I love this time of year! Spring is on the way, bringing warmer temperatures, baseball season, greening lawns, pretty flowers and the celebration of Easter. Easter is a big moment for pastors! We love to see a full house and preach on the resurrection of Jesus.
Spring also means the annual birthday stretch in our family. Three birthdays fall March 15, March 30 and April 15. Too many years ago now, when my kids still lived at home, we’d celebrate back-to-back-to-back. And that meant birthday cake every other week.
According to www.sugar.com, birthday cakes originated in Germany in the 1400’s. Bakers sold a sweet cake used for birthday parties. By the 1700’s, cakes evolved into layers, frosting, and candles. In 1881, a birthday gathering in Switzerland recorded candles blown out for the first time. Each candle represented a year of life and were extinguished one by one.
These days I request minimal candles. I don’t want my cake punctured with a bunch of candle holes. For years my preferred choice was yellow cake with homemade chocolate frosting. The frosting is made from “scratch,” which means beaters to lick and hopefully a bowl of leftover frosting to scrape.
When I was growing up, we had four brothers in the house and three sources of leftover chocolate icing. One beater each for two brothers and the bowl split between the other two. Sharing the bowl was tricky. If lots of frosting remained, we were fine. But sometimes there wasn’t, and we’d scrape the bowl for all its worth. You had to be careful not to scrape across the imaginary center line and get into someone else’s territory, or you’d have some serious brotherly squabbling.
The cake was always delicious, moist and popular. Occasionally, my Mom’s cakes fell apart. There was never a rhyme or reason to why one cake split and another didn’t, but usually the ones that split were the ones she was planning to take to the “dinner on the grounds,” the class party or some other social function. Mom worked hard to bake a cake but then grew frustrated when it split. She had no other choice but to let us boys have it and bake another one.
The cake’s falling apart usually started as she put into place the last layer. She’d frost the first layer, then stack and frost the second, and finally top it off with the third. Then the crumbling would begin and with great exasperation, she’d reach for toothpicks and poke the cake in strategic places, holding it together the best she could.
Despite what she viewed as a disaster, the cake would taste the same. We’d devour it. In fact, we’d jokingly pull for a split.
My Granny Harris used to bake a peanut-butter cake. The layers would alternate yellow, pink, yellow, and would be covered with cooked, sweet peanut butter frosting. Getting the correct consistency with the frosting was somewhat tricky, but usually it turned out just right. Fortunately, she passed down her recipe to my mother and then Mom passed it to my wife. Often, when my children were growing up, they usually got a peanut butter cake when they visited Grandmother’s house.
Back to our birthdays, eventually I departed from our standard yellow cake. I ventured out and asked for a “chocolate on chocolate” version. Same homemade frosting, but a fudge mix. It was great! That same year, one daughter asked for an ice cream cake, and the other birthday girl requested a frosted pound cake. Change is good, and all were delicious! We were not so much baking cakes as we were building memories and keeping family traditions.
As sweet and enjoyable as these birthday cakes are, God’s Word is even sweeter and better for you. In Psalm 119, the writer meditates on the wonderful benefits of scripture, and writes in 119:103, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
In Psalm 19:10, the Psalmist describes God’s Word as “sweeter also than honey, than drippings of the honeycomb.” Reading and reflecting on scripture is like scooping and devouring a big dip of honey. Rich, tasty, and satisfying all describe the delight and desirability of God’s Word.
And it’s not as fattening as birthday cake. On the contrary, consistently digging into God’s Word enriches our lives.
(David L. Chancey, the Writing Pastor, lives in Fayetteville, Georgia, and enjoys preaching, writing, and time with family. Visit www.davidchancey.com to purchase his books or read past columns).
