Christ is Risen

He is risen, indeed!  Thank you, Lord Jesus, for loving us enough to sacrifice yourself on our behalf.  You paid the ransom...and today you overcame sin and death.  What a glorius day!

I've said before that I feel like God shows me something new every Easter. 

This year as I was sitting with Hunter in Cubbies storytime on Wednesday night, I was overcome with chills as I listened to the part of the resurrection story where Jesus sees Mary and the other women crying at his tomb.  I loved thinking about that moment when the women saw the man they loved alive. 

Risen and glorified. 

Oh how I look forward to that day..to his triumphant return.  Lord come quickly...

Resurrection Rolls

Today we made resurrection rolls, and y'all, they were goooood.  As always, the munchkins were excellent helpers in the kitchen...

I explained that the marshmallow represented Jesus' body and the crescent roll represented the tomb...

When I pulled him out of the oven, and Hunter saw this...

 he said, "The tomb is empty!  Jesus disappeared!"  He was so excited:)

Looking forward to tomorrow!

How He Loves Us

"...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  Romans 5:8

As with every Good Friday, we put our cross out this morning and thanked God for the ultimate gift...a sacrifice that is even more unfathomable now that I am a parent, feeling the love of a mother that is like nothing I'd known before...Jesus, our sacrificial lamb, slain for our sins.  We remember it on this sorrowful day, but we have hope as we look toward Sunday when will celebrate that He is Risen!

Today we read about Jesus' arrest, torture and death on the cross and about his burial in the tomb - sealed with a stone, guards placed in the front to assure that the disciples wouldn't steal his body.  For everyone knew the promise he'd made to rise in 3 days, and they were going to make sure no one made them a fool by taking the body and staging a scene that was unimaginable.  A missing body.  An empty tomb.

But we know.  That stone and those guards couldn't stop the Living God.  His power cannot be measured.  And as we will see on Sunday, He is very much alive.

After the story, we took some crepe paper and sealed off our front room just like the tomb was sealed with the stone.  My kids love tape, so they thought this idea was pretty cool...

(Can't you just see the 16 year old version of her making that exact same face.)

Today we remember that his body was broken for us.  Broken and placed in a sealed, guarded tomb.  Before looking to Sunday when he overcomes that, let the pain and loneliness of his death sink in.  He did that for you.  He died for you.

The Lamb

I knew I wanted to do a Passover dinner this year, but was really overwhelmed until a friend sent me this link from Ann Voskamp's blog.  She is a beautiful writer, and I am so thankful for the Christian Passover meal she shares in her writing.

The kids were a little restless at this young age, but Hunter loved getting to participate by asking the 4 questions.

Why are we eating matzah tonight?

And as I began to break it, he pleaded "Don't break it, mommy!  It's like breaking Jesus' heart!"  But I did break it as I told him, tonight we eat matzah to remember Jesus.  To remember that "by his stripes we are healed."  I remind him that Jesus' body was broken for us, so we break the matzah in rememberance of Him.

So we move on and he asks, Why are we eating bitter herbs?

To remember that long ago the Israelites were in bondage, slaves of Pharoah.  But today someone has paid the price for us so that we no longer live in bondage to our sin.  We remember that Jesus was our sacrificial Lamb, absorbing all of our sin on the cross.

Why do we dip our herbs twice?

The Israelites dipped branches in lamb's blood to mark their doors in order to be passed over by the angel of death, coming to destroy Pharoah's people. And as they did so, they wept over their life of slavery in Egypt. But we have hope. Our Lamb's blood marks new life and hope for us...freedom from sin and death.

Why are we eating this meal reclining?

 "Because the Passover Lamb has brought our freedom." We recline as Jesus did with his disciples the night before his death. We remember his body and his blood, just as he told us to.

Thank you, Jesus, that you are our Passover Lamb.  We are filled with hope for the future because you became the sacrifice for us.  Your blood has set us free.

Servant King

Tonight we read the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet after the Passover dinner.  I explained to Hunter and Charlotte that Jesus taught his disciples to serve others by demonstrating his own love and service to them. 

Yesterday while we were reading in Charlotte's Bible, she pointed out that the disciples were wearing flip flops.  It was perfect timing really, because tonight I reminded the kids of the "flip flops" and explained that when Jesus was alive, everyone wore sandals and had to walk everywhere, so their feet were really dirty and gross with mud and possibly sewage (you know Hunter thought that was hysterical).  I explained that when people gathered in someone's home, the servant of the home would wash all of the dirt and grime off of the guests' feet. 

Jesus put himself in that role...making himself a servant of not only the Most High, but of us...his creation.

So we pulled out our basin and filled it with water...

And took turns washing each others' feet...

To demonstrate our love for each other...

And our desire to serve one another out of reverance to God...

Who is the King of Kings who came to serve and to save...

Mary's Perfume

Today we read the story of Mary (the Mary of Martha, Mary and Lazarus) annointing Jesus' body with her perfume.  This story in Matthew 26 and John 12 tells of Mary pouring out her expensive perfume on Jesus' feet and head and then wiping his feet with her hair.  What a beautiful gesture...an extreme showing of devotion and love to this man who will be her Savior.  The Bible tells us that Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus deeply.  He wept when he heard of Lazarus' death (before raising him from the dead).  The friendship he had with that family was true and real.  I love to daydream about what it would've been like to have been Mary.  To be a devoted follower of Jesus in the flesh.  To be able to spend time with him while he was here on Earth as one of us. 

John 12 tells us that after Mary poured out the perfume, the aroma filled the house.  So to remind us of this act of love, the pouring out of her expensive perfume (that was worth a year's wages)...which Jesus tells us was intended to be used to prepare his body for burial, we made reed diffusers.  And I hope that everytime we smell the aroma around our home, we will be reminded of Jesus' body that was broken for us.

Hunter was really independent in making his reed diffuser.  He cut out the construction paper all by himself...

And put his stickers on alone...

He actually got mad at me if I tried to help him:(

Charlotte chose pink construction paper, but was having a hard time with it, so we decided to switch to ribbon...

After decorating our jars, we poured in the liquid...

And then put the bamboo skewers in...

They were so proud of their final product...

I put mine in the kitchen...

Hunter put his on his dresser...

And we set Charlotte's on the shelf in her room...

If you want to make your own reed diffusers, just click on this link for directions.

Resurrection Garden

My prayer for my children from birth has been that they would know the Lord intimately and fall deeply in love with him.  As we prepare for Easter, the most important holiday to us, I want to teach them about Jesus' love and sacrifice for us...so that they may know the weight of what he did for us from an early age. 

We started off our holy week activities today by making a resurrection garden.  First we went on a little scavenger hunt around the neighborhood for 6 twigs and a big rock.  Charlotte found some twigs and a medium sized rock pretty quickly, and she was so proud...

We went all around the neighborhood looking for a bigger rock, and finally found one in our next door neighbor's yard.

Once we had all of our supplies, we started on the garden, making a hill with potting soil on top of the "tomb" (a small terra cotta pot)...

Then we added some pebbles in front of the tomb...

And placed our big rock partially in front of the tomb, showing that the stone has been rolled away...

Then we sprinkled the grass seed on top of the hill...

And took our twigs to make 3 crosses...

At this point, Hunter started talking about Jesus' crucifixion, telling us that there were 3 crosses because there was 1 "bad" robber and 1 "good" robber with Jesus, which opened up an opportunity for me to tell him (once again) about Jesus' saving grace...how he forgave the robber that believed in him, telling the thief that he'd be in heaven soon.  Hunter responded by going into a monologue about how there was blood on Jesus' hands and feet and body with a little too much enthusiasm.  (I fear that I will never understand boys as long as I am raising him.)  I tried to divert him to the weight of what happened that day.  How Jesus took all of our sin on his shoulders because God is so holy that he can't be in the presence of our sin.  Clearly, it was a little over his head, but we'll just keep teaching:)

After we put our crosses in, Hunter watered the soil so that the grass will grow...

I can't wait until it comes in.  New life.  That's what we'll see in those little blades of green.  And what we have in our Lamb.  Our Savior.  Our King.

Tonight we talked about Palm Sunday and what it meant, and then read the story of Jesus taking his disciples to Jerusalem for the Passover feast.  Riding in on a donkey with all of the people laying their coats on the path in front of him and waving palm branches while shouting, Hosanna!  Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the King of Israel!

He is the King.  The King of Kings who came down from heaven to die a gruesome, lonely death for me and for my sweet son and daughter and husband and for you.

If you want to make your own resurrection garden, just follow the directions here.