lake Oswego provide a pretty good proverb for life. Because eventually I stopped searching for the mythical egg, but I found plenty of new snipe hunts to replace it with. That’s what humans do. We climb trees and dig holes and slash through thorn bushes searching for satisfaction in places we’ll never find it. And the hunt can be exhilarating. But in the end, we come away empty handed. We discover that we were just chasing a mirage all along

Which is, of course, what makes the good news of Easter so amazing. The news that there is something worth searching for. Or better put, someone. And he’s not impossibly hidden. In fact, he’s already searching for you.

You’re invited to join us as we celebrate the good news of Easter at BCC in just a few weeks’ time. The weekend of April 7th - 9th will be full of singing and remembering, reflecting and rejoicing. And yes…even some egg hunting. So get the word out, and come join in!

To learn more about Easter at BCC head over to beaverton.cc/easter, or simply continue scrolling down in today’s newsletter.

Hope to see you this Easter!

Peter Holmes
Families Pastor