When Beangirl was small, we decided to sidestep the Easter bunny and instead offer her an Easter morning treasure hunt around our little apartment. We wrote out clues and scattered them in conspicuous places. With a heavy dose of parental involvement, she puzzled her way through to the end where she found a gorgeous chocolate lamb. And an accompanying Bible verse about the Lamb of God. We felt very clever (and she felt clever, too). It was like we were sowing seeds for her growing faith. Later that morning, she was greeted warmly at the church door with the inevitable questions:
Did you get lots of lovely chocolate? Was the Easter bunny good to you?
We felt indignant. Undercut. And a little silly – as if our own chocolate scheme was a sufficient way of conveying the truth of the Gospel.
Chocolate is not only complication. Eggs, rabbits, baskets and new hats can also confuse matters. We want children in our churches to come to know this central story of our faith, but we find ourselves tangled up in the sweeter, easier parts of the season. The Easter story is a hard one to tell. There is so much violence, history and grief (and abstract theology!) and often we are unsure how to share it as good news with children. Where do you start? How do you share this story?
I’d like to begin a conversation with other parents (and thanks Matthew Ruttan for your tweaking thoughts here on the Record site.) But this is also a conversation for our wider church families, isn’t it? How might this look in our Sunday Schools and in our sanctuaries? What conversations do we need to have with our Sunday School teachers and worship committee members? How can all of us share Easter with children in ways that make sense?
I think we need to begin with ourselves. We are an Easter people. We need to show our children that Easter is important to adults. This is the biggest story of our year. If nothing else, we want kids to catch a glimpse of that. Easter matters to us. The Easter story is the joyful centre of who we are. Our children might see that in our anticipation and planning for Easter. They might find it in the memories we share or the books we choose to read or the ideas we bring up over dinner together or the quiet words we speak at bedtime. Our living can tell out our faith.
That said, Holy Week is hard. For children, the stories are confusing, the mood is serious and there are too many worship services. Families need to decide what services they can attend, and churches need to consider how they are sharing the story with children and their families in and out of worship time. It is easy to grumble about kids not experiencing the full story if they miss Good Friday, but sometimes (and some years) it makes more sense as a family to mark the day together at home. How does the church equip families for that? And how does it welcome and include children when they do come to the Seder Supper or the Maundy Thursday worship? Perhaps, this is where we all need both wisdom and imagination. Because it isn’t just a matter of having sufficient colouring sheets on hand: Easter looks different through kids’ eyes.
Carolyn C. Brown develops this idea extensively in her wise book “Sharing the Easter Faith with Children: Helping Children Observe Lent and Celebrate Easter.” She writes:
“Our task is to tell [children] the stories in ways that are good news to them where they are and, in the process, lay the foundations for growing understanding and deepening faith.”
Brown also blogs at worshippingwithchildren.blogspot.com about welcoming children as full participants in worship. In her Easter book, she explains that children’s understanding of Easter differs significantly from that of adults. For young children, death has very little reality so Jesus’ resurrection is not earth-shattering or new. It is just another happy fairytale, and it can be confusing why adults make such a big deal out of it. New life is a concept which does not make sense, either, as life itself is continually new and surprising when you are little. We need to look more closely to find an Easter hope that children can celebrate. Brown draws our attention to themes that we can emphasise with children of different ages.
- It is good news that God is stronger than any “bad guys”.
- It is good news that Jesus is always with us.
- It is good news that God forgives us when we make mistakes.
- It is good news that God’s love is stronger than anything that scares us.
Simple, but sound. And honestly, as a parent, I need these simple approaches to the Good News, too. These are direct statements which can connect the daily Lego-negotiations and playground fears with the words and actions of Christ.
The good news meets us where we are, then stretches us as we grow. Stretches us and stretches with us. It is a reality that we grow into when we let it permeate our life together. There is always new life in the Gospel, and Easter is always bigger than we can understand. Which might just be the best things for us parents to remember.
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A version of this article appears in Glad Tiding Magazine earlier this spring.
