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Helping Children Draw Near to God during the Easter Season
By Laurie Newell, Minister to Children
 “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” –Jesus in John 17:3
As parents, isn’t this our hearts’ desire for our children? Eternal life is knowing God. How can we make the best use of the Easter season to help our children know him better?
Try using the events of Holy Week to draw your children into the gospel story. Try a new kind of Easter basket. Resurrect their Jesse trees from Christmas to prepare their children for Easter. Encourage their children to express their understanding of the Easter season and the hope of heaven through art. Bake up a sweet treat with a lesson to teach. What would work for your family? Here’s the how-tos:
Use the events of Holy Week to draw your children into the gospel story:
“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” Children love drama. Use this love to draw them into the events of Jesus’s last week on earth. This is the heart of the gospel.
What are the events of Holy Week and how can you mark them as a family?
- Palm Sunday: Make it a point to bring your children not just to Sunday school but to the church service. Let them be part of a congregation waving palm branches and singing, “Hosanna.” Children will have covered the Triumphal Entry a few weeks earlier in Sunday school. Re-read the story to them on Saturday night and let them participate on Sunday morning.
- Last Supper: (Celebrate on Wednesday or Thursday night) Read the account of the Last Supper from one of the gospels. Consider having a family foot-washing service, where you wash each other’s feet and each family member decides on an act of service he or she can do for others before Easter Sunday.
You can also share Matzo bread and grape juice and have a family communion. You might even consider a Passover service. If you are interested in a simplified version, email Laurie Newell at LNewell@biblechurch.org.
- Crucifixion: Tenebrae service: If your children are older, bring them to the Maundy Thursday service at church. This service is focused on the last words Jesus spoke as He died for our sins. If they are too young to sit through this beautiful but very quiet service, have a family candlelight service at home.
- On Thursday or Friday night, arrange 7 red or burgundy candles in the shape of a cross (one candle for each of the seven times Jesus spoke from the cross) . Using a chronological Bible such as the Narrated Bible, read the account of the crucifixion. (Or use Luke 23:32-43; John 19:25-27; Matthew 27:45-50; John 19:28-30; Luke 23: 44-47.) As you come to each of the 7 last sayings of Jesus on the cross, have your children blow out one candle, until the room is dark. When you are done, recite the Apostle’s Creed together. You may want to leave the candles on the table until Saturday night. On Easter morning, when the children wake up, have a flower arrangement on the table in place of the candles.
- The Resurrection: The resurrection was the biggest event in all of history! Bigger even than the birth of Christ. How can you celebrate in a way that is commensurate with the event?
 Make plans again to have your children both attend Sunday school and attend worship with you and hear the “Hallelujah Chorus!”
Then, come back in the afternoon for the Easter Festival —an all out whole-body celebration of the resurrection!The Easter Festival is designed to give everyone a “taste of heaven.” That includes the children! Children can make flower garlands or crowns to wear during the festival, try the Pilgrim’s Progress obstacle course and win a prize when they get to the heavenly city, take a whack at a piñata, or do various crafts that relate to Easter. Got an older brother who doesn’t want to come? He might find it heavenly to hang out with his friends on the basketball courts! Youth will be significantly involved in the music, so your teen may want to hang out in the café and listen to music, or help with children’s activities, play basketball, or dance. Children are also urged to contribute art and music to the festival.
Note: the Easter Festival is a huge celebration and worship event. Attending is not like going to a restaurant where you are served; it’s like going to a celebration at a family member’s home where everyone brings food and everyone pitches in to help a bit and everyone has a great time! So please RSVP today (click here to read more about this event and to register), and let us know how you can help. Parents can supervise their kids while helping out with Pilgrim’s Progress or children’s crafts.
A New Kind of Easter Basket
(adapted from an article by Linda Ebert in Virtue magazine.)
Help children learn the stories of the season by reading them to the children in order, from your regular children’s Bible and adding a concrete symbol for each story in a special Easter basket. On Easter Day, hide these symbols along with the eggs. Then have children retell the story from beginning to end, using the symbols as prompts.
Examples:
Mary anoints Jesus: small bottle of perfume
Triumphal entry: toy donkey, doll clothes, or small palm branch (use an artificial one or have the children make one out of construction paper, craft foam, etc.)
Cleansing the temple: toy dollhouse table, small doves made of self-drying clay
Last supper: piece of Matzoh bread; save your communion cup, and fill it with purple self-drying clay to look like wine/juice
Foot washing: a bar of soap
Betrayal: bag of 30 coins
Arrest: small toy sword or soldier
Denial: toy rooster
Crucifixion: wooden cross, crown of thorns (make one out of wild rose or briars), large nail (secure in jar if you have young children), dice
Burial: jar of cinnamon or other spices, strip of linen cloth
Resurrection: empty plastic egg or a geode cut in half
“Resurrect” your Jesse Tree:
The Jesse Tree that many use at Christmas can be used just as well during the Easter season. Just add an ornament for the empty tomb (you could use an empty Easter egg) and make that the last ornament instead of the “Baby Jesus”. You can change the tree into a spring tree by getting a branch from outside and sinking it into a pot of soil or sand, or into a block of Styrofoam. Add some homemade paper flowers, or artificial flowers. Hang your ornaments day by day.
Give your child an opportunity to express the Easter season through art:
Provide the time and art materials for your child to create a work of art that shows what Easter means to them, or what they think that heaven will be like. You can enter children’s works of art related to Easter and heaven in the Easter Festival by contacting David Stickel at 942-3900 or dlstickel@juno.com.
Bake up a sweet treat with a lesson:
Resurrection Biscuits
1 tube biscuits
1 stick melted butter
cinnamon and sugar mixture (about a cup)
regular size marshmallows (as many as biscuits you have)
Roll the biscuits flat. Stick a marshmallow on each biscuit (marshmallows represent Jesus). Completely seal each marshmallow in each biscuit (as the tomb was sealed). Roll biscuit balls in butter then in sugar mixture (represents the dirt in the tomb or the embalming spices needed to bury the dead). Bake according to the directions on the biscuit tube. When you pull them out of the oven (have an adult do this) the marshmallow is gone! HE IS NOT HERE! THE TOMB IS EMPTY! HE IS ALIVE!
 Easter Story Cookies
to be made the evening before Easter
1 cup whole pecans
1 tsp. vinegar
3 egg whites
pinch salt
zipper baggie
wooden spoon
tape
Bible
Preheat the oven to 300°.
Place pecans in zipper baggie and let the children beat them with the wooden spoon to break into small pieces. Explain that after Jesus was arrested, the Roman soldiers beat him. Read John 19:1-3
Let each child smell the vinegar. Put 1 tsp. vinegar into the mixing bowl. Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross, He was given vinegar to drink. Read John 19:28-30.
Add egg whites to vinegar. Eggs represent life. Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life. Read John 10:10-11.
Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl. Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus' followers, and bitterness of our own sin. Read Luke 23:27.
So far the ingredients are not very appetizing. Add 1 c. sugar. Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us. He wants us to know and belong to Him. Read Psalms 34:8 and John 3:16.
Beat the mixture on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks form. Explain that the color white represents the purity in God's eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus. Read Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3.
Fold in broken nuts.
Drop by teaspoon onto wax paper covered cookie sheet. Explain each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid. Read Matthew 27:57-60.
Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF. Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door. Explain that Jesus' tomb was sealed. Read Matthew 27:65-66.
GO TO BED! Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight. Jesus' followers were in despair when the tomb was sealed. Read John 16:20 and 22.
On Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow! On the first Easter Jesus' followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. Read Matthew 28:1-9.
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