How many of you have already found Easter eggs this morning?

Did you bring any to church with you? Can I see them?

(It would be ideal if you could have some kind of Easter egg – paper-egg tattoos? eggs made by the kids? – to pass out to everyone this morning. If you do this, don't go any further until everyone has an Easter Egg.)

How many of you still have purple and green and pink streaks and spots around your fingernails form coloring a few dozen Easter eggs yesterday? Can I see them?...

When you think about it, the tradition of hard-boiling, dyeing, hiding, and then rediscovering eggs in grass nests and reed baskets has got to be one of the strangest rites in human existence.

Oh yes, it is solemnly steeped in symbolism – spring, rebirth, chicks cracking out of a tomb-like shell. Bu…