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The Preaching Life: He Is Risen, Indeed

by Rob Prince

I found a kids’ Easter candy survey in my files. I’m not sure if the survey is scientific. I clipped it from a newspaper a couple of years ago. I don’t know where the paper got the information. I don’t even know from what newspaper I clipped the article. Still, here are some of the results:

Red is the favorite color for a jelly bean (29 percent). Of course!

Black is the least favorite (53 percent). No argument from me.

59.6 percent of children prefer a solid Easter Bunny as opposed to a hollow bunny. Duh!

52.8 percent of kids say they eat the ears off the chocolate bunny first. (That reminds me of an old joke I heard where two chocolate bunnies were talking. One of the chocolate bunnies had its ears eaten off. The other bunny noticed and said, “Hey, I see your ears were bitten off.” To which the bunny with the missing ears replied, “What?” I didn’t say it was a good joke—just an old joke.)

Here is the most disturbing number of all from the survey: 75.7 percent of kids say they like Peeps. What? Are you kidding me? Peeps?!? The bird-shaped, pastel-colored sugar marshmallow blobs? Three-fourths of the children in America like Peeps? I hate Peeps. Don’t be fooled my fellow pastors! Peeps are an attempt to sicken America! Did you know that Peeps stand for “Putrid Entirely Evil Puffed Sugar”? Forget crime rates and drugs usage statistics—here’s the number that proves the troubled state of America: more kids listed Peeps (14 percent) as their favorite Easter candy than jelly beans (13.9 percent). This is an outrage!

I grew up in a jelly bean family. We loved the jelly bean. February 15th was a special day at our house. It was the day when K-Mart put the Valentine Candy on the clearance rack and brought out the brand new bags of jelly beans. Dad would come home with bags—not a bag, mind you, but bags of jelly beans. Plural. Lots “o” jelly beans. He would always purchase the spicy, never the fruity or variety beans. The Easter Season would officially begin. Forget Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, or Lent. The Easter season began when K-Mart put out the new stash of jelly beans. It’s a wonder I don’t have false teeth from the sugar consumed in those formative years. My wife (espousing a somewhat anti-candy agenda, has an equal disdain for both Peeps and jelly beans) refuses to allow the jelly-bean-o-thon tradition to continue in our home. She has even been known to throw away my precious jelly bean contraband when she discovers my hiding places. Still, I love the jelly bean. Always have, always will.

Easter in the days of my youth was jelly beans, new church clothes, ham dinners, decorating eggs, and hunting for baskets. We had sunrise services and all-church breakfasts. Lilies and singing “He Lives” followed by “Up from the Grave He Arose” filled the sanctuary in the morning. We’d go to my grandmother’s house in the afternoon. Easter was a good day!

Easter should still be a good day. Maybe some of our traditions have changed. Maybe some of the songs we sing and the way we do things are not the same, but the ancient proclamation that “He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed” is still a message our world desperately needs to hear. Whether you have a pocket full of jelly beans or not, and whether you proclaim it with a choir, a praise team, or a guy with a kazoo, the world needs to hear it. Peeps may be the choice of today’s generation, just as for many guitars trump pipe organs, and praise teams outnumber choirs. Whether with Peeps or jelly bean breath, whether with organs or guitars, let’s proclaim loud and long: He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!

Rob Prince is the senior pastor of Central Church of the Nazarene in Lenexa, Kansas.