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April 20, 2011

How Do I Explain Easter to My Children?

The reality of a human raised from the dead is hard enough for adults to understand, much less kids. But here are some approaches I've taken.

Amy Julia Becker

I don’t know how to explain Easter to my children — Penny, 5, and William, 2. I’ve tried two approaches so far. I’ve talked about it directly: “Some people killed Jesus and he died and God made him alive again.”

When I said that, William asked, “What does died mean?” I tried to explain death as something that takes people away forever. Penny asked, “Where is Jesus now?” and when I said, “Jesus is in heaven and all around us,” she responded, “But where is Jesus now?”

cross.jpg

Then Penny went to Sunday school last week, where her teachers decided to reenact the Passion of Jesus. I was sitting in church when, halfway through the sermon, one of the teachers brought Penny to me. She sat by my side, coloring, for the rest of the service. Her teacher later explained that when Penny had seen Jesus nailed to the cross, she stood up to leave.

I asked Penny later, “What happened in Sunday school? Did you learn something about Jesus?”

Without looking at me she said, “He died. I needed to see you, Mom.”

“Do you know what happened when he died?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The direct route didn’t get us far.

Then there’s the indirect approach. Another time this Lenten season, I asked William, “Do you know what Easter is all about?”

His eyes lit up the way they do when he knows the answer to a question: “Bunnies!”

“Well,” I said, “kind of.”

I understood his confusion. He came home from preschool with Easter eggs. A man at our local coffee shop gave him a chocolate bunny. And we have an “Easter tree” on our kitchen table, with forsythia in bloom and painted wooden eggs dangling from the branches. So, I thought, maybe I could explain Easter using the springtime symbols, and we could talk about death and rebirth, about caterpillars and butterflies or chicks hatching or crocuses in bloom.

But the analogies fall apart so quickly. First, nothing in the natural world is brought from death to life. What’s dead stays dead. Furthermore, suggesting that the Cross and the Empty Tomb are just like the daffodils threatens to cheapen our faith and hope in Christ.

We didn’t have this trouble with Christmas. Although we haven’t tried to explain the Virgin Birth yet, our kids have the story down. They know about babies being born, and they’re happy to take our word for it that God wanted to live with us to heal us and care for us and teach us and forgive us. The birth story was easy.

One of the reasons I have trouble explaining Easter to my children is that I have trouble explaining it to myself. Even the New Testament writers couldn’t find adequate words or images to explain what happened that weekend in Jerusalem. While the facts remain easy — Jesus died on the cross, and God raised him from the dead — understanding the significance of those facts remains a challenge.

children%20easter.jpg

Again and again, New Testament writers describe the impact of Jesus’ death and resurrection as a “mystery.” In Paul’s long defense of the reality of the Resurrection, he concludes: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51-52). In Ephesians, we read of the “mystery of God’s will” in reconciling all things through Christ (Eph. 1:9) and “the mystery of the gospel” (Eph 6:19). In Colossians, we read that the “mystery” is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

Christians believe that Jesus’ death was more than martyrdom, that it actually effected forgiveness of sins and reconciliation between God and humanity. The Resurrection bolsters that faith as God’s validation of Jesus’ willing self-sacrifice. And yet, as liturgical traditions assert, when we describe the events of Holy Week, we proclaim the mystery of our faith: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

I don’t mean to dismiss the intelligibility of our faith or to imply that it cannot be explained in words. But for now, I’m not going to worry about it if my words fail to convey the message of Easter to our children. Instead, I am beginning to look for ways that our practices as Christians can convey the message of sin and salvation, brokenness and healing, rupture and forgiveness, death and resurrection.

Our children will witness some of those concepts in real life, I hope, when they watch their parents snap at each other and then reconcile, or when they receive a hug after they have misbehaved, or when they hear us talk about our hope of seeing their deceased grandmother once again. They will also enact these concepts as they participate in the life of the church.

As it happened, last Sunday was communion Sunday. Because Penny had excused herself from witnessing the crucifixion in Sunday school, she unwittingly had invited herself to the Lord’s Table. Together we walked to the front. She tasted the bread dipped in juice and watched me take bread dipped in wine. I don’t know how much she heard when our pastor read the story of the Last Supper. I don’t know if she noticed that we partook of those elements in front of a wooden cross. But I know that she practiced remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection as a part of the body of Christ. She participated in the final song, raising her hands in the air and singing “My Jesus, My Savior.”

On Easter Sunday, my children will not be able to explain the meaning of death and resurrection. But I have faith that they will participate in the faith and hope that come from Jesus’ gift of new life.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty on April 20, 2011 11:30 AM

Comments

I think you're right: at a certain age it's enough to say, after an upset requiring an apology, "Hey, did you know that the reason we can be forgiven is because Jesus rose again?" or even just pray aloud in thanksgiving.

If you stop to think about it, it makes a lot of sense to explain the basics of Easter within the context of everyday life, because that's where the rubber meets the road.

Nice, honest post. Thanks!

Posted By: Julia at LotsaLaundry | April 20, 2011 12:22 PM

This post is timely. Yesterday, Shawn and I tried to explain the meaning of Easter to our almost four-year-old, Iliana. We talked about the resurrection saying, "Jesus rose from the dead and that is what we celebrate." She quickly changed the subject. For right now, all that she has down is that God loves her and he created the beautiful earth and that she needs to repent when she is naughty. We have used the word "sin" too. Right now, the best we can hope for is that very thing--that she gets that God is good and that he deeply loves for her. I think she does.

Posted By: Marlena | April 20, 2011 12:37 PM

Dear Friends,

I identify with the need of a parents heart to explain things to our kids. I still struggle with my own, now adult children, as the apologetic task has grown even more complicated into philosophy, history, archaeology, geology, anthropology, hermeneutics, textual criticism, etc...

And yet I accepted Christ into my heart as a 4 1/2 year old, my mother reading to me from the Scriptures of John 3 on a Christmas Eve. She did not shy from the words of sin, death, nor my need for Jesus to come into lonely empty heart, to wash me from the inside out, to fill me with his ongoing presence. The heavy language of holiness and justice, I sometimes feel we are getting too "nice" and sanitized about things, but by the foolish things of the world, God shows himself as wise. My mother told me that Jesus came to teach us how to live, and then came to die -- his own death to pay for my own sins.

Somehow even at that young age, it was the witness of the Spirit inside me helping me understand these things of God's holiness and my own need as a young sinner for God's forgiveness and grace. It is that grace that sustains me still to this day.

And yet however I do not have all the answers. Though I responded warmly to the message of grace, I have my own three adult children, that although went to church with my wife and I, prayed to receive Christ and were baptized, etc..., as young adults now have walked away from God and basically abandoned the faith. So I need still more grace and wisdom in this whole apologetic task, and still pray daily for their minds to be enlightened and the Father draw them (John 6).

But how do we explain things? The reality is that we are nothing is self-sufficient. We are needy creatures and we only have life as we are in relation. Family is only when Father is in relation with Mom, both in relation with kids. Love (giving on behalf of one part to strengthen the other) is the foundation to the universe. Someone or something else must always offer themselves to give life for another to make everything work (the sun in giving its light to earth,whether mom and dad give of their work to earn money for food, their time to lovingly make meals and wash dishes, the bus driver to get kids from one place to another, kids to lovingly offer food to the goldfish, a corn stalk that produces corn and gives up its seeds for popcorn, the chicken that lays eggs, etc...); everything of the universe is as interdependent, we are all as dependent creatures, the interaction of love of the one gives life to the other. The cross is the beginning of life. The cross is a hug with a half embrace, waiting for us on the other side.

So...there should be truth all around us.

SUN AND TREES. A GRACE GIVEN, FREELY RECEIVED. BY THAT GRACE TRANSFORMED. BY GRACE GIVE.
Even the sun has to "give its light" as grace to the world, and we need to receive and absorb it's light to have warmth and food for our world. The death of the one thing is the beginning of life for another. Like a tree (Psalm 1) we need to absorb that life force.

Other pictures that we might understand? Try what the Scriptures themself do:

LAMB OF GOD THAT TAKES AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD
As we read the Scriptures truth is opened in our minds.
Then too there are the Jewish roots of the Passover, the Passover Lamb that protects those of the family of faith gathered on the inside of homes in Egypt. The angel of death "Passes Over" each family of faith, seeing the blood of the one Lamb that already died on their behalf. Sin is paid for, covered over, while the family gathers to eat the bread, drink from the cup, eat the meat, signs that we need to let Jesus live his life in us to give us strength for the journey toward our own promised land (new heaven, new earth, new Jerusalem descending), tree of life that gives and gives and gives life for the world (Rev. 21, 22).

SEED THAT COMES TO DIE, NEW LIFE TO SPRING FORTH
John 12:24 Jesus describes himself as a seed. As a seed must die to self, the DNA of new life bringing to the world, something larger now grows.

CACOON TO BUTTERFLY
Paul in I Corinthians 15 speaks of Metamorphosis (like a cocoon transformed into butterfly), death is the beginning of a higher way of life, promise of our own final transformation (I Cor. 15:42-44).

THE VEIL
The Veil was torn in the Temple, through the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, the closed door of Paradise is now made open. The "door to glory and presence of God" closed since Genesis 3, being that God is so holy and we are sinners, living in a world of "dying, surely die". The rent veil (Matthew 27:51)is the sign that God is opening a way to us to enter and live in his presence once again (Revelation 11, 21-22).

These are a few of the things around me that helps me understand this dance of love.

I know this is rambling...but in this mess somewhere I hope God is speaking...

Love in Christ,

Joel

Posted By: Joel | April 20, 2011 4:39 PM

This is the Take-Home-Sheet I will be sending home with my 4 & 5 Year old class this Easter Sunday. While the message is directed to the parents, I believe kids are more than capable of understanding given appropriate terms and adequate discussion and explanation. While kids don't grasp difficult subjects as easily as adults, with repetition I am always amazed at what even young kids can pick up.


During this Easter season we celebrate Christ’s death on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice that led to the forgiveness of the sins of all mankind. But it is His resurrection that proves His deity and redeems us from the punishment that we all deserve as a result of our sinful nature. John 1:29 says, “John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” Because Jesus had never sinned, He could not die according to Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life.” Before Jesus, imperfect sacrifices had to be continuously made to temporarily cover the sins of the people. Habakkuk 1:13 states that God is too holy to look upon evil. When Jesus died on the cross, He was the perfect sacrifice that covered our sins permanently. When we accept this gift, God is able to look at us as though we had never sinned. Ephesians 1:7 says “In Him (Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” So this Easter, focus on the wonderful gift not only of the cross, but Jesus’ resurrection and gift of salvation to us. Color this page with your child and discuss with them the true meaning of Easter.

Posted By: Shiloh | April 20, 2011 5:36 PM

We start preparing to meet the Risen Lord seven weeks ahead of time. Adults change our diet to a vegan diet, children are taught to eat smaller portions, and we fast from gossip, from calling names, from all of the negative aspects of relationship. We pray more as a family. Each week focuses on a different lesson, we start by forgiving and asking forgiveness of others, the importance of keeping a visual image of the Incarnate Jesus who is both God and man before you in a world filled with inappropriate images, that the empty cross is a symbol of Christ's victory over death, how prayer is how we grow in Christ, that sin is separation from God and how we can change our minds from sin, we clean out our abundance and give it to people we know personlly who need it, or charity. We are focusing, especially with our children, on all of these aspects that shape our relationships with one another, and how as we live in relationship with one another, we must love one another, because that shapes the development of our personal relationship with God, who we are preparing to meet after His Resurrection. We must present ourselves to him a Church with a contrite heart, of one heart and one mind, without blemish.

Scripture readings are the entire Gospel of Mark telling the story of His earthly ministry and teaching us what he expects of us.

We are not focused on the horror of the Cruxifixion, although it is mentioned at the appropriate time in the proper context, on Great and Holy Friday when all of the Gospels with regard to the scourging and Cruxifixion are read. Once. In Church. We see the image of Christ Cruxified for a few hours, and then he is laid in the tomb. The image of Christ cruxified is without a graphic depiction of all his wounds. With children, it is enough to understand that it happened, but not necessary to dwell on it, when they are older they will be able to process what happened. Our hymns focus on the conundrum of our God lives eternally, who created all now lying in the tomb. How can this be?

At the time of the Resurrection, we read the Gospel of John first chapter, sing the hymn of His victory over death: "Christ is Risen from the Dead! Trampling down Death by death and bestowing life to those in the tombs!" For forty days we sing this over and over again to celebrate how the Resurrection has bestowed upon humanity the gift of eternal life. We joyfully greet one another with "Christ is Risen!" and rejoin, "Truly He is Risen!" These hymns and greetings reinforce our celebration of the gift of eternal life.

Children learn the joy of salvation through His Resurrection before they can process the horror of His sacrifice for us.

Posted By: Margaret | April 21, 2011 2:32 AM

You might find it interesting that the word mystery (musteerion/greek) really denotes something that couldn't be known/understood before, but now it is revealed and can be understood. It wasn't that the NT writers didn't understand it as of the time of their writings (i.e. inspired writings), but that they had been unable to until Christ rose from the dead and the Holy Spirit revealed the things hidden up till that time.

If I could offer this encouragement: I believe children have a great capacity to have the Holy Spirit reveal things to them. I believe I need to give them the real Word of God and the Holy Spirit makes it real(-izable) to them. I desperately depend on the Holy Spirit to be my Children's tutor, doing what my wife and I cannot, because He is God. We are teachers of the Word, but He is the leader into truth and the revealer of those mysteries.

Posted By: steve | April 21, 2011 10:27 AM

Thank you for this article and for the comments. I have recently been amazed at my 4 1/2 year old's questions and understanding of Gospel truths that I never dreamed he could grasp at that age. But yet it is evident that it is the Holy Spirit himself drawing my son near to him. It is amazing to witness the Spirit revealing these mysteries to him, despite my feeling much like this author in my quest to explain, frankly, the logically unexplainable.

Posted By: Jill | April 21, 2011 3:36 PM

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