So I realise Good Friday is not until tomorrow, but I thought I’d strike while the iron is hot (read: while I have a spurt of energy) and write about what’s been going on in the approach to Easter this year.
Yesterday we had Finn’s preschool Easter Hat Parade. It was beautiful! I was so thrilled to see how much more involved he was this year: singing along and doing most of the actions, AND wearing a fabulous purple Easter hat he had made covered in blue glitter, green feathers and patty pans. This year’s musical program covered classics like “We are one, but we are many”, “Wind the bobbin up” and a ‘dance’ performance to “Hey Baby” (ugh that song!). The kids were full of chocolate and enthusiasm after an Easter egg hunt and after forfeiting their rest time!
Tonight (Thursday) we celebrated a family Passover dinner (like last year). This year we again shared in a Seder plate of
• Matzoh: unleavened bread, a reminder of the haste with which the Israelites fled Egypt, leaving no time for dough to rise.
• Maror: bitter herbs,we used horseradish, to symbolize the bitterness of slavery.
• Charoses: a mixture of apples, nuts, wine/grape juice, honey and cinnamon, as a reminder of the mortar used by the Jews in the construction of buildings as slaves
• Karpas: we used celery, representing hope and redemption; served with a bowl of salted water to represent the tears shed.
• Zeroah: roasted lamb, symbolizing the paschal sacrificial offering
• Wine: we used grape juice . Traditionally, four glasses of wine are consumed during the service to represent the four-fold promise of redemption
Not only was it delicious but it gave us a great opportunity to talk to the boys about what happened at Easter in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Finn remembered doing it last year (with excitement) and asked lots of questions about each component.
Brian told the boys the story of the Passover (from Exodus 12:1 – 12) and then read parts of Jesus’ last supper with His disciples from Luke 22: 1 – 23.
We also read some excerpts from “The Worship Sourcebook” Maundy Thursday service , including the following prayer of Thanksgiving:
With joy we praise you, gracious God,
for you have created heaven and earth,
made us in your image, and kept covenant with us –
even when we fell into sin.
We give you thanks for Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who became the true paschal Lamb
that was sacrificed for our salvation.
Therefore we join our voices
with all the saints and angels and the whole creation
to proclaim the glory of your name.
After dinner we went through some Resurrection Eggs (I got the idea from this fabulous blog). I have seen sets of 12 but thought that might be a bit too much for my kids’ ages, so this just used a half-dozen. Basically the resurrection eggs are a set of hollow plastic eggs that you fill with key verses and/or objects that tell key parts of the Easter story.
The boys took it in turns to open an egg and Brian and I took it in turns to read out the verse for each egg. The six verses and objects we used were exactly as I had seen on the aforementioned blog:
The boys loved it (although Finn was still a bit miffed when he opened the ‘empty’ egg – I’m pretty sure he thought I forgot to put something in it!).
Over all, a great night – pretty excited about the rest of the weekend (which includes Archer’s 2nd Birthday!!).
Here is a customary photo of the boys with Daddy after dinner (not great but this was the best of a whole bunch!).
