Here is the promised post detailing the special evening complete with activities and a meal that I am doing this year for the kids. The goal in doing this to commemorate Jesus' Resurrection and the Great Sacrifice that He became FOR our redemption !
Okay, so here's the plan... this year, my mom and I have decided to host a weekend Resurrection celebration at her house. ((My kids and my brother's kids usually spend the night on Fridays at my parents' house anyway) so my mom and I talked and we decided that we wanted to do something extra special this year to help the kids understand and celebrate Easter in a more Christ centered way.
So, with these goals in mind, we embarked on a quest to find activities that would help us to make the Bible "come alive" to the kids. We wanted to really drive home the "why" behind the reason we celebrate Easter and highlight the great sacrifice that was paid for us -- so that man could have restored fellowship with an Almighty God!!
Let me preface it by saying---
We know that the Passover has been observed and celebrated by God's people since the great exodus of the Israelites from Egypt--I'm sure all of us here know the story-- how, despite a series of plagues, the hard-hearted Pharaoh just would not let the Israelites go. It took the final plague that God inflicted upon Egypt to turn Pharoah's heart-- the death of every firstborn child and animal in the land.
In order to escape this plague themselves, the Israelites were instructed to kill, roast, and eat a lamb (one without spot or blemish). They were told to apply the blood of the slain lamb upon their doorpost as sign of identification (that they were not Egyptians, but rather, God's chosen people). They were assured, if they followed Moses' direction, the Death angel would “pass over” their homes.
This was foreshadowing of Jesus being the spotless sacrifice for our sins--the Lamb of God... when we get saved, we partake of the Lamb. We get the Lamb on the inside-- and the blood of the Lamb is applied to our hearts. So, when judgement comes, He sees the blood has been applied to doorposts of our hearts! We are safe from the penalty of death because of the blood of the Lamb!
Jesus is the holy Lamb of God whose blood allows us to be “passed over” by the angel of death. We no longer have to be bound by sin and death! Because of His great sacrifice, we are released from the bondage of sin and death. The Passover of the Old Testament and The Resurrection of the New Testament both testify of the greatest gift of God. In 1 Corinthians 5:7 we read “… For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”
On the night before He was crucified, we read that Jesus and His disciples gathered for a meal (which we now call The Last Supper). This meal was an historically an observance of the Passover (remembering the bondage of Egypt and God's deliverance).
During the Last Supper, Jesus “took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.” (Luke 22:19-20)
As a result, as Christians, I believe it is in order for us to celebrate both the Passover and the Last Supper as a combination of God's deliverance and His Providence.
(Disclaimer: I do recognize that we, as non-Jewish Christians, are not bound by the Mosaic law regarding the Jewish feasts, traditions, etc, but I do believe there is so much to be gleaned from participating in a celebration that honors the awesome sacrifice that we have been gifted!)
So that is why I have come to believe that celebrating the death, burial, and Resurrection of Christ in a way that is tangible is a wonderful opportunity to cultivate a new appreciation for the finished work He did for us on Calvary !!
The great deliverance of the Israelites in Egypt foreshadowed the victory wrought by Jesus, the Lamb of God, Whose triumph over sin, death and eternal destruction bought salvation for all people from “every nation, tribe, and language” (Revelation 7:9,10).
I believe that celebrating the Last Supper/Passover can be an opportunity to “walk through the Bible” through the use of our senses. We can see and hear the scripture narratives as we read the Exodus and Easter stories; we can “taste and see that He is good” as we smell and eat the foods.
It is my prayer that the kids will have that “AHA!” moment, when they suddenly understand why the slavery of the people of God was bitter (and likewise come to understand the bitterness of sin), how the longed-for freedom for God's people was so sweet (as is the chains of sin being broken from our own lives ), and that the lamb we are going to eat represents the lambs that were slaughtered on the that first Passover night as a covering/protection from Judgement and about Jesus, being the Lamb of God, who, was slain for the remission of our sins.
So, with that in mind, my mom and I have researched and planned out a celebration for the kids to enjoy, complete with symbolic foods along with discussion of their significance, fun activities, songs, and scripture readings to illustrate how Jesus is our ultimate Passover Lamb.
We have decided to start the celebration off with my mom quickly summarizing the story of the original Passover in Egypt, explaining about the blood of the Lamb being the protection from the Death Angel.
After she gets done telling the story, my dad is going to sing "The Blood is still there".
After the song, we are going to serve the appetizer plate (with significant, symbolic elements).
So, what's on the plate and why??
(To keep it traditional for the appetizer plate's "meat" element, I wanted to do some sort of lamb - but lamb chops or shanks are super expensive and not always pleasing to everybody's taste (especially kids! ) so I improvised and purchased ground lamb and we are planning on making lamb meatballs for the kids to sample. We are going to read the verses about eating the lamb and use the meatballs to illustrate that. )
I found a good recipe for unleavened bread that we are going to be making. I wanted the bread for our celebration to be unleavened just as it was on that fateful night in Egypt when the death angel passed over. I also want to explain to the kids that often, leaven is used to represent sin in the Bible. I want to illustrate that this bread without any leaven represents Jesus-- being without sin.... (the recipe I found also has you rake a fork across the bread before baking -- these "stripes" are a visual representation of the verse in Isaiah 53:5, “by His stripes, we are healed.”) We are planning on reading Luke 22:19-20 as we break the bread, illustrating how Jesus was broken for us.
We are then going to have the children dip a parsley sprig into salt water and sample the taste. We will explain that the "yucky" taste represents the sadness and bitter tears that the children of Israel cried while they were slaves in Egypt and likewise for us, it can demonstrate the bitterness of sin and the pain of a life outside of Jesus. It can also remind us about the beatings Jesus endured for us as well the tears his followers wept as he died on the cross…and as they laid him in the tomb.
I also want them to use the salt water as "paint" (we are going to add red food coloring to the salt water at this point to make it represent blood). The parsley sprig can be used a "brush" to symbolically (and lightly) "paint" the sides/top of their unleaven bread just as the children of Israel used the blood of the lamb to apply to the sides/top of their doorposts as a covering/protection from the death angel. We will emphasize here that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission (forgiveness) of sin. The blood brought the Israelites protection from the death angel, just as Jesus' blood has bought us pardon (forgiveness) from the penalty of sin and death.
Then we are going to instruct the kids to take a spoon and add a bit of sweet Charoset to their unleaven bread. As they taste the charoset, we will compare the taste to the sweetness of the hope we have in Jesus, our Redeemer, the One who willingly sacrificed it all because of his great love for us.
By using the sweet charoset to cover the taste of the bitter saltwater, we are going to illustrate is that there is a sweetness that salvation brings that will remove the bitterness of sin and shame.
(For those unfamiliar, Charoset is a Mediterranean side dish consisting of a sweet mixture of minced apples, finely chopped nuts, honey, maple syrup, and cinnamon)
Next, we will have the kids sample a roasted egg, which represents the burnt offerings were brought to the Temple for sacrifice in Bible days. We will remember that Jesus was our Ultimate and final Sacrifice. As we have them taste a small bit of the roasted egg, we will reiterate that there is now no more need for an animal sacrifice. Jesus’ death on the cross was the ultimate and final sacrifice made on our behalf for the forgiveness of sins. We will explain that eggs can also be a symbol of new life-- just like the new life we now have in Christ.
We are planning on having grape juice or cranberry juice as the beverage--As we drink the juice, we will symbolically remember the blood of Jesus that was shed for us, remembering that our freedom has been bought, at a incredibly high cost, and that we are now Royalty, heirs of the King, princes and princesses who now have the freedom to live forever in Heaven, with Jesus, our Redeemer.
In addition to the appetizer plate, we plan on having a small dinner (inspired by Mediterranean cuisine) to "up the wow" factor! I'm not 100% sure the kids will eat all of the included foods but I figured it would be fun for them to try different things that they normally would not eat.
Roasted chicken kebabs, herbed roasted potatoes, candied carrots, goat cheese, fig jelly, pita slices, etc cheese cubes, olives, herbed olive oil/butter (to dip pita into), honey, and maple syrup (along with the lamb meatballs and Charoset from the appetizer plate)
As far as the Activities we have planned for the evening :
We are going to partake in Foot washing
This idea is the one I'm most excited about ☝🏼 --(click the underlined "Foot washing" for the link for instructions)
I really like how this lady is explained/objectified foot washing in a more child friendly way so children can better understand this "act of humility". I believe in participating in footwashing and I was so excited to find a wonderful way to incorporate it into our celebration.
We are planning on letting the kids make their own salt dough tomb scenes.(Click the underlined text for link to instructions.) I plan on having watercolor paints and/or markers available for them to color their completed dried creations.
Next, we are going to make Resurrection cookies. I wrote out the recipe -- click the underlined text to take you to my recipe post...
And Lastly......
My mom made the kids Easter baskets but to make it more fun than simply handing them to the kids, we decided to use these "clues" to send the kids on a "search" to find their gifts. We are using this free printable from the Happy Home Fairy!
Hopefully all goes well. I am super excited about it, though! It has been on my heart for a while to do something like this. I really hope that, through our feeble efforts, the kids will be able to understand the great sacrifice that JESUS became for us!
Sometimes, just taking the time to stop and reflect upon it all will work wonders for our appreciation and adoration for the One who died so that we may go free! If we really could picture what it was really like for Jesus and what He truly went through, I doubt there would be a single person who wouldn't be humbled by His love and His sacrifice. Can you imagine? The God of all glory dying so that you and I would have a chance. So that you and I could have access to the Father?? Wow! To me, that is incomprehensible! Oh what love! Oh what majesty!
So, in closing, I do want to say that I am in no way shape or form bragging or trying to get people to say "wow, you did so good"... I honestly wanted to share my ideas and experiences simply because I think investing in our children and helping them see JESUS is so worth it!! I had to do a large amount of research and ended up blending several ideas together to get this. So, I thought, maybe by sharing this idea with you all, I could save someone else the trouble of doing all the legwork or perhaps, I may simply inspire another mom to be intentional this Easter and draw the focus back upon Christ.
In His service,
Tiphanie 💕