Explaining the mystery of Easter to our littles. How?

New life has been on my mind so much lately.

No doubt that has something to do with being newly pregnant. (And learning about how we can generate new brain cells and literally regrow our brains – mind blowing.)

Truly, He makes all things new.

I know it’s also in part due to Holy Week ,which—if I’m not careful—can feel anything but holy.

Easter’s coming and the stores are bursting with chocolate and multi-colored foil. Cards with cute, fuzzy chicks fill the racks by checkouts. Commercials burst with images of families feasting and adorable littles in bright-colored new clothes and spring flowers and stuffed bunnies and more, more, more… stuff.

I even saw a giant, human-sized bunny roaming the halls of our local shopping center today. (And um, I might have even wondered if I was too grown up to go and ask for a photo and a chocolate egg. Don’t judge – I didn’t do it, ok?)

If I’m truthful I’d say I really do love it all. The tulips and dyed eggs and pretty baskets and even the temporary pastel explosion. Love it all.

(Have I mentioned copious amounts of yellow? Everyone should love yellow. Happy, happy, happy yellow.)

And then, wide-eyed from the spectacle of it all, I have this little voice that drifts up from hip-level:

“What is Eastah, Mommy?”

And I struggle to find the words for how to describe the most incredible miracle I’ve ever heard of… and entered into… and know that I know that I know took place.

This miracle of God becoming flesh before he moved into our neighborhood. And how he then taught and served and helped and healed, which made him loved and hated and ultimately tortured for… what?

For what?

For his rich, beautiful, humble, selfless life? (Really?)

And then after he was beaten and destroyed and nailed by death itself he disappeared into darkness to rot for three days only to breathe again when that blessed morning came and he stepped out more alive than he ever had been before. (How do I explain the brutality, the injustice… and the outright wildness of the miracle that followed?)

This? This crazy-wonderful-magical-unbelievable-excruciatingly–real story that has changed my life… and millions upon millions more?

This story that lives and breathes and changes and transforms entire families and communities and nations and me?

This too-good-to-be-true-and-yet–it-is-true account of the life and death of the One who means everything.

I tell my son about goodness, about generosity, about how this Jesus gave everything to us when he came and lived and breathed and ceased. I tell him about how he “died and rose again” (just like all “good” Christian parents do) and then I pray desperately that God will show me how to really tell the story. To live the story. To show the story.

How do I share this most holy of all stories to the ones I love most? Oh, the weight of that responsibility.

Oh, the privilege.

—

 

Please God, bring us new life. (It’s already done.)

Help us to step into it more… More deeply. More wholeheartedly.

Help us to understand all that you’ve given.

 

Help me to know how to unpack some of the mystery to my littles.

—

Dear friends, how do you explain Easter to your little bunnies?

 

P.S. On a festive note (which of course I love), if you’ve ever considered hosting an Easter Egg Hunt or gathering for a crowd of littles, here are 10 (low budget) tips to help get you started. We have been doing this every year for the past three years and it’s always so much fun!