Keeping Jesus in Easter
Easter is my favorite holiday. I love the time of year it comes, new life springing forth in trees budding and flowers bursting. I love the hope for brighter, warmer days that comes with it. But most of all, I love Jesus, whose resurrection it celebrates.
When my children were young, I struggled to keep the focus on the Savior during the Easter season. Then and now, store aisles scream candy and bunnies and baskets. I don’t have anything against those things, except they distract me from what’s most important–Jesus.
So I tried to make some of the Easter traditions more meaningful for my kids, turning the focus away from “getting” and more on “giving” and “new life.” We had fun making Easter eggs, then filled our Easter baskets with them. The kids would take them to church on Easter Sunday and hand them out to people they thought would like one, especially older folks whose children were grown.
I’d give each child a packet of seeds and we’d talk about the hope of new life that lived in each seed. The seed was “dead” and we’d bury it in the ground, expectantly checking each day to see if there was any sign of new life. We’d wonder what it will be like to one day be given new life when Jesus returns. He’ll give us new, immortal bodies, so different from what we have now, just as the sprouts were so different from the dead seed we planted.
When I worked in children’s ministry, we’d have a balloon release every Easter Sunday. I’d give a helium-filled balloon to each child and on the count of three, we’d release our balloons into the air shouting, “Jesus is alive!” We talked about how, after Jesus was raised from the dead, He ascended to heaven to be with God, just like our balloons floated up to the sky.
There are lots of ways to turn our focus away from all the commercialism of Easter and onto the joy of our resurrected Savior.
How do you keep Jesus in the center of your Easter celebrations?
Beautiful and definitely doable for families. Thank you for sharing another way to keep Jesus in Easter celebrations.
Thanks, Billie! It’s always a challenge to keep our focus where it should be. Thanks for your encouragement!
I use the resurrection eggs. Each of my grandchildren gets two or three eggs. The eggs are numbered and have a little symbol in them that tells a part of the Easter story. I’ve even used the eggs when I took Sunday school kids to convalescent homes to share the Easter story. I discovered there’s a little kid in every person, no matter what age. When I called out the numbers in the retirement home, hands raised and excited voices said, “I’ve got that number!” The redeeming story of Easter was exciting and clear. I loved how God spoke through the children as they delivered treats and a hug to the residents.
Sue, I love this idea! Resurrection eggs have been around a while, but I’ve never heard of them being used with adults before. What a great way to share the Easter story. Thanks for reading and commenting.
I love those ideas, Linda!
To keep the focus on Jesus I tell the Good Friday story & then we share the Hot Cross Buns & talk about why we eat them at this time of year. Then I tell the Easter Sunday story & we share mini eggs & talk about why we eat those too, so that hopefully when they see/eat those items again, they’ll remember the stories behind them. I’ve now got some other ideas this week from you, Janice & Penny to add to those, which is nice, so thank you all for sharing those ideas!
Thanks for sharing your ideas, too, Wendy! We appreciate all the creativity that shows up here. Have a happy Easter!