Philip and his Plastic Egg

The religious education class consisted of nine children; one of whom was Philip who had Down’s Syndrome. On Easter Sunday, the teacher gave each child an empty plastic egg. She told them to go outside and find something to put into the egg that would remind them of the meaning of Easter.

After a short while, the children bounced back excited and happy. As each egg was opened, there were exclamations of delight at a butterfly, a twig, a flower, a blade of grass. Then the last egg was opened, it was Philip’s and it was empty.

Some of the children laughed at Philip. “But teacher,” he said, “the tomb was empty!”

Philip died a few months later. The newspaper article said that at the funeral eight children put a large empty egg on the small coffin. On it was a banner that said, “The tomb was empty.”

Kindly submitted from Park Church