Happy Easter to All from David & Kathryn Gunderson
As I think back over all
of the Easters in my life, I think the last Easter I celebrated in
On that last Easter in Japan , I was assigned to be the President of a
small branch of the LDS Church in the beautiful city of Kofu ,
at the foot of Mt.
Fuji
My
companion and I decided to invite several of the members[1], who
had been especially helpful to us, to an Easter dinner. Since we were living on tight budgets, the
choice of food was important. Beef, chicken, pork and turkey were simply out of
the question. However, the local butcher suggested that we might consider
horsemeat, or perhaps as a last resort, lamb.
To
us, lamb seemed to be the first and best choice, but our Japanese friends were
not so sure. They all said that Lamb was
“Kusai”. (In English: smelly or bad tasting.) My companion and I immediately
mounted a campaign to try to convince them to change their minds about lamb. We
asked them if they had ever tasted lamb and they all admitted that they had not,
We pointed out that Jesus had probably eaten lamb as much or more than any
other meat and since Jesus himself was the Pascal Lamb on that last Passover
before the beginning of the Christian Era, didn’t they think they should at
least try it. Well that did it. They all agreed that since it was “Fukkastsu
Sai”, they would give lamb a try.
Easter
morning dawned bright and beautiful that year. In church services, we sang our
favorite Easter hymns, the talks all centered on Jesus’ sacrifice and the
blessing of everlasting life that Christians believe His sacrifice guarantee to
us all. We were all happy and felt greatly
uplifted by the spirit of the day.
That
afternoon, our small group gathered for the planned Easter dinner. It consisted
of roast lamb (we roasted it in our stovetop oven and I thought it turned out great),
potatoes, rice, lamb gravy, vegetables, fruit, and a Japanese cake (Kasutera cake,
a sort of sponge cake). All seemed to go well. As the members were departing
for their homes, I made the mistake of asking one of the older Sisters how she
had liked the lamb. She turned to me and, with uncharacteristic frankness, said
“well it was alright I guess, but I still think it was “kusai””.
I
remember other great Easters in my life. Easters in Moab, Utah
with my cousins and the Easter egg hunts in the red rocks and sand of Arches National
Monument
I also remember Easters in
New Jersey New
York City to attend the memorable Easter Vesper services at River Side
Church village of Emmaus
I also remember the
early morning Easter services Roger Stolen (a Lutheran) and I attended at Trinity Episcopal Church in Asbury Park New Jersey
(neutral ground to both Roger and I) to
hear our mutual friend Kent Olson (a Mormon) accompany the Trinity Church choir
for their Easter Services.
Above all, Easter is the
time Christians reaffirm their belief in the sacrifice that Jesus made to make
it possible for all of us to go “back
home”. We hope that each of you will
feel the hope, joy and renewal of life that is celebrated in this great and happy
festival.
 |
| A Victorian Easter Card |
[1] The families of most of our members did
not share their Christian faith, so church meetings & activities had to
serve many of the needs that are normally served by our families, especially
for Christmas and Easter.
No comments:
Post a Comment