3. Easter Brunch and Ham

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Typically, families with gather at large at Christmas and at Easter, and where there are people food makes it a party. After Easter services brunch is a popular meal or a late lunch usually serving lamb or ham.

Lamb was the chosen main dish throughout Europe generally with connection that Jesus was the Spotless Sacrificial Lamb and the great reminder of such. In America, ham became popular due to pork’s ability to be salted, cured, and stored through the winter for Spring consumption.

What ham also signifies is how with the sacrifice Jesus made for His people on Earth a new covenant was established, making clean what was unclean.

In the Jewish tradition, pork was considered an unclean food, but in Acts 10 Peter is given a vision from God in which he is told, “The voice spoke to him a second time: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Enjoying a meal of ham reminds us that Christ has made us clean.

Hot cross buns are another aspect of the meal that have a cross on the top to signify the cross of Christ. Lastly, a time of prayer often occurs at an Easter brunch, connecting families more deeply than by blood, but by the Spirit of God.

4. Lent

The season of Lent begins forty days prior to Easter beginning on Ash Wednesday in preparation for Easter.

Ash Wednesday starts Lent traditionally with a service and a mark of ashes in the shape of a Cross on one’s forehead. Forty is a common number in the Bible used for increments of time for a certain period of preparation, a journey, or fasting.

Jesus retreated to the wilderness for forty days of fasting prior to His public ministry, Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai with God, and Elijah spent forty days and nights walking to Mount Horeb. The number forty is also often connected with testing.

During Lent Christians often fast from something, be it a type of food, an activity, or a distraction in order to give that time in dedication to prayer and spending focus on God. This prepares our hearts prior to Easter and fastens our focus to Christ. 

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