Food is key part of Easter

EASTER like Christmas seems to be marked with food. Christmas we have turkey and sprouts. Easter we have lamb with mint sauce etc. But for those who don’t count the calories there are three other food items eaten at Easter.

First we have the Simnel cake. A fruit cake with butter and icing. On the top it is decorated with 11 balls made with marzipan or something similar.

But why 11, why not an even number, like 10 or 12? Well the balls represent the disciples of Jesus and usually there were 12 disciples, but as we know for 30 pieces of silver Judas betrayed Jesus to the authorities so they could arrest him and give him an unfair trial.

Later Judas regretted what he had done, returned the money and killed himself. So there are 11 balls on a Simnel cake.

The next food we associate with Easter is the hot cross bun which are nice warmed up with some butter in them.

But they quite clearly have a cross on them which speaks to us of what happened to Jesus after the mockery of his trial.

He was beaten with a whip, quite a few never made it to the execution because they died from the whipping. But Jesus survived the whipping, had a crown of thorns pressed on his head and then was nailed to a cross.

He hadn’t done anything wrong, but he was prepared to go through all that in order that we could know the love of God for us.

The final food is even more popular, the easter egg, an egg speaks of new life, we think of an egg and a chicken hatching out, new life.

Well after Jesus had been crucified two women went to the tomb in which Jesus had been laid.

They went to wrap his body in spices. The topic of conversation was how were they going to move the stone which had been rolled across the entrance in order to seal the tomb.

But when they got there the stone had already been rolled away and when they looked in the tomb it was empty, Jesus had risen from the dead just as he said he would.

Through his death and resurrection we by trusting in him can have hope for this life and for beyond the grave.

Three foods that remind us of the Easter story, a story of hope.