There is no greater story to teach your children than the true story of Easter. It is about the greatest sacrifice ever made. The son of God, who died here on earth, so that we could be cleansed of our sins. Our sins are what keep us from being with God. With Jesus’ payment for ALL of our sins, we one day get to spend eternity in heaven with God and our loved ones who choose the path of Jesus too. All we have to do is accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord of all of our lives. This is why Easter, which is the celebration of Jesus’ sacrifice, death, and resurrection is the most important story to share with our kids. I know I want my children to accept the story of Jesus in their hearts and choose him to be their savior someday, so teaching them about Jesus early is very important in our family.
It can be hard to tell the story from our own words sometime. Thankfully there are some great websites that tell the story for us! We can read these with our children.
The Focus on the Family website has a 5 part series on Easter that even helps you incorporate Easter bunnies and baskets into talking about the true story of Easter.
The other websites I can recomend are https://www.whyeaster.com/story/the_easter_story.shtml and http://www.thoughts-about-god.com/easter/easterstory.htm These sites do a great job telling the true story of Easter for you to share with your kids. Below are blurbs from each of the three websites I mentioned, along with the links to continue reading on their site. I hope you find this information helpful for teaching your children the true story of Easter.
You can also find some story books online that tell the true Easter story. One I recommend is by Max Lucado. Here is the link on Amazon to this book: http://amzn.to/2oPH6Re
From Focus on the Family
From the Focus on the Family website:
“If you have walked through store aisles lately, you’ve seen many reminders that Easter is coming. What isn’t so obvious is that, for Christians, Easter is truly the most significant day of the year.
At the store we find:
baskets and eggs as the symbols of Easter, instead of a cross and an empty tomb
a bunny that brings candy instead of a Savior who brings life
Is it any wonder that our children are more excited about the coming of the Easter Bunny than about the coming of God’s kingdom? We spend many days on egg-coloring and baskets but focus on Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection for only one hour on Sunday morning.
Many parents, however, are looking for ways to make the true significance of Easter a reality to their children. Well, here’s the good news!
Bunnies, eggs, baskets and more can become tools that parents use to bring a greater understanding of the message of Easter. With just a little creativity, all these symbols that often replace the real significance of Easter can be the very things that make the holiday full and rich with spiritual meaning.
Tell the Story of Easter with Eggs
Instead of merely coloring eggs this Easter, why not use the eggs to tell the story of God’s love and forgiveness?
Before you hide the eggs or put them in baskets, encircle each one with a colored strip of paper (or place the strip inside plastic eggs) that tells one small part of the Easter story. When the eggs have been found, the children must unscramble the story and put it in the right order.
Instead of decorating the eggs with dye, or in addition to dying them, write one attribute of Jesus on each egg. You can do this by writing on the egg with a crayon before you put it in the dye. If you are using plastic eggs, you can write with a permanent marker or paint pen.
Send kids on a hunt for the eggs that have Jesus’ attributes written on them. Instead of just discovering eggs, they will be discovering the wonderful things that make Jesus so special. If the eggs are plastic, fill them with treats to remember how sweet the life of Jesus really is.
Dye eggs in certain colors and use them to tell the story of salvation.
Teach them about Jesus by talking about what a real Easter Bunny is”…click on their link to continue:
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/holidays/celebrating-the-easter-season/finding-easter
From WhyEaster.com
From the Why Easter Website:
“About 1960 years ago, Jesus and his friends and followers were in Jerusalem preparing for the special Passover celebrations.
At the same time, the chief priests and other Jewish officials were meeting at the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest, to discuss ways of capturing Jesus quietly, and killing him. They wanted to kill Jesus because they hated how popular he was with the people and thought he might take some of their power away, and also more importantly, they did not believe Jesus’s claim that he was the Son of God. “But we can’t do it during the Passover celebrations,” they agreed, “because the people might riot.”
Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’s twelve disciples, went to the chief priests, and asked, “How much will you pay me if I betray Jesus to you?” They gave him thirty silver coins. From then on, Judas watched for a chance to betray Jesus to them.
On the first day of the Passover ceremonies, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where are we going to eat our Passover meal?” Jesus replied, “Go into the city and find a man carrying a water jar and tell him, ‘Our Master says, my time has come, and I will eat the Passover meal with my disciples at your house.'” So the disciples did as he told them, and prepared the meal there”…continue the story by following the link:
https://www.whyeaster.com/story/the_easter_story.shtml
From Thoughts-about-god.com
From the Thoughts About God Website:
“The Easter Story – Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection
The Gospel of Mark Chapters 14-16 (taken from the New Living Translation of the Bible) Share page easter story “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it” (John 3:16-17).
The Last Supper (Mark chapter 14)
So the two disciples went on ahead into the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover supper there.
In the evening Jesus arrived with the twelve disciples. As they were sitting around the table eating, Jesus said,
“The truth is, one of you will betray Me, one of you who is here eating with Me.”
Greatly distressed, one by one they began to ask Him, “I’m not the one, am I?”
He replied,
“It is one of you twelve, one who is eating with Me now. For I, the Son of Man, must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for My betrayer. Far better for him if he had never been born!”
As they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread and asked God’s blessing on it. Then He broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying,
“Take it, for this is My body.”
And He took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them,
“This is My blood, poured out for many, sealing the covenant between God and His people. I solemnly declare that I will not drink wine again until that day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.”
Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives”….click the link to continue reading:
