When our kids and their friends came in from their Easter egg hunt last night, they announced that they had not only found all of this year’s eggs… They found one from last year, too! Apparently our cousins Alex and Andy are superior Easter egg hiders. They hide eggs so well, sometimes they take a year to find!

I suppose the jelly beans inside could look worse, after melting in July and freezing in January. Cade thought they looked good enough to eat, and so he did. (Which I will choose not to dwell on.)

I wonder if we all look like we’re on a giant Easter egg hunt. All of the people scattered about the earth, who mine the planet and scavenge through what others have left behind–we’re all hunting for something. We fill our pockets and cupboards and bank accounts. But is there any value in our hunt? To know this, I think we have to look at last year’s egg–the things we pursued last year.

Those new clothes I just had to have, or that counter top I couldn’t live without? Those things don’t have nearly as much appeal as they did last year. On the other hand, that family time that I just had to carve out, and that small group at church that I couldn’t live without? Those pursuits are just as attractive, if not more, than they were last year.

The best Easter hunt starts with the empty tomb. The pursuit of Jesus leads away from the empty, fleeting pleasures of last year’s egg, and toward the treasure that will last forever.