Celebrating Easter
Joey & Carla Link
© March 2016
Spring is just around the corner, although for many of us, the normal winter weather has yet to appear! While Christmas is a wonderful time to teach our children about the blessed gift of Jesus Christ, families often get caught off-guard in the springtime, and the greatest annual event for every Christian often slips up on us and pass us by before we really have the time to teach our children about the events that led up to Jesus death, burial and resurrection. So, does your family take time to celebrate Easter? We mean really celebrate Easter?
Several years back, we had the wonderful blessing of going to Israel for two weeks. It was always a goal and dream for us, but we were not sure how to make it happen. Many great people we had partnered with over the years in serving families gave us the trip as a gift. We had the wonderful privilege of walking where Jesus walked. The blessing turned into more than a trip however, it became a deeper conviction and commitment to our Lord because of the facts we got to see up close and personal. Neither Carla nor I will ever forget our time in the garden tomb. Each Easter we look at the pictures taken during our time there and in awe, we once again marvel at what Jesus did for us by dying on the cross.
Thinking of Easter, we encourage you to pull out your Bible and books that share with your children the wonder of the cross and salvation. This is a lesson that should never grow old in their hearts and minds. Celebrate Easter as a family like many do during the Christmas advent season. Take each part of the Easter story and break it into the 3 weeks leading up to Easter Sunday. Use candles as they do in advent, as children enjoy the symbolism of them.
Moses’ instructions to Israel in Deuteronomy 6 is a great directive for parents on teaching the Easter story: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Think about how your family could incorporate the Easter story with the above underlined words this year. Have your children come up with ideas on how you can impress the story on each other, talk about it, and write it down where it is a daily reminder of what Christ has done for you.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
John 3:16