Stephen Kuhrt writes: For a number of years, I have written a Children’s Carol Service for use the Sunday before Christmas at Christ Church, New Malden. Both children and adults come in biblical costumes. The aim has been to combine something of the fun of Christmas Panto with conveying biblical theology that draws out the significance of Christmas and its themes – particularly the political significance of the off neglected roles of Herod and Augustus. Last year I wrote an Easter equivalent which took place on Sunday 3rd April 2022 to try and provide a template with which the church could approach Easter over the next two weeks. Whilst the theology sought to challenge adults as much as children, the language used tried to be accessible for children (sin/evil as ‘the bad stuff’ and Messiah as ‘Special King’ and so on). This year I wrote a second Easter drama building on the first, offered here in case any can make use of it.
WHAT MAKES PALM SUNDAY, GOOD FRIDAY AND EASTER DAY SO SPECIAL?
Bartholomew: Well hello everyone! It’s me back again, Bartholomew the disciple, here on this Palm Sunday to help us all learn a bit more of what Easter is all about ahead of next weekend when it all takes place. Now I was told that the Easter Bunny would be here to help me… but I can’t see him anywhere! Can you see him? We can’t really start a service about Easter without the Easter Bunny, can we? Why don’t we call him? The words will appear on the screen. One, Two, Three: ‘Where are you Easter Bunny?’ That’s wasn’t very loud, let’s try again: One, Two, Three: ‘Where are you Easter Bunny?’ No, he’s not here yet. One last time everyone: One, Two, Three: ‘Where are you Easter Bunny?’
The Easter Bunny enters down the central aisle to cheers led by Bartholomew
Easter Bunny: Hello everyone! We considered ringing the changes, this year, but this costume is so good that we thought we ought to give it another go!
Bartholomew: Indeed! Even though you’re not part of the biblical story of Easter, Easter Bunny, it’s always good to have you here, with your chocolate eggs of course, to help us celebrate the most important day in the Christian year. (concerned) What’s the matter, Easter Bunny? You look rather sad.
Easter Bunny: Well I am… and a rather confused.
Bartholomew: Why’s that?
Easter Bunny: (sadly) Well it’s linked to what you just said. I’m mean everyone says that Easter is important but do they really mean it? I mean Santa isn’t in the Christmas story but he still gets far more attention than me, doesn’t he? Unlike Father Christmas, I don’t have films made about me. Can you imagine any of those films being made about the Easter Bunny! And I never get invited to give put presents out at Toddler groups like that odd Santa there. And whilst I may leave eggs out before Easter Day, that’s hardly the same as riding on a sleigh, being helped by little elfs and coming down the chimney to give people presents, is it?
Bartholomew: (nodding sympathetically) I suppose not.
Easter Bunny: For most people, I’m not even associated with the second most important time of year. I mean, after Christmas, they probably most like their birthdays and then their summer holidays. Even Halloween seems more important than Easter to lots of people. I know I’m just a made–up character to make Easter fun but the way people respond to Easter sometimes makes me feel that I’m basically on the same level as the tooth fairy!. It really makes me want to cry!
Bartholomew: There, there Easter Bunny, don’t cry. Do you know what?
Easter Bunny: (still sad) What?
Bartholomew: I think all of us could do with discovering more about Easter and why it is so important. Because the truth is that Easter is not only the most important day of the Christian year, it’s the most important day that ever happened! And even though you’re a made up character, Easter Bunny, it’s great to have you and all of your chocolate eggs to help us celebrate this wonderful event each year. So why don’t we all think afresh this morning about why Easter is important and see if we can cheer up the Easter Bunny? Do you think we can do that? Shall we try and cheer up the Easter Bunny? I can’t hear you… etc
(Bartholomew gets everyone shouting out)
Easter Bunny: (much happier) Oh, do you think you could do that? I’d love to hear again why Easter is so important.
Bartholomew: Well I think we can do better than that. Especially because it’s Palm Sunday, let’s think this morning about three questions. First, why is Palm Sunday important? Then why is Good Friday important? And finally, why is Easter Day important?
Easter Bunny: That sounds a lot. The person who writes these scripts does tend to overload them a bit…
Bartholomew: Yes, he does. But it’s all important stuff so perhaps he’s got some value. But before we get cracking I think we need to sing our first hymn. So let’s stand and sing…
Hymn: Thank you Jesus
Bartholomew: Well sung everyone! Do sit down. Well, we need to get cracking and find an answer to our first question this morning: Why is Palm Sunday so important?
Easter Bunny: Ah, that’s an interesting one. The inside of our hand is called the palm, isn’t it, and so is it all about it opening up our hands to God in a grateful response to his love?
Bartholomew: Well that’s a jolly good guess and yes, it’s important that we’re open to God. But no, Easter Bunny – its got nothing really to do with our hands.
Easter Bunny: Well, what other palms are there?
Bartholomew: Well, there are palm trees, particularly in Israel and these are trees with massive leaves on their branches.
Easter Bunny: Ah, I didn’t know that. But what’s that got to do with anything?
Bartholomew: Well when someone special arrived in a city in the ancient world, someone like a king or great hero, people would often cut down branches from things like palm trees and either lay them down in front of them or wave them in the air. It must have been quite a sight.
Easter Bunny: Um… we’ve got the coronation of King Charles coming up in around a month, haven’t we? Will people be waving palm branches and laying them down then?
Bartholomew: Well there’ll be doing something a bit like that. More with flags, probably! But to really understand why it was important for the Jewish people, we really ought to talk to one of them. Here is one of them coming now… hello there!
Jewish man: Hello, how are you doing! Isn’t it wonderful!
Easter Bunny: Isn’t what wonderful?
Jewish man: God’s rescue coming to Jerusalem and to Israel through the new king! It couldn’t be more wonderful!
Easter Bunny: I don’t understand.
Jewish man: Well we’ve been waiting for centuries for God to set us free and now he’s only about to do it.
Bartholomew: I think you need to explain all this to us a bit more.
Jewish man: Well, years and years and years ago, God rescued us and made the people of Israel his special people. We were chosen to be part of the way that God would rescue the world from everything that went wrong with it. But then we went wrong as well. Really badly wrong. Yes God’s special people became as bad as everyone else.
Easter Bunny: Oh that’s terrible – for both you and God’s plan. So what happened?
Jewish man: Well at first just bad things. We were taken away from the special land that God had given us and even when we came back, we were still ruled over by nasty and oppression nations: the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and now the Romans – they’ve all had a go and they were all pretty horrible!
Bartholomew: It sounds it. You said ‘at first just bad things’. What were the good things?
Jewish man: Well God promised that he wouldn’t leave it there. That, one day, he would send a special king to come and rescue us?
Easter Bunny: And has he?
Jewish man: Well over the years that we’ve waited, it looked on a few occasions like God’s special king has come. One time in particular. The Greeks were doing really terrible things to us and we were rescued by someone called Judas Maccabeus. And when he rode into Jerusalem on his war horse, we took branches off the trees and waved them to greet his entry. He made sure the Temple was cleansed from all the terrible things that the Greeks had done to it. That’s why we Jews celebrate Hanukkah – to remember that special time.
Bartholomew: But it didn’t really sort everything out, did it?
Jewish man: Sadly, no. The Maccabees turned out to be not be very good kings at all. And the Greeks just gave way to the Romans and so it was back to all the horrible stuff once again.
Easter Bunny: But you kept hope?
Jewish man: Yes it was hard but we did keep hope because God had promised that he would one day sent his perfect king to rescue us. The prophet Zechariah said: ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! See your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’.
Bartholomew: And that king has now come?
Jewish man: Well we think so. This man Jesus has come down to Jerusalem from Galilee. And he’s come at Passover time – the time we remember God rescuing us from Egypt through the Red Sea. And he’s done the most amazing things, so surely he is God’s special king come to rescue us. I’m off now to cut down some palm branches to wave to welcome him. Bye!
Jewish man leaves
Easter Bunny: Ah, so that’s why Palm Sunday is important! It’s all about welcoming Jesus to be the special king who would sort everything out.
Bartholomew: It sure is! Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem so we’ve got some of the children here to go with the donkey up the aisle here to the back of the church, down the side aisles and back again. And we’ve also got lots of palm branches that people should have been given as they came in. Children let’s have you all up here so you can follow the donkey and as we sing our next hymn which is all about Palm Sunday, we want everyone to wave their palm branches around just like this… lets stand and sing…
Hymn: Make Way
Easter Bunny: Wow! What a great hymn. I loved singing that. So Jesus came to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and was welcomed as king and everything got sorted out? All the bad things in the world got taken away?
Bartholomew: Well I’m afraid it wasn’t quite as simple as that. In the end that’s what happened but in a very different way from that which people imagined. That’s where Good Friday comes in and we’re now going to think about why that was so important. It was all about Jesus being a king with a difference.
Easter Bunny: How do you mean?
Bartholomew: Well most of those people who cheered Jesus into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday expected him to be a king just like Judas Maccabeus two hundred years earlier.
Easter Bunny: What riding into Jerusalem on a war horse to beat up the Romans and then cleanse the Temple from everything that the wicked, nasty pagans had done to it.
Bartholomew: That’s right. But instead Jesus turned out to be very different. They should have known that when he came riding on a donkey rather than war horse. But when it really kicked off was when Jesus went to the Temple and cleansed it from all the terrible things that the Jewish people had done to it.
Easter Bunny: How do you mean?
Bartholomew: Well the Temple was designed to be God’s house for all nations. There was a great big area called the Court of the Gentiles that was especially for people who weren’t Jews. But instead, that had been turned into a place for simply making money and so Jesus turned over the stalls that were doing this and basically upset a lot of people.
Easter Bunny: I bet he did. I imagine the same people who were cheering him as a king on Palm Sunday started to change a lot as the week went on?
Bartholomew: They did. And to hear about what happened – and it is really sad – let’s welcome up here Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene comes onto the platform
Easter Bunny: Hello Mary, you look really sad.
Mary Magdalene: I am. Really, really sad.
Bartholomew: (sympathetically) Tell us why Mary.
Mary Magdalene: Well, we had followed Jesus for three years. He did loads of amazing things that brought us hope that God’s rule was now coming into the world. He healed the sick, he drove out evil spirits, he showed God’s love to those who thought God wanted nothing do with them. And he did that for me – my life was in real mess until I met Jesus and he completed changed that through his love.
Easter Bunny: Well that all sounds wonderful Mary.
Mary Magdalene: It was. But in the last week in Jerusalem, people turned against him. The Jewish people wanted someone who would drive out the Romans and kill them all but they didn’t get that. The Jewish priests were really angry at what Jesus did in the Temple. And so they took Jesus to the Romans and made sure that he ended up getting killed.
Easter Bunny: Oh that’s terrible.
Mary Magdalene: Yes it was. All my hopes and dreams went up in smoke. I’m totally broken-hearted.
Mary Magdalene leaves
Easter Bunny: This is really, really sad. And all this happened on ‘Good Friday’? It doesn’t sound very ‘good’ to me.
Bartholomew: Well, I agree, that it looked that way. But something really, really important was happening when Jesus died on that cross. No one really understood what it was until Easter Day had arrived, as we’ll see in a minute. But there were a few signs that happened on Good Friday as a clue. So let’s welcome up the Roman Centurion because he was there in charge of the execution of Jesus and can tell us about it.
Roman Centurion comes onto the platform
Easter Bunny: (bitterly) I don’t know how you dare show your face. After what you and the horrible Roman soldiers did to Jesus.
Centurion: (humbly) I know. I deserve everything you’re saying. What we did to Jesus was horrible.
Bartholomew: It seems to have changed you though…
Centurion: Well it has… I think
Bartholomew: Can you tell us how?
Easter Bunny: I don’t think I want to hear anything you’ve got to say, you mean, nasty man!
Centurion: Well, like I say, I deserve what you’re saying. All of us do who killed Jesus do. And those who was passing by and said horrible things about him as well. But something happened when he died…
Bartholomew: And what was that?
Centurion: Well, if I’m honest, I’ve never seen such love. This man, Jesus, had everyone doing totally horrible things to him and he never once said anything horrible back. Never shouted at us, never told us how horrible we were being. Nothing. In fact at one point, he even asked God to forgive us because we didn’t know what we were doing.
Easter Bunny: (angrily) Not that that did any good. You just carried on, didn’t you?
Centurion: Yes, but something happened when Jesus died that was amazing. Well three things, actually.
Bartholomew: And what were they?
Centurion: Well first there was a massive earthquake. The sky had already gone really dark and when Jesus died, the rocks split open and the whole ground began to shake. It was like this massive act of love had somehow turned the whole world upside down.
Easter Bunny: And the second thing?
Centurion: Well I heard later that the curtain that the Jews have in their Temple to keep them separate from God because he is so holy and they aren’t … well what I heard was that at the very moment that Jesus died that curtain was ripped in two from top to bottom.
Easter Bunny: Wow, is that saying that because Jesus had died, people could somehow come close to God, like they never had before?
Bartholomew: I think you’re right, Easter Bunny. But what was the third thing, Centurion?
Centurion: The third thing involved me. I didn’t really understand what was happening but seeing the way that Jesus died and all of that love that he showed, I suddenly said: ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’. I don’t totally understand why. It probably shocked my soldiers. But I knew that something really big and really important had just happened and that the man at the centre of it was from God. It’s something I’ve got to think a lot more about.
(Centurion departs)
Easter Bunny: Wow, so the death of Jesus was really sad but, somehow, God was doing some really powerful stuff through it? Somehow allowing all the bad stuff to do its worst so that he could defeat it with his love? And that’s why Good Friday is so important?
Bartholomew: I think you’re right, Easter Bunny. People might think that evil is the most powerful thing in the world but it’s actually God’s love… and when the two came face to face on Good Friday, there could only be one winner.
Easter Bunny: I get that… but it doesn’t look like God had won. I mean, Jesus died didn’t he? The story ended sadly.
Bartholomew: Well no, Easter Bunny, as we’ll discover in a moment. But first let’s sing another hymn all about Jesus dying on the cross and what it meant.
Hymn: There is a Green Hill
Bartholomew: Well sung everyone. Do sit down.
Easter Bunny: Well finally we’re onto Easter Day and why that is so important. Easter Day, the day I get to give out my chocolate eggs!! But Bartholomew, I’ve got a confession to make.
Bartholomew: What is that?
Easter Bunny: Well the truth is that I’m so taken up with chocolate eggs that I tend to forget what Easter is all about. Something to do with new life?
Bartholomew: Don’t worry Easter Bunny. Most people in this country are as vague as you about it. But the way that we can discover why Easter Day is so important is to speak to someone who played a really central role in it. Someone we met earlier in very different circumstances – Mary Magdalene. Here she is again…
(Mary Magdalene comes up onto the platform)
Mary Magdalene: (joyfully) Isn’t it wonderful, isn’t it amazing!!!
Easter Bunny: (confused) Isn’t what wonderful and amazing? You’ve changed Mary. The last time we saw you, you were really upset about Jesus dying.
Mary Magdalene: But that’s just the point. He isn’t dead anymore! Jesus is alive!
Easter Bunny: Oh hold on. It’s one thing to believe in the power of God’s love. But even love isn’t powerful enough to make someone who is dead come back to life again.
Mary Magdalene: It’s true, I tell you! Early on Easter Day we went to the tomb where Jesus’ body had been left with spices to anoint his body and we found it empty!
Easter Bunny: Are you sure you went to the right tomb?
Mary Magdalene: Yes and the large stone was rolled away. I hurried to get Peter and John and they saw it too. But the best bit was when I then met with Jesus himself. He had come alive again! I could hardly believe what I was seeing but it was definitely him.
Easter Bunny: I’m sorry but I don’t get this at all! How can anyone believe that someone who was dead, however special, came alive again?
Bartholomew: Well perhaps we need to sing about it? Let’s stand everyone and sing our next song which is all about Jesus dying and then what Mary discovered on that very first Easter Day. And as we sing this perhaps all the children in church this morning can come up and gather around Mary on the platform because we need you for the end bit.
Hymn: Let like a lamb to the slaughter (you’re alive, you are risen)
Easter Bunny: Well it’s a great song. But can it really be true? Could something like that really have happened?
Mary Magdalene: Well I didn’t think something like that could happen but it did. One of Jesus’ disciples called Thomas found it just as difficult to believe … until, that is, he met with the risen Jesus too.
Easter Bunny: But we’re being asked to believe it without seeing Jesus, aren’t we? So how can we do that?
Bartholomew: Well how about thinking of it this way Easter Bunny. All of us here actually know that love has amazing power, don’t we? We can be having a horrible time with loads of things going wrong and acts of love from other people, really kind words, really kind actions make a real difference, don’t they? Acts of love really do, somehow, ‘punch above their weight’ and manage to win out over the bad stuff in this world. We all experience versions of that.
Easter Bunny: Well yes, but what’s that got to with Easter?
Bartholomew: Well given what we already know about what love can do – even in the imperfect and weak forms in which we are able to show it – is it really impossible that love in its purest form, and when it comes from God himself, can defeat anything that is bad and evil, including death itself? That’s the Christian claim of what happened on Easter Day. Jesus rising from the dead showed the whole world that God’s love had beaten the power of evil on Good Friday, that we are forgiven from our sins and that the world was now a totally different place and God’s love able to carry on beating the bad stuff.
Easter Bunny: Wow! I think I’m beginning to get it. It’s an exciting message, isn’t it? I think I’m now starting to see why Easter is the most important day of the year!
Mary Magdalene: (joyfully) The most important day of the year? It’s the most important day that ever happened! Jesus coming alive again was the first day of God’s new creation! It means the power of God’s love is let loose in the world and that everyone bad and evil within it is now on the run ahead of the day when Jesus returns and everything is finally made perfect.
Bartholomew: Well put Mary! It’s a shame we don’t hear more about you after Easter Day? The bloke voices tend to take over in the Bible a bit don’t they?
Mary Magdalene: Yes they do. But all four gospels tell of us women being the first witnesses of the empty tomb and Jesus coming alive again and that’s good enough for me. And don’t forget Junia and Phoebe, Lydia, Priscilla, Nympha, Chloe, Euodia and Syntyche. They’re all there in the New Testament helping to lead the church… if you’ve got eyes to see them! Part of what’s wonderful about God’s new creation is that he wants all men and women, all girls and boys to equally belong to him and equally become channels of his love.
Bartholomew: Well said, Mary! Well said!
Easter Bunny: I think we need another song to celebrate all of this. And since we’ve got the children here, why don’t you follow me round the church as we sing this now doing these actions in the chorus of ‘He has risen!’
(Easter Bunny explains actions for the children to do in ‘He has Risen’ as they follow him around the church)
Hymn: He has Risen
Easter Bunny: Well what a fantastic time. I really can see now why Easter truly is the most important day of the year … and the most important day that ever happened!
Bartholomew: Right you are, Easter Bunny. And it’s great to have you with your chocolate eggs here to help us celebrate it!
Easter Bunny: Really … you’re not just saying that?
Bartholomew: I’m not just saying that!
Easter Bunny: And can I come back on Easter Day to bring chocolate eggs for all the children?
Bartholomew: I think we’d better ask them. Do you want the Easter Bunny to come back on Easter Day to bring you chocolate eggs? I can’t hear you? etc (once the children are loud enough) I think that’s a yes! Easter Bunny, do come back on Easter Day with your chocolate eggs!
Easter Bunny: a big thumbs up followed by a closing prayer
What is drama – and especially drama that includes children? I think drama that is aimed at adults can get away with just having characters talking together but I don’t think it works so well for children; it is too many words. Last week at the children and families event I run we began with the Roman soldiers (red cloaks and wooden swords), marching through Jerusalem – a visual experience of Jerusalem as an occupied city. The soldiers were followed by the priests as the ones who had power over the temple and the rules by which the people lived their lives. We then had the entry into Jerusalem (No donkey but people shouting Hosanna! and throwing down their cloaks) followed by the turning over of the tables, stallholders fleeing and the anger of the priests. I briefly talked about the cross (large one in a corner of the room) and the resurrection (Risen Christ picture) (it was more a Palm Sunday event than Easter; if it had been Easter we would have done it differently – for example we once had Peter and John running through the church to be the first one at the tomb.) The parts were taken by a mix of adults and children, and all who wanted had some part. Several local schools round us have been doing their own versions of a Passion Play, one of the nine year olds was playing Judas. I asked him what had struck him the most, it was the betrayal with a kiss.
Wonderful Sarah
Much better than the former offering. Declaring Easter Sunday according to the Gospel of Tesco and St.Aldi [i.e. that easter Sunday is all about Easter bunny doling out Chocolate eggs.
I have read several versions of the panto on here all staring easter bunny as the symbol of Easter. What happened to “The Lamb of God?”
I don’t think you’ve read it particularly carefully Alan.
I agree with Sarahy it was very wordy. Some good content. However
Easter bunny although listening enthusiastical to the story from all the witnesses the final culmination is that Bunny still gets to whip the children up to believe that Easter Sunday is about Easter Bunny doling out choclate eggs.[Pagan symbols] reinforcing the gospel of Tesco et al.
God is robbed of His Glory and the people are robbed of His truth.
Unfortunatly “a little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
The egg has always been a symbol of fertility and rebirth in many cultures. In ancient Greece and Rome, colourful eggs were given as gifts to celebrate the spring equinox. On these days, the egg was revered as a sacred symbol of a new beginning.
According to a survey, the Easter egg hunt is one of the most popular Easter customs for 24% of respondents. But where does this custom come from? Presumably, this tradition is of pagan origin. In order to pay homage to Ostara, the goddess of spring, people gave away decorated and coloured eggs. When Christianity became the accepted religion, the tradition was banned. However, since people still wanted to give each other eggs, they were secretly hidden in a field.
From antiquity [The paschal] concerns deliverance from Judgement and slavery.
The custom of the Easter lamb goes back to the Jewish Passover, when a lamb is sacrificed to the glory of God and prepared according to strict rules. Jesus was also Jewish and celebrated Passover with his disciples. At the Last Supper, in view of the approaching death, he called himself the “Lamb of God” (Agnus Dei): “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). This refers to the death and resurrection of Jesus, through which he gave salvation to humanity.
This is why we often encounter the paschal lamb as a symbol at Easter, because it is precisely this redemptive event that is central to the Easter celebration.
The closeness to Judaism is particularly evident in the Easter service:
The priest enters the dark church with the lit Easter candle, symbolizing the pillar of fire that showed the Israelites the way at night during the exodus from Egyptian captivity.
A text on the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is read from the 2nd Book of Moses.
In the Paschal Exsultet, the praise of Easter, the priest sings of the true Lamb, whose blood saved the people from death.
Whereas The Easter bunny is the Easter symbol for excellence, not only on the Easter table or in the Easter nest of the children. Why a hare has become so popular is explained by the fact that hares stand for fertility and thus for life.
Shalom.
Thank you, Alan. You’ve made some good points, there.
God bless you.
Ah, we simple folk on the number 48 Omnibus hungering and thirsting Mat 5:6
Have been praying Ps 43:3. Ps 119:130
Today, with great delight I read in the largest circulating national newspaper, A.N.Wilson and was “filled”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11951181/A-N-WILSON-Christianity-bulwark-against-liberal-elite-believe-creed-day.html
SHALOM to you all this Eastertime.
Stephen Kurtz, I’ve read it – and it has good features and it is a solid attempt to deal with a problem that I have. Before my son came along, I’d have dismissed this sort of thing out of hand. Of course, at this time of year we celebrate the spring springing, flowers starting to grow, birds nesting in the bird boxes in our gardens, the springing of spring is all part of the natural laws created by God and His order of creation. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with Easter, which is the special revelation, the supernatural event, God becoming man at a distinct time point in history, the lowest point in history, ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’. From a purist point of view, it almost looks like blasphemy to juxtapose the celebration of God’s laws of nature with the once-for-all event, by which I see my own sin being dealt with in the crucifixion and that, in the resurrection, we are more than conquerors in Him.
I now have a 7 year old son, who is basically an intelligent and very happy child, but has been diagnosed as autistic and needs a level of protection from the real world. So far, he has basically lived in a world where bad things don’t happen – and I’m doing my best to keep it that way. When reading through the accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection in the four gospels, I took the view that I couldn’t expose him to that – the narrative in all four gospels is fairly horrible. He got all the Easter bunny, coloured eggs and that sort of nonsense at his pre-school – and I’m relieved that this is how they presented Easter to the children (there was absolutely nothing about somebody getting nailed to a tree and beaten up rather horribly before that).
So – on the one hand, I do deplore bringing the beginning-of-spring symbols into the church and mixing them with the Easter message. In fact, previously, if I had caught the slightest hint that a church did this, I would have put it on the list of churches that I should never darken the doors of again. On the other hand, I’m looking for ways to give a gentle introduction to Easter – and what it is all about – and things like rabbits, chocolate eggs, that sort of thing, are something that many people have been exposed to – so it may be reasonable to use it as a starting point.
I like the attempt – it does address a serious problem – but I feel that it may fall between two stools. On the one hand, it dumbs down the Easter story too much (the full horror of what happened to Jesus is toned down), but it still has too much of the gory details for my own situation.
I can appreciate your situation Jock, I too have a lot of experience with the difficulties of autism. In the case of young children, I do agree that one cannot be too graphic.
Of course, there is also peer/cultural pressure
[All my friends get easter eggs!! ] and we all want to protect all children from the harshness of life.
Your post is about life outside the church and beyond Ian’s question.
How to teach children? Who can protect children indefinitely?
Children today demand an enormous amount of prayer and the strongholds that influence them require to be pulled down. Cor 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) As always in prayer we are instructed to seek wisdom from God,
Col 4:5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
Jam 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
Jam 3:13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
Jam 3:15 This wisdom descended not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
Jam 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
My prayer for those in your situation are;-
Eph 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Eph 3:10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
Col 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
I pray that none will teach our children a lie simply because it was a lie that started all this mess .May your child grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jock,
Alan – thanks for yours. I posted because IMO it is very much relevant – the church should be reaching out – and I reckon that people such as my son are firmly in the category that the church should be reaching out to. You seem to agree that this can involve certain things that the ‘purist’ might find hard to swallow; here, the undiluted story is way too graphic.
I reckon that Stephen Kurtz has made a reasonable contribution towards addressing this (although 7 years ago I’d have simply thrown my hands up in horror at such a piece).
‘Kuhrt’
I like the sentiment behind this drama but it’s very wordy and I wonder if it might feel patronising to children.
For anyone wrestling with this question of introducing the Christian story to children, I can’t recommend Godly Play too highly.