I love to sing seasonal songs with my kids at school. Of course with it being Easter in the Southern "Bible Belt" bunnies and eggs aren't the only thing that people celebrate. Today I read a little book geared toward the primary grades called Celebrating Easter as an introduction to our singing time. The book started out with saying that people celebrate Easter for many reasons. Then it showed a page of Easter symbols and asked if the reader knew what the symbols meant. As you can guess....there was a bunny, an egg, an Easter Lilly, an Easter Bonnet with flowers, and a cross.
As my class of 2nd grade children looked at the pictures....all at once there seemed to be a vocal eruption of children commenting on the symbol of the cross. I got the kids quiet - not because of what they were saying but because they were all talking at once. So one at a time the ones that wanted to comment were allowed to talk. Below is a pretty accurate transcript of the children's comments. I will just use student 1,2, 3 etc since I cannot legally tell their names...
Student 1: "Mrs. Lightfoot, I know what Jesus' last words were on the cross....'Father forgive them cause they have hurt me'...(as the little boy said this...he stood up and stretched out his arms and looked up to the ceiling)
Student 2: "Jesus had somebody die beside him on each side. One man was going to be taken to Paradise.....I think that means heaven"
Student 3: "They put nails in his hands and feet."
(lots of kids took their hands down and said...THAT's what I was going to say!!!"
Student 3 again: "Mrs. Lightfoot did you know that some soldier stabbed him in his side?"
Me: "Yes, honey, I knew that"
Student 4: "They beat him with a whip that had glass or metal in it, He bled a lot."
Student 5: "But He didn't stay dead! What you said happened on Friday but by Sunday morning he was alive!"
Student 6: Yes, that's called the Resurrection. That's why Easter is happy,"
Student 7: "I think some angels came and got him out of the grave"
Student 8: "Now he's in heaven back with God"
Student 9: "So's my grandma."
At this point I pushed back the tears and continued to read the book.
I hope this Easter brings new life to the corners of your heart that have aged or grown calloused to the story of the Cross.
