105 thoughts on “Good Friday Challenge: Easter Memories”

  1. I don’t feel compelled to get up early and go to Sunrise Service now but sometimes, I still feel guilty for not going!

  2. And I can’t resist pointing out—first! This is my second time ever being first. *takes a sweeping bow*

    2. Since this is your second first then we can’t give you a second celebratory fifth. You can only get a second fifth when it is your fifth first. The second and third firsts don’t rate a fifth unless your third first falls on the third of the month in which you earned your first fifth for your first first. There is a special fifth for the forth first that falls on the fouth of the seventh month. That is the Independence fifth for the forth, we are waiting to see who is first to rate that one. (remember you must have three firsts to qualify for that special fifth.)
      Anyway Congratulations on your second first! 😀

  4. I was never allowed in fundyland. But now that I am in all my glory, Easter is a day where I can count on catching at least 4 pieces of ham and a tablespoon of lamb butter. Yummy. :mrgreen:

    2. We had Natalie’s butt cushion; now we have Don’s beard. What will be next? Darrell’s top hat? 😆

      1. Funny you should mention Darrell’s hat. It has been seen taking typing lessons. It took me awhile to learn. 😆

        One alter-ego at a time Josh. One at a time……

        1. Hey beard, it’s time we had a talk.
          I’ve noticed that you have been slow in growing and I was wondering if there is something I could do to help you grow faster. Are you depressed about someting? Is it someting I’m not eating…scratch that, we both know there isn’t much I won’t or don’t eat.
          Is it something I have done? Now I don’t have a problem with the salt-n-pepper look but maybe you want a little Grecian Formula for beards? (I draw the line at the Hal Linsey look however)

          You do know our final goal is the Soggy Bottom Boys look don’t you?

        1. The elusive musical instrument of a mythical character that was introduced to us by an oddly familiar, band member like fellow whose beard has miraculously taken an identity of it’s own (totally without knowledge of it wearer I might add)… yes this is a wierd, wonderful, magical place indeed. 😯 (sans the large rodent and pixie dust)

        1. I can’t recall ever seeing that before in person, but it seems there was a JesusNeedsNewPR post on it at some time that I’d seen and forgotten.

          It seems like there should be a jam lion sculpture with them so they can lie down together, and properly flavor my biscuits together in peace! 🙂

  5. Crushing guilt for NOT going back for Sunday Evening service vs. No Sunday Evening Service so you may spend time with your families.

    2. Good one. Our church doesn’t have an evening service this week. Three to thrive was pretty awkward on holidays.

  6. Actually, we were quite heathen when it came to Easter at our house. We colored eggs, and my parents would hide our Easter basket in the house. When we lived near our grandparents, we would go to their houses and get more loot. But we moved when I was in gradeschool. We lived on a farm quite a way out of town, so sunrise service was not an option.

    We would “do” church as usual, and come home to make Easter dinner.

    I don’t think I’ll ever go to a sunrise service b/c I am NOT a morning person. 😕

  7. I always viewed as a day to celebrate.
    And I have always celebrated with Chocolate Bunnies and Chocolate Eggs! They took so much but NOT my chocolate! 😆

  8. Well, I never attended a “fundy” church but I became a fundy for a brief period of my life and started attending the local evangelical church (even then, I was too afraid to attend a Baptist church) and one big thing that I noticed was that on Easter the reading was John 11 (I am the resurrection and the life). Now that’s a great passage to read in PREPARATION for Easter, but I was really upset that they didn’t read one of the actual accounts of the resurrection. Oh, and the pastor turned it into a rant against those awful liberal churches (this was the year when Gretta Vosper got in the news for practically throwing the baby out with the bath water for her Easter liturgy).

  9. If I hear one more preacher tell me, “The rock wasn’t rolled away so Jesus could come out, it was so we could go in and see he wasn’t there,” I may throw up.

    nicodemusatnite.com

    1. Believe it or not I never remember hearing this, it’s kinda cool, course it’s the first time I’ve heard it.

      I have a song I have been writing for the last year about the resurrection, I have the title “Who Will Move the Stone” and the chorus/melody, but still haven’t disciplined myself to finish off the lyrics.

    2. I just got back after going away for the weekend and specifically got online so I could reply to this!

      So I read this comment before I left for the weekend and laughed like everyone else, but I’d never actually heard it before. But what should I hear this weekend… but this exact quote!!! It was *so* hard for me to keep from bursting out into laughter in the middle of this very solemn (and, I must admit, quite good) message on the resurrection!

  10. Easter – or Resurrection Sunday – wasn’t anything special at our house. After all, the very reason we worshipped on Sunday not Saturday was that Christ rose on the first day of the week, so EVERY Sunday was a day to celebrate His resurrection. We didn’t do Easter baskets or eggs, although my mom would usually buy some candy on 75%-off clearance a few days later. We might dress up in an extra-pretty dress and mom might choose to have ham at our Sunday dinner. We didn’t live near relatives so we didn’t have lots of kin over. Once or twice, the 12-person choir sang a simple cantata. For us, it wasn’t really a holiday.

    Now, I make sure the kids have baskets – sometimes I hide them and they have to follow a trail of clues. Later in the afternoon we always have an Easter egg hunt. I like going to Good Friday services when I can (for some reason our church growing up never had them), and I hope to go to a Sunrise Service someday (for the last 12 years, I’ve always had a kid under 5 in the house, and since Easter’s a big day for a pastor, I’ve never been motivated to get up that early and find a church doing that’s having one!)

    This year I even went to a dramatic presentation of the Living Stations of the Cross. It was an incredible reminder of the price Christ paid for our sin (but I did feel a little guity sitting in a Catholic church).

  11. my old IFB church did the wickedly early Sunrise Servive thing, followed by a breakfast in the fellowship hall cooked by all the Sunday School teachers. classic IFB gluttony and extreme cholesterol! then at 10am it was Sunday School as normal, followed by Sunday morning service as normal. it was like Bible Conference in its exhaustingness, man!! i’m pretty sure we used to have the Lord’s Supper on that day too, probably for the first time since Christmas.

    1. That sounds a lot like my home church. We got to get in first in line for breakfast because we would be heading out on the buses in a few minutes. Sunrise service, Sunday School, Sunday Worship, Nursing home service (no other church in town wanted to do it on Easter) and Sunday Evening made for a very long and tiring day. It was really bad when Easter fell on a time change Sunday.

  12. I now say “Happy Easter” instead of “Resurrection Day.” Also, I attend the sunrise service, not the Sonrise service, and am not expected to show up at three more services during the day, nor do I have to wait until the evening service to receive communion.

      1. Some fundamentalists feel that the word “Easter” is pagan and worldly. They wish to distance themselves from those who aren’t “true” believers. Thus not only are bunnies, baskets, and eggs eschewed, but so is the very term “Easter” in favor of “Resurrection Day.” If you’ve ever heard someone say, “Have a blessed Resurrection Day!”, you may have met my mother!

        1. Oddly enough, the non-fundy church we’re going to now uses “Resurrection Sunday”. I’ll have to ask about that one.

        2. One year the pastor’s wife bought up a bunch of plastic eggs, and filled them with candy that had scripture verses on the wrapper for the kids.

        3. @Rose, I don’t think it’s just a fundy thing or weird to call it Resurrection Sunday. But I’m not horrified by the pagan connotations if someone chooses to call it Easter either!

  13. I love our local sunrise service. It’s multi-church, open to all, and in the local (very large) cemetery. That may seem odd, but it’s really beautiful. A couple of years back, it had rained really hard just prior to the service, and the ushers had multiple towels on hands to dry off the seats for folks. It started to rain again during, and everyone popped out their umbrellas.

    During the sermon, the serious part of the sermon about the good news, I started shaking trying to hold down my laughter. The water on a neighboring chair had collected and then gravity had taken it onto my chair and I was sitting in a gigantic cold wet puddle. My behind couldn’t have been wetter if I’d sat in a bucket. Gallantly, my husband gave me his suit coat once we stood up. Otherwise it might have been a moonrise service as well.

  14. As I recall, we still had to go to school on Good Friday in Fundyland. Today, we are attending a Good Friday service.

    1. Yeah. At my Fundy U, we had a full day of class on Good Friday so as “not to offend our (mostly Catholic and Lutheran) neighbors.” I guess no one ever thought of a Christian school offering the students the second biggest day of the Christian calendar off to spend time with their families.

  15. Back then there was absolutely nothing liturgical about the cerimonies. So pretty much it was Easter Sunday and that was it. I mean maybe good friday, but usually not and certainly not Maundy Thursday. Usually it would be a time of raucous hymns to get as loud and as high as you possibly can. Of course a choral number that could peel paint off the wall. And then usually a sermon that hyper-focused on the horribleness and bloodiness of the cross.

    Now it is much more liturgical. We display the proper colors leading up to Easter Sunday. We have Maundy Thursday and Good Friday service. We actually hold palm leaves for Palm Sunday. And while we might sing some grand hymns or have a bombastic choral number there is equal time put into reflection and circumspection. In general a more tasteful service all around. Finally now our sermons focus on exegesis so while blood might be mentioned that isn’t the sole topic of the morning.

    My church in IL was, in some ways, better. They did communion every Sunday. So when Easter came they did an entire meal with a very special communion. It was an entire service of reflection and fellowship in Christ. It was absolutely beautiful. My current church simply cannot do that. We have 5 services on Sunday as it is, but I like both better than my Fundy days I’ll tell you that.

  16. In fundy-land we would get up before the sun (not for Sunrise service, but for bus routes) and go to the city and pick up too many kids to fit on the bus so kids were sitting on kids laps and hopefully they wouldn’t get their nice clothes messed up from the pony ride or whatever activity (NEVER an egg hunt) had been planned to lure them in. (I guess Jesus rising from the dead wasn’t enough to seal the deal) Then go to the church where I would get to teach two Sunday School classes, maybe eat a donut at some point (Good thing I had already attended church the night before, wouldn’t want to miss that extremely original Easter service) and then back onto the busses to go to whatever horribly over crowded, badly planned, childrens event. Still no breakfast or lunch. No time. No money. Ok, kids, back on the bus so we can take you home… Make sure everyone is there, unharmed, drive back to Chicago (or whatever city you are within an hours drive of to harvest children out of) drop off all the kids, find your “sack lunch” that the bus captain picked up for you. Ick. No matter how hungry I was, those sack lunches were never good. Get back to the church in time for Sunday night service and try to stay awake through the yelling.

    This year for Easter I plan to sleep in and go out to eat. And think about Jesus. 😉

    1. Oh, and I realize that was a run-on sentence there at the beginning. Sorry. Puntuate it however you like, it is a do-it-yourself sentence.

    2. you forgot about the night bus when you got preached at by your peers about what a sinner you where, and that you did not give enough time or money to the route!!!!
      Holiday where always the worst in hacland, no ham dinner with homemade rolls and mashed taters. If you were lucky you would get some pork rinds from the truck and maybe a burrito if you managed to have a couple bucks on you. those were the days

      1. One time our bus driver forgot to come back and pick us up and left us standing on the corner (in a blizzard) for HOURS. We were so scared and cold (before cel-phone days) All we could do was wait there. When he got back to the college my husband (fiancee,then) saw him in line in the cafeteria and asked where I was and he got this horrified expression on his face. My husband drove to Chicago and picked us up. It was well after dark by that time and we were still standing there faithfully on that corner waiting. I had, however, called my dad (In California) who, in turn, called Dr. Evans and reamed him pretty good. I got a whole sermon dedicated to me about calling home and complaining. Hello? I could have DIED! Seriously! And he actually said the words, “Wah wah wah” (and yet, I was on the bus route the very next week…) Oh yeah, and I got demerits for being unauthorized in a car with a member of the opposite sex.

        1. Well, OBVIOUSLY, you should have just kept standing there getting frost bite on your toes until such a time as an appropriate chaperone could be found! That’s what any GODLY woman would do! 🙄 Bless your heart, honey, that’s right up there on the list of “most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.” I hope you’re not still being subjected to that nonsense!

      2. Oh yeah, I did forget to mention about the “preacher boys” who saw every bus ride as a captive audience and every opportunity to scream and rant at said “captive audience” as a God-given responsibility to help form these lesser beings into something more like them.

    3. Wow…we must have lived close enough to HAC to fall in their bus range. (I lived in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago.) I remember a few times people called our church looking for their kids. We had a bus ministry too, but they weren’t picked up by our buses….

  17. An inordinate amount of time and energy was spent arguing that Jesus didn’t die on Friday and therefore we shouldn’t observe “Good Friday.” Oh, and we would have the once-a-year communion service.

    In my current church, we have communion at least 3 times a month. And I know we have freedom to celebrate Easter with our kids by *gasp* having an Easter Egg Hunt and giving them special gifts to remember the day.

    Happy Good Friday!

    1. I could be cynical and say that the reason some evangelicals and fundies don’t like Good Friday is that it presents the Cross in all its stark reality — too dark to enable them to be sentimental about it.

      But that wouldn’t be nice of me, would it?

  18. Disclaimer: I go to a Baptist church that is connected to both the SBC (for the old folks who can’t let go) and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, so- not fundy. BUT , being a Baptist church in the Bible belt, historically we have stayed away from things like Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, etc. because I guess they were just *gasp* too Catholic! Now, however, we have begun to integrate these types of observances into our calendar, and I find it to be very meaningful and beautiful. This year, we included Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday (we’ve pretty much always done that one), Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and 2 services on Easter Sunday (to contain the crowd), but not a sunrise. (We never have Sunday night services, just optional bible study groups. Shh! Don’t tell anybody!) We’ve also been observing advent during the Christmas season as well. I enjoy these observances because to me, it helps me focus more on the meaning of the occasion, and it gives more opportuniies for reflection. All the services are very reverent. As one of our ministers joked, “We’re just catching up to what millions of Christians have been doing for centuries!” Why, oh why, have Baptists rejected so many beautiful traditions in favor of ranting and raving about sin and damnation??

  19. I recall the lambasting of people that might be part of the Christmas and Easter only crowd and presenting “proof” that Jesus rose from the dead and suggesting that only an absolute moron wouldn’t believe it. Oh, and btw, FIRST!!

  20. We have a Tenebrae Good Friday Service– and that scares many other “Fundamentalists”, a very reverent Lord’s Supper service, and one service on Sunday that rejoices in the Resurrection and the power of the Gospel.

  22. We never had special Good Friday services, nor did we have the day off from school, and once my mom moved us into Fundyland, we quit getting Easter baskets (along with valentines, Halloween costumes, and Santa). In Fundyland, Easter was just an extra-exhausting Sunday with additional services thrown in so that everyone could make it to the Easter cantata – everyone except me, that is. I was always working in the nursery, since I was one of about three staff members who did not sing or play an instrument. Had no money for a new dress, and wouldn’t have wanted to wear it to the nursery anyway, so that tradition was dead.

    Now I’m out, and since I work retail, I will have Easter morning off and then I am going to work. If I wasn’t working, Easter would be a day of rest – I like what someone said earlier about eating chocolate, relaxing, and remembering Jesus.

    Oh, and I have an Easter basket now. Would love to do an egg hunt, but I think most of those activities have an age limit, so I suppose I’d better refrain.

    1. At BJU, I was in a play that we did outdoors near Easter, so the cast party was held in the pavilion (I don’t even know if it’s still there; it was down somewhere near the faculty houses.) One of the activities was an Easter egg hunt; some of the eggs had certificates for prizes that college kids would like. It was really fun, and the first egg hunt I’d ever done.

  23. We never did anything more than drape a purple cloth over the communion table (which only got used once a month) and hear a sermon that was “Easter” themed. Once or twice we had a sunrise service, but that was it.

    Now that I’m out of Funnymentalism, I’ve come to appreciate the WHOLE holiday, in regards to Holy Week and Lent. Intead of just remembering our Lord on Easter, there’s the entirety of Lent, which points to Him and our incredible need for that Saviour, and Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and then Easter itself. So much rich history and culture is contained in thse holy days, all of which can be excellent times to corporately (and with the universal church) meditate on and worship God, and yet the Baptists throw it all out! 😯

    Now, our church doesn’t really do anything special for any holy holidays (though the fact that we don’t have our own building may have something to do with it), but, as an individual, I’ve been delving deeper and deeper into some of thse traditions that have so long been preached against in my childhood and early adulthood. I have been longing for my Presbyterian congregation, though–maybe next year at Lent, I’ll rejoin the Presbies through Easter, so I can experience all the Holy Days with people who don’t scoff, for a change.

  25. I always got a new dress for Easter (and the church people would always note that their preacher could afford to buy his child new clothes and vow to cut his salary at the first opportunity), and an Easter basket, and chocolate. We never had Lord’s Supper that day, as it was “too Catholicy” nor did we have sunrise services. Yay for getting to sleep in!

    I *do* feel compelled to point out, though, that your flannel-graph Jesus has inappropriately long hair, which may be remedied through the use of “flesh” tone white out (if they still make it) or a trim with a pair of scissors (which will make his neck look funny, but what can you do?)

    1. My mom ALWAYS trimmed Jesus’ hair on the flannelgraphs. The one in the picture here would be hard to do; I think one might have to resort to some whiteout.

    2. I’m a pk and I know what you mean about people taking note of your new dress. I still cannot attend a business meeting without getting a headache. Is there a site like this for recovering preacher’s kids?

      1. God, I hope so.

        I never felt much pressure from the congregation. It was my father who did all the heavy lifting for them. He wouldn’t and couldn’t let his children be anything less than perfect.

    4. white out looks a little weird on the beard and the moustache, got a remedy for that?

      1. We weren’t THAT wacky! 🙂 My parents never made an issue of Christ having a beard; it was the long hair that was anathema!

  26. I always got a new dress for Easter (and the church people would always note that their preacher could afford to buy his child new clothes and vow to cut his salary at the first opportunity), and an Easter basket, and chocolate bunnies. What heathens we were!

    I *do* feel compelled to point out, though, that your flannel-graph Jesus has inappropriately long hair, which may be remedied through the use of “flesh” tone white out (if they still make it) or a trim with a pair of scissors (which will make his neck look funny, but what can you do?)

  28. Ah, the old Sunrise Service. My former church loved it. Held it every year at the nearby cemetery, and of course I was there. It was actually pretty good considering the size of the church. We’d get lots of people from all over the area seeing it.

    Anyhoo, after many years away, I brought Hubby back home (this was when we were still dating), and he got to see one of these spectacles for himself. Pretty good, except the pastor’s brother was one of the thieves on the cross… and a complete attention whore. Talk about overdoing the moaning and crying on the cross, even when the choir was singing or a narrator was speaking. Yiiie.

  29. Where I grew up, it all started with a Good Friday service at 3:00 PM. For some reason, Good Friday was always hot (it was the tropics after all), and we’d have to sit there in an un-airconditioned church for about (what seemed to me) 3 or 4 hours, in a long-sleeve shirt and tie sweating like a pig. Every year it was the same thing…there would a whole bunch of preachers and they would preach on Jesus’ last seven words on the cross, each one taking turns “expounding” on “what Jesus really meant when he said ….. was ……”. By the time the last one got around to “It is Finished”…I was like…”It’s about time!!!” Then Saturday came around, and we all had to go to bed early because we had to be at church at 5:45 am for the sunrise service…the only good memory I have of that is the big breakfast we had afterwards.

    Now, I’m sitting at work on Good Friday and I sometimes still feel a little weird for not going to church. I will be going to church on Easter Sunday…followed by a big Easter Dinner with friends :mrgreen:

    1. We live in one of the northern states and there have been several Easters where my children have looked for eggs hidden among patches of snow.

      2. When I was little, I thought that Easter eggs were colored because that made them easier to find in the snow. But I grew up Lutheran.

        Reading here leads me to wonder whether some preachers are against the liturgical calendar because they don’t want to be preaching on or against their favorite hobbyhorses while people in the congregation are wondering when they’re going to get back on topic because it’s supposed to be [insert holy day or season here].

    1. What are you talking about? The word “Easter” is inspired. It’s right here in my inspired Authorized King James 1611 Bible…right there in Acts 12:4…if it’s in there it must be right…right? :mrgreen:

  31. Standing ,kneeling,1500 times during stations of the cross and almost passing out due to the overwhelming smell of nasty incense. Catholics have their issues as well.

  32. The fundy church I went to didn’t celebrate Easter because the preacher believe the holiday to be tainted by pagan history. The same applied to Christmas.

    1. That one always fries my pancakes. The overwhelming majority of Christians are descended from pagans in the first place. And yet, God doesn’t shun us. There’s also a definite flavor of “Do not touch, do not handle, do not taste” in a lot of this preaching.

  33. Worst memory – Sunrise Service singing a duet of “Rejoice in Lord” by our boy Ronny Hamilton. Tried to hit the high E – epic failure. Still remember the spit and screech trying to get there.

    Best memory – Being confirmed into the Catholic Church with first communion at the Easter vigil. 🙂

  34. Oooh flannelgraph! (Channelling the Veggies in King George and the Ducky)

  35. We always got Easter baskets. Then one year my mom decided to come out from among them and be ye separate. No Easter Baskets, but we’d all work together on a banner that said “HE IS RISEN” and we’d draw little pictures all over it to bless her heart. Yeah, it was great. We tried not to imagine all the malted Robins Eggs and Chocolate Bunnies we were missing out on because we were so holy now…

  36. That is a very Roman Catholic looking crucifix. I remember being told by my grandma – my grandpa was a GARBC preacher – that it was incorrect with the INRI – that didn’t spell Jesus King of the Jews. Guess she didn’t know Latin.

    I only remember going to one Sunrise service with our Funday Aunt and Uncle. Then had to go to Sunday School, Church and then come back for church that night. I remember falling asleep.

    We did all the traditional Easter stuff – eggs, baskets, bunnies. But the when our new church decided to have a Good Friday Service – there was some concern. That is what Catholics did.

    Now I’m a United Methodist who attends church on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and I love the Stations of the Cross (I’m a closet Catholic)

  37. Easter in Fundyland is a time to remember how much better Christians we are than those people who only come to church on Easter Sunday.

    1. bwahaha! Yep, Easter was the time to meet all those celebrities of the Fundie Sermon Illustrations. 😆

      1. A couple of years ago, I saw an Easter card with a black/white photo of a pastor in a robe, saying “Happy Easter”. Inside it said, “Where the Hell have you been, haven’t seen you since Christmas”. I gave it to our pastor for Easter. I thought she would never stop laughing.

    2. In our IFB, they were sarcsatically refered to as the “C & E ers” ……..get it? C for Christmas, and E for Easter! Because that’s the onlt time they would attend church! Clever they were not….

  38. I remember as a youngster going to a sunrise service on top of a good size hill called Mt Nobscot. The service was put on by all the protestant churches in our town. The Salvation Army supplied the music for the hymns. I always loved going. It was fun for me climbing that big hill in the almost dark. It was ammusing tho to see some of the women climbing with high heels!!

    Now I am catholic and this Holy Thursday I had the privilege of having my pastor wash my feet !! All my old pastors never did that for me. I love being catholic.

  39. Best fundie Resurrection Day memory:

    I was a 19 year old bride, newly married to an IFB preacher’s son who was the youngest (by far) deacon at our current church. Sunrise service was at 6am and, as the church pianist, I had to be there to play the piano (which, yes, we rolled out to the parking lot from a Sunday school room – a keyboard would have looked far too contemporary). Following the service was the “Deacon’s Pancake Breakfast,” and all the deacons had to be at the church by 4am to start cooking. Our military base was 35 minutes from church… which meant my husband and another deacon carpooled from base at 3:30am and I left at 5am with his young wife, their two toddlers and newborn – all so she sing the good Ron Hamilton “special.”

    Ah, the things we did to “further the work of the Lord.” That was six years ago and this year is the first year I can remember in which we’re actually celebrating Jesus instead of running around dead tired “serving the Lord” during all five services of the day.

  40. An exaggeration of course but you had to repeat the prayers and rosary etc up and down more times than doing the wave at the local sports game. 😀

  42. I had my wife checking out this site, and she was shocked I didn’t share our “fundy” Easter story.

    My oldest son was a little over a year old, and my GARBC Pastor Grandpa and Grandma would spend winters in FL. I conviced my United Methodist wife that we could go to FL for spring break CHEAP. We could stay with my G’ma and G’pa. (I’m still paying 14 years later). I told my wife, “We’re not going to Sunday School!” On our way to Sunday School, we drove by St. Francis Catholic Church and my G’ma said, “Did you know that St. Francis got beat up – they said he was a sissy”. I knew it was going to be one of those days.

    The pastor’s sermon was about those who encountered the risen Christ. I sensed my wife tense up when he said, “Mary Magnaline was your typical woman. She was being totally led by her emotions. She had to try to hug Jesus”. On our way back to my Grandparents, Grandpa asked “So what did you think”. My wife said, “I had issues with the pastor’s explanation of Mary Magnaline.” In my head I’m thinking “Don’t go there – you don’t diss the MOG”. I could tell my grandparents where tense. My wife said, “Of course she was being emotional – how else would you respond when you realize the person you thought was dead – is suddenly alive!” My Grandpa said, “Well I guess you’re right”.

    That night, my grandparents were arguing over the concern of needing to take their Bibles. The choir’s cantata was that night. They finally decided to take their Bibles – how would it look if they didn’t have it with them.

    My Grandma told me later that they didn’t care that I married a United Methodist. I could have married the pope’s granddaughter and that would have been just fine (Unless your Catholic 😀

  43. To begin with…the word “Easter” was incorrect. According to the mog…it was “Resurrection Sunday”. “Easter is for Catholics” he would go on to preach…and the “Easter bunny is an abomination straight from Satan”.

  44. As a child, I absolutely adored Easter Sunday. It was the only time during the year when my family would attend my grandfather’s church, home of the heathen Methodists. Grandpa’s church had a handout that told you everything that was going to happen and allowed you to follow along. Plus, the best part, there were no marathon sermons that lasted well into the afternoon. I recall the first time I realized they were finished after only an hour…I was amazed that church could be so short.

    As an ex-fundy and ex-christian, I now think of Easter as a purely pagan holiday. The sinful deliciousness of the Cadbury Creme Egg convinces me that they were most certainly created by the spawn of satan to obliterate any mention of “resurrection day” in favor of the sugar coma.

  45. Easter…it was like a slasher flick recited orally, let your imagination be your guide. I never understood the tsk tsking of the bloody Catholic crucifix, but no problem telling you in mind searing detail about the crucifix…
    Am me, thinking, WTF is with this blood thirsty god? If I’m that hard to love, screw it…just burnt the whole mother fer down. I was around 10 yrs old. Good times.

    1. I saw some fundy posts on FaceBook this weekend. None of them mentioned anything about resurrection! Every single person I know in any kind of a Baptist church got a sermon about the Cross. Some more gory than others, but there is no Easter in Baptists world, just 2 Good Fridays.

      1. yeah I recall the yearly anatomy lesson for the bones of the wrist by the BJU trained preacher boy who couldn’t tell you how many teeth are in his head but nonetheless schooled us on the nail insertion into the wrist vs the catholic depictions of nail in palm of hand. Hmmmm, can’t wait to cut into that glazed ham.

  46. Before: “Easter is a pagan holiday, and shouldn’t be celebrated by True Christians.”

    After: .. I love Reese’s peanut butter eggs, and vaguely aware they’re only sold for a few weeks in the spring.

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