Easter Eggs

33 CE, Rome, Italia

Mary Magdalene had been preaching across the Roman Empire for many months, having set off from Judea accompanied by a handful of friends and twice as many horses. She shared the good news of Jesus and the kingdom of God to all ends of the earth, being met with much anger and disbelief, for the empire was full of pagans. Having come to Rome, she sought counsel with Emperor Tiberius Caesar, with whom she received banquet due to her position as a woman of wealth. She had been welcomed into his palace on the Palatine Hill and seated inside a rectangular room with a colorful marble floor and exquisite mural paintings. As she waited, she thought back to the crucifixion of Jesus, remembering the anguish she felt as he suffered on the cross. But his defeat was, in fact, a victory.

Hundreds of moons before, as new foliage had begun springing forth from the dead of winter, Mary and her fellow disciples had stood beneath the cross on which Jesus hung. He had been arrested in Gethsemane, stood trial and was charged with sedition, having claimed to be the son of God, a blasphemous declaration in the eyes of the priests. He was flogged, crowned with thorns and made to carry a heavy wooden cross to the outskirts of the city, to the Place of the Skull, a field of public execution named for the hundreds of abandoned skulls strewn across its landscape. There he was nailed to a cross, crucified between two common criminals, and left to die from blood loss, dehydration or infection – whichever greeted him first.

The multitude mocked Jesus as he hung, some beat their breasts, but Mary simply wept. She had brought with her a handful of belongings – her cloak whose pockets were filled with various ointments, a basket of cooked eggs for hunger and a small vessel of water for thirst – and neatly laid them at the foot of the cross so she could weep into her hands. She grieved for six hours as Jesus hung limp on the cross until, at the third hour of daylight, his head fell to his chest and life left his limbs.

After Jesus had been taken down from the cross, Mary gathered her belongings. She saw her eggs had been painted red, the blood of Jesus having dripped down upon her basket. The sight of them – a testament to his suffering – made her sink further into sorrow and she wailed with anguish.

That evening, Joseph of Arimathea, accompanied by Mary and a group of women disciples, received the body of Jesus, which they would prepare for burial. They wrapped the body in linen and laid it in a tomb secured with the seal of a stone.

Days later, after observing the Sabbath, Mary and the women returned to the tomb of Jesus. Mary carried with her a mixture of myrrh and aloes, which they would use to anoint the body, water for thirst, and a basket of cooked eggs for hunger since they planned to stay and mourn. When they walked upon the tomb, the sealing stone had been moved and an angelic figure, white as light, told them that Jesus had risen, as he said he would.

As the women ran from the tomb, eager to tell the apostles the news, Jesus appeared to them. At that moment, all the eggs in Mary’s basket turned from white to blood red. She instantly understood: the painted eggs symbolized the blood he shed on the cross, their hard outer shells represented the tomb in which he had lain, and their cracking symbolized his resurrection. Mary whispered a prayer over her basket of eggs, in thanks to the Lord who stood before her who had imparted this knowledge to her.

“Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me,” Jesus said to the women.

Mary went and told the disciples what had happened. “He is not here but has risen!” she exclaimed. And this she declared to every man, woman and child she had encountered over the next many months, preaching the word of God and the news of the resurrection across the empire. And this, too, she planned to tell Emperor Tiberius Caesar.

When Tiberius entered the room, he was gloomy in appearance – his eyes sunken, his skin pale and his thin lips tense and tuned downward. Servants rushed to his side, offering the pair tea, almonds, small rolls and cooked eggs on beautiful dishes plated with gold. As they were served, Mary began explaining the events that had unfolded in Judea. “Jesus has risen!” she said.

Tiberius grumbled. “Jesus has no more risen than that egg is red,” he said, motioning to her plate. Mary’s face became flushed, exuberance having risen up in her, as her egg had miraculously turned red.

From that moment, the egg took on new meaning, becoming more than a symbol of rebirth – to Mary and her fellow Christians, the egg symbolized the rebirth of mankind. Prior to this, eggs had been given to friends during moments of rebirth – in the springtime, on birthdays and to celebrate the New Year – but Christians began gifting eggs to one another on the anniversary of Jesus’ resurrection. And while eggs had been boiled with flowers to change their shade, the color red came to represent the blood of Christ. And so, as Mary continued to preach the gospel of Jesus, Christians began the tradition of dying eggs in celebration of the resurrection of their Lord.