If you’re like me, you desire to teach your kids the true meaning of Easter. And you want to keep fun traditions, like an egg hunt, but also want to know how to keep Christ at the center of the celebration. Here are 4 easy ways you can keep Jesus’ resurrection the main focus of Easter this year.
1. Resurrection Eggs – So these are pretty old school, like twenty years old, but they still do a great job of telling our kiddos about the cross. In each of the twelve plastic eggs your kids will discover a surprise that allows you to narrate Jesus’ journey. I will often use these eggs in lieu of a Bible story at night during Holy Week. They can be used multiple times throughout the season: at breakfast on Easter morning, after your egg hunt, even on Good Friday. Purchase them at Family Christian Stores or online at CBD.com and Amazon.com.
2. An “Empty Tomb Egg” – If you ask kids, “What’s the point of Easter?” most will respond, “Eggs” or “The Easter Bunny” But I want my kid’s response to be, “The Empty Tomb!” So I implemented an “empty tomb egg” into our egg hunt. When I hide my filled eggs, I also lay out 2 empty, metallic eggs, one for each of my kids. After years of this tradition, they know the empty egg is the prized egg to find. Because once my kids bring the egg to me and tell me why it’s empty, they get a prize. This year Solomon will receive a bag of his favorite jelly beans. And Deuce, some Reese’s peanut butter eggs, his favorite.
Egg hunt after egg hunt, year after year, I want to create a rhythm and a point—the Empty Tomb is God’s greatest gift ever.
3. Resurrection Rolls – I made these delicious treats last year for a few neighborhood kiddos and their mamas who came over for an Easter Egg hunt. I will get my kids involved this year and make them Sunday morning. They are simply crescent rolls, cinnamon and sugar, with marshmallows wrapped inside. The rolls become hollow as they bake. And you can already guess, these yummy breakfast treats represent the meaning of Easter—when you break them open they are empty inside. Click here for the recipe.
4. A Family Fast – Next year, consider a family fast for Lent. To teach our kids to fast is to teach them a biblical discipline. Fasting is to give up something we enjoy. It’s a reminder we are not self-sufficient and rely on the provision of God. As we fast, we open our hearts to hear from the Lord and to show Him we’re dead-set on His will for our lives.
Your family could give up sweets or video games or your favorite TV show. Our family has a weekend breakfast tradition of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls or donuts. To give up a once a week tradition like this is also a great option.
This might be, scratch that, will be hard. But Lent is not supposed to be easy.
It wasn’t for Jesus.
Lent is a time when we, like Jesus, keep our eyes on Jerusalem. As he anticipated the cross, He spoke of His death.
And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day” (Matthew 20:17-19).
As we meditate on what Jesus faced as He climbed the hill to Calvary, the discipline of a Lent fast can turn from bitterness to worship as we enter into His suffering.
Let’s get real, our kids may not see a fast as worship—yet. But to lead like this shows them we are serious about breaking from our comforts, as He did for us.
I have found these simple ideas help my kids, and me stay focused on the main point of Easter.
And I hope they do the same for you.
May you and your family find Jesus at the very center of the celebration this year.
May you stand in awe that, “. . . you, who were dead in your trespasses. . . God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14.)
And may your resolve to keep the empty tomb of Christ the center point of Easter make Him famous to your kids.
How do you keep Christ at the center of Easter? I’d love to hear more ideas!
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