What is your favourite Easter colour?
Is it the soft pastels – pink, blue, yellow and green like Easter jellybeans and dyed eggs? Or is it the brown or white of sweet and crunchy chocolate bunnies? Perhaps your favourite colour is white, like gloves and polished shoes with new Easter dresses?
These colours of the Easter season encourage us through the last days of winter, promising the new life of spring will soon be here. The bunny hides coloured eggs that may sprout into cheerful crocus blossoms if not found.
My favourite Easter colours are black, red, and white. Not a moon-lit night sky comforting black, but the dark suffocating black. Not a soft, red rose petal blush, but the crimson, blood-is-flowing red. Not a creamy white, but the sparkling-so-bright-you-can’t-look snow white.
You see, for me, the most meaningful part of Easter is salvation, when Christ defeated death so we can live. The pastel colours are pretty for a changing season, but they are pale and faded when compared to the vibrant truth of lives changed by God.
Black as the stormy sky, as the curtain was torn from top to bottom.
Black as the hole which held the cross standing tall on the mountain.
Black as the damp dirt around the cross, stained with coffee-ground blood.
Black as the hearts of mankind and demon angels, who demand death, yet reject this perfect lamb’s sacrifice.
Red as welts raised by a wicked whip scratched across an innocent back.
Red as the fresh blood flowing from a piercing, thorny crown forced on a humble King’s head.
Red as the heart broken, the blood-love poured out in death; given for the accusers, for us.
White as the empty bedclothes in a tomb with stone rolled away.
White as my heart washed clean by the lamb’s red blood, clothed in Christ’s holiness.
Black. Red. White.
These are the colours of a journey made by Jesus so we can make the journey to God.
Consider these colours as you think about and enjoy Easter this weekend.
As described in the song “At The Cross (Love Ran Red)”, by Chris Tomlin, take time this weekend to bow down to the perfect sacrifice whose love ran red to wash our sin white.
Categories: Special Days
marniewriter.com
Marnie has recently retired to Saskatchewan, Canada to write and be with her grands. She shares from her heart, drawing from both painful and joyful life experiences, where she believes God's presence makes all the difference.