The best stories about Easter do not need special effects. Some of them need nothing more than a child and an empty plastic egg. "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said" (Matthew 28:6). That is the whole Easter message in one line, and in the story below an eight-year-old boy says it better than most sermons do.
We have retold this Easter story in full, in our own words, so you can read it, preach it, or share it in a Sunday school class. It is a story about the resurrection, but it is also a story about belonging, about a child who was always on the outside and the moment the empty tomb brought him in. A takeaway for preaching follows the story.
Stories in this post:
Philip's Egg: "The Tomb Is Empty!"
This story has been told in churches for decades. Its original author is unknown, and we have not been able to confirm the names or details.
Philip was born with Down syndrome. He was a pleasant child and seemed happy, but as he grew he became more and more aware that he was different from the other children around him.
Every Sunday, without fail, Philip went to Sunday school. He was in the third grade class with nine other eight-year-olds. If you have ever spent time with eight-year-olds, you know how that goes. Philip, with his differences, was not readily accepted. His teacher, though, was a sensitive man. He worked hard to help this little group love one another as best they could, and on the whole it worked. They learned together, laughed together and played together. In their own way they cared about one another, even if eight-year-olds never say so out loud.
There was one exception. Philip was never really part of the group. He had not chosen to be different and he did not want to be different. He simply was. And that was the way things were.
On the Sunday after Easter the teacher had a wonderful idea. He collected ten of the large plastic eggs that pantyhose used to be sold in, and when he brought them into the classroom the children were delighted. He gave one egg to each child. It was a beautiful spring morning, and the assignment was simple. Each child was to go outside, find something that stood for new life, put it inside the egg and bring it back. Then they would open the eggs one at a time and share their surprises.
It was glorious, confusing and wild. The children tore around the church grounds collecting their symbols and then came racing back to the classroom. They put all ten eggs on the table and crowded around while the teacher began to open them.
In the first egg was a flower, and everyone oohed and aahed. In the next was a little butterfly. "Beautiful!" said the girls, since it is hard for eight-year-old boys to say "beautiful." The teacher opened another egg and out fell a rock. Some of the children laughed. "That's crazy!" one of them said. "How is a rock supposed to be like new life?" The smart little boy who had found it spoke up. "That's mine. I knew all of you would get flowers and buds and leaves and butterflies and stuff like that. So I got a rock because I wanted to be different. And for me, that's new life." Everyone laughed.
The teacher said something about the wisdom of eight-year-olds and opened the next egg. There was nothing inside it. The children reacted the way eight-year-olds do. "That's not fair! That's stupid! Somebody didn't do it right!"
Then the teacher felt a tug on his shirt. He looked down, and there was Philip. "It's mine," Philip said. "It's mine."
"You don't ever do things right, Philip," the children said. "There's nothing there!"
"I did so do it right!" Philip said. "I did do it right. The tomb is empty!"
The room went silent, a very full silence. If you do not believe in miracles, the storyteller says, you should know that one happened that day. From that moment everything was different. Philip suddenly became part of that group of eight-year-olds. They took him in. He had been set free from the tomb of being different.
Not long after, one summer, Philip died. His family had known since he was born that he would not live a full life, because there were many other things wrong with his small body. Late in July he picked up an infection that most children would have shaken off quickly, and his body could not fight it.
At his memorial service, nine eight-year-olds walked up to the altar with their Sunday school teacher. They did not bring flowers to cover over the stark reality of death. Instead, they laid on the altar an empty egg: an old, discarded pantyhose egg, with nothing inside.
The tomb is empty.
Takeaway: Philip understood the heart of Easter better than the clever children in his class. The resurrection is not one more pretty symbol of spring; it is the news that death has been emptied of its power (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Notice too what the empty tomb did for Philip's place in the group. The risen Christ breaks down the walls that keep people outside (Galatians 3:28). Who in your church is still waiting to be taken in?
Source: Source unknown. A widely shared Easter illustration; we have retold it in our own words.
Final thoughts
A flower, a butterfly, a rock and an empty egg. Of all the symbols of new life those children found, the empty one said the most. That is why Philip's egg is one of the best Easter stories you can tell. It takes the resurrection out of the realm of theory and puts it into the hands of a child who had been left out, and then, at his funeral, into the hands of the friends who finally let him in.
If you are preaching this Easter, you could do worse than hand out a few empty eggs. Ask people to hold one and remember Philip's words: the tomb is empty, and because it is empty, so is every tomb that tries to hold us.
More stories you may like:
These stories are retold in our own words for preaching, teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story. Scripture quotations link to the NIV on Bible Gateway.
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