March-April 1999
Celebrating Jesus' Resurrection
Two Dozen Traditions To Enrich Your Family's Resurrection Celebration
by Barbara Curtis
| With the children snuggled down for the night, my husband Tripp and I dutifully filled five waiting baskets as we had done all the years before. But something seemed to be missing, which was strange because something had really been added-our understanding of the true meaning of Easter.... |
Did we forget anything?" I asked as we arranged the last colored eggs.
"I've got the same feeling," Tripp said. "I think it's just because we've changed. The most important part of Easter now will be church tomorrow morning."
Looking back twelve years later, I understand the unsettled feeling we were sharing. Two children who had celebrated Easter with baskets and bunnies had grown up with little else to pass on to their own children.
Yet, since we wanted our new relationship with Christ to be part of our family's daily life -- not just Sunday only -- Tripp and I were always interested in ways to bring the message of Jesus' resurrection home.
We needed traditions.
Traditions -- especially those children can see, hear, feel, smell and taste -- provide vivid impressions on which parents can build year after year. There are many which will enrich your own family's celebration of what might be more accurately called Resurrection Day.
Choose a few traditions from this collection that you think might suit your family. Share their meaning in whatever words your children will understand. Then, keep the traditions you like as part of your family's Easter heritage.
Lent
Lent is a 40-day period before Easter set aside as a season of soul-searching and repentance. The forty days reflect Jesus' withdrawal into the wilderness for his own time of spiritual reflection. Sundays, because they commemorate the Resurrection, are traditionally not counted.
In the early church, Lent was a special time when new converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism on Easter.
Churches which follow a liturgical calendar -- annually reliving the major events in Jesus' life -- place great emphasis on Lent. Whether your own church makes much or little of these forty days, your family will benefit from preparing in advance to celebrate Jesus' resurrection.
1) New Life
Begin early in the year. (As soon as your Christmas tree is down!) With your children, plant crocus, daffodil or hyacinth bulbs in a bowl of sand, covering halfway. Leave in a dark closet for two months, keeping the soil moist (a process known as forcing bulbs). When shoots appear, let them bask in the sun. Don't forget to leave one bulb unplanted as a reminder of how they began.
2) Devotions
Lent can be a valuable time of family focus on the meaning of the Christian life. You may want to commit to a regular pattern of family worship -- daily, weekly or whenever you can.
Or you may post Bible verses, especially the words of Jesus, on the refrigerator, bathroom mirrors, wherever a busy family is sure to see them. Talk about them at dinner or on the way to school -- especially how the verses apply to events in our daily lives.
3) Giving up
Traditionally, especially in Europe, there were no weddings, no dancing, and no singing during Lent. No flowers or alleluias in churches. Some families may find spiritual value in giving up something for Lent -- television, sweets, video games -- not as a penance, but as an outer symbol of dying to self during a season of spiritual reflection.
4) Mite Box
Select a charity that helps those in need. Help your children decorate a box with a slot on top. Display it where everyone at home will remember to contribute their change. On Easter, empty the box, count the money together and put a check in the mail. This custom can be directly related to the preceding one: giving up to give.
5) Pretzels
Bake your own pretzels (check your own cookbooks, library or the internet for a recipe -- or buy the frozen ones). Pretzels originated as early Christian Lenten treats, designed in the form of arms crossed in prayer.
6) Easter Seals
Support or volunteer for this organization, founded in 1934 as a means to raise funds to help children with disabilities.
In the original words, "Easter means Resurrection and New Life, and the rehabilitation of crippled children means new life and activity... physically, mentally, spiritually."
7) Jonah
In Matthew 12:39-41, Jesus points to the story of Jonah as a sign of his own destiny. So this is a great time to review it with your children, discussing the issues of sin, obedience and God's mercy.
8) Easter in Cyberspace
Visit the informative website at www.njwebworks.com/easter/ for many, many Christian Easter links, including history, poetry, drama and daily meditations.
9) Giving
While we usually think of Christmas for gift-giving, Easter has a richer heritage. God gave his Son. Jesus gave his life. Find ways to give unconditionally: money to the homeless person on the corner, treats for those in nursing homes, old clothes to children in another country. Jesus told us clearly, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40).
10) Handel's Messiah
Invest in a CD or tape and bathe your family in this beautiful classic, clearly composed under divine inspiration -- each segment a Bible verse prophesying the birth, life, death and finally the resurrection of Jesus. (The Hallelujah Chorus was a celebration for Easter morning following the Lenten absence of alleluias.)
Holy Week
11) Resurrection Eggs (TM)
This is an egg carton filled with a dozen plastic eggs, each containing a symbol of the Holy Week. It is accompanied by twelve brief child-friendly lessons. Available from FamilyLife Ministries at 1-800-FL-TODAY.
12) Palm Sunday
If your church doesn't make much of Palm Sunday, you might consider just once attending one that does. For an in-home celebration, read Mark 11:1-11 together. If you have a large family or a few friends, you can put together costumes and act out Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem.
13) Seeds
Seeds offer a clear message to children of the power of new life. Rest some eggshell halves filled with soil in an egg carton. Plant a marigold, petunia or grapefruit seed in each (or even grass seed for fastest results). Place in a sunny window.
14) Art Museums
The Passion of Christ is the most-portrayed subject of Western artists. If you live in a metropolitan area, a visit to your local art museum may give your family much to ponder.
15) Housecleaning
Wednesday of Holy Week has been a traditional day in many countries for housecleaning -- from the Jewish custom of cleaning before Passover.
16) Passover
Each year, more Christians are drawn to celebrate Passover, the feast commemorating the departure of the Israelites from slavery (Exodus 12). Jesus had come to Jerusalem to celebrate and was actually crucified on Passover Day. He is the fulfillment of this tradition, as our own Passover Lamb. Sheresh Ministries (719-532-1573) offers materials to help any family celebrate the Passover, thus connecting the Old and New Testaments.
17) Foot Washing
This Maundy Thursday event speaks volumes about Jesus' desire for us to serve. Read John 13. Wrap a towel around your waist, as Jesus did, and wash your children's feet. Your lives might never be the same.
Good Friday
18) Three Hours
Observe Jesus' crucifixion by reading the Biblical account together. Sing old hymns of the crucifixion and the cross: "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?", "The Old Rugged Cross", "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross."
Most Catholic churches offer
Stations of the Cross, fourteen plaques circling the interior walls which depict the final hours of Jesus' life. You may want to visit and contemplate these, one by one.
19) Hot Cross Buns
Traditional Good Friday fare for the family to make and eat together on Saturday of Holy Week.
20) Jesus
Watch Campus Crusade's beautifully-crafted evangelical movie, scripted only with words from the Gospel of Luke (order from 1-800-FL-TODAY).
Easter Sunday
21) Easter Greeting
Greet each other with "Alleluia, the Lord is risen!" And answer, "He is risen indeed!"
22) Sunrise Service
Attend one offered by a church, or climb a hill with your family, worship together, and share a picnic breakfast.
23) Special music
Listen together to Sandi Patti's moving "Was it a Morning Like This?" Listen again. Discuss how it must have felt to see our risen Lord. Was anyone who saw him ever the same? Jesus said those who believe without having seen are blessed (John 20:29).
24) New clothes
New converts were traditionally baptized at Easter, wearing new white garments to symbolize their new life. If your family has new Easter outfits, share with your children where this tradition came from.
Somewhere in the Easter celebration, you may be coloring eggs and visiting relatives. Eggs then can become a subtle way of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. Like seeds, eggs are very much a symbol of new life. Traditionally they were also a symbol of Easter joy because they were a forbidden item during Lent. Now, dyed to take to grandmother's for an annual Easter egg hunt (as our family does each year), they can bear all manner of joyful messages.
Share with nonbelieving relatives and friends what your family is doing for Easter this year -- maybe next year they'll join in.
Whatever traditions you keep, remember that for believers, Easter is a celebration that really never ends.
California resident Barbara Curtis enjoys Easter festivities with her 11 children. She is the author of Small Beginnings: First Steps to Preparing Your Child for Lifelong Learning, and Ready, Set, Read. Both books are published by Broadman and Holman. For additional ideas on Easter activities with young children, see the box below.