| How much does Easter cost? |
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What would you sacrifice to buy somebody an Easter egg? Last year, Selfridge’s sold one that contained a precious coin and it retailed at £1000. The year before that, the same store sold an egg weighing seventy pounds for just £499! Or, you could go for a Fabergé egg. Intricately designed, beautifully made with precious stones and containing remarkable “surprises”, they were originally commissioned by the Russian Tsars for their wives. The Trans-Siberian egg, created to celebrate its construction, contains a miniature model of the railway. The Winter Egg, made in 1913, was sold in 2002 for $9.6m. What would you sacrifice to buy somebody an Easter egg? Last year, Selfridge’s sold one that contained a precious coin and it retailed at £1000. The year before that, the same store sold an egg weighing seventy pounds for just £499! Or, you could go for a Fabergé egg. Intricately designed, beautifully made with precious stones and containing remarkable “surprises”, they were originally commissioned by the Russian Tsars for their wives. The Trans-Siberian egg, created to celebrate its construction, contains a miniature model of the railway. The Winter Egg, made in 1913, was sold in 2002 for $9.6m. Many collectors are still willing to make sacrifices to buy them but it is believed that there are only 66 original such eggs. So, many craftspeople create copies for people to enjoy – but some forge the originals in an attempt to obtain vast sums of money. But I will probably be buying my Easter eggs from the local supermarket. Somehow, I take the view that “sacrifice” has to be proportionate! So, what will you sacrifice this Easter? Some sacrifices might be small. The cost of a regular Easter egg can be relatively little. Or you might have something a bit more significant up your sleeve. But some people will be making some very great sacrifices this year for things that are far more serious: people in your family, on your street, and overseas. Good Friday is about God making a profound sacrifice for us. It is about God giving up his precious Son so that we could be rescued. He didn’t have to but it was what he wanted to do: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17) This rescue operation took the shape of the cross, when Jesus (God’s Son) gladly took the consequences for our wrongdoing by bearing God’s punishment in our place. The cost to God was very great but he did not regret doing this – his love for us had driven him to do it. Because of this we can now be reunited with God, enjoy his favour and know a new life with Him: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) Like any gift, it is free: you are free to receive it if you want it. As John, one man who knew Jesus, wrote: “But to all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12) Being a child of God and being able to call him our Father is the greatest privilege – and gift – we can ever know. London City Mission’s John Mark Hobbins |
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