After the holidays, the Gracious Lady of the parsonage and I enjoy taking a day or two off and just relaxing. We like to sit and tell stories.

My wife usually starts by saying, “Hey, remember the time that…” and continues with a story that I had forgotten. When it ends, we laugh together.

Then it’s my turn and I’m like, “Hey, do you remember the time when…” And I go on and tell a story that maybe she’s forgotten, I really don’t know. When I’m done, we laugh together like it’s the funniest thing we’ve heard all day.

It is simply our way of relaxing and unwinding after a vacation. Holidays are very busy times for us, we like them, but they take a bit of energy away from us. It seems that the older we get, the more it takes away from us. I’m not exactly sure what that means. Don’t tell me what it means!

We usually continue with our stories until we are too tired to tell a story or to laugh.

This past vacation, the Gracious Lady of the Parochial House came up with a story that she had long forgotten. In fact, I’m not sure the details of her story match the truth, but who am I to contradict her?

“Do you remember the time,” he said rather seriously, “when the Easter Bunny ran away?”

I had to stop and think for a bit because it wasn’t in any of my memory files.

Then he began to unroll the story.

As she says, as she recalls, she was going to do a little magic trick for the children before they were dismissed from the morning service. She was going to pull a bunny out of a hat. I practiced quite a bit and thought I had everything covered.

You should already know that the moment you know you have everything covered, there is a little bit that defies your observation.

I had all the children come forward so they could see the wonderful magic trick I had in store for them. I began by telling them the story of the resurrection of Jesus.

According to my wife, I was in the middle of telling them the story when in the back of the congregation Mrs. Steward yelled, “There’s a rat in the church.” With that, she jumped on top of the bench and did her famous scare dance. You don’t want to see it. Meanwhile she was yelling, “Rat, rat, rat.”

It was enough for the entire congregation to jump to their feet yelling, “Where’s the rat?”

Having a rat in the church is not good. I don’t know how a rat could get into the church unless he’s elected to the board.

There was such a commotion in the church auditorium that we couldn’t really continue with the service. I didn’t really know what to do because we hadn’t taken the offering yet. Whatever happens after the offering is fine.

At that point I couldn’t get the children’s attention because they were standing on top of the bench looking back, wondering where in the world the rat was or where it came from.

I got one of my elders to come back and try to take charge of the situation. He had never had a rat in church before.

After a few minutes, my oldest found the “rat” and caught it. The “rat” turned out to be the bunny he was supposed to have in his hat that he was going to surprise the kids with.

How that Bunny got out of the box I put it in is something that still puzzles me to this day.

The old man held up the white bunny and told everyone, “Okay, it’s not a rat, it’s a bunny. A bunny can’t hurt anyone.”

The entire congregation, including Mrs. Steward, sat in their pew and laughed and laughed as they applauded the old man who saved the day. He even laughed and clapped at me.

I didn’t know what to do now that my magic trick had gone out the window, it was hard to get the attention of the little ones. I finally dispatched them to their classes and tried to get the congregation back to some level of sanity.

I can’t remember what my sermon was that day, but I do remember that there was a lot of laughter throughout my sermon. I’m not sure anyone was listening to my sermon. I was tempted to preach the sermon the next Sunday, but it wasn’t Easter Sunday. I might keep it until next year, which is probably what I did.

Sometimes things are not always what they seem to be. The challenge is in the midst of the turmoil to find what is really true.

Perhaps this is what Solomon had in mind when he said, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

There is a big difference between a rabbit and a rat. Sometimes we confuse the two and in that confusion, we cause alarm. I want to be able to differentiate between the Bunny element and the Rat element in my life so that I can have peace and quiet.