How do we course correct for our students or children and bring the attention back to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus?

How do you make Easter significant for your student? Yes, Easter bunnies are intriguing for a season, and grandma’s Easter egg hunt may amount to a few extra dollars in your student’s piggy bank. But c’mon, there’s more to it than that, right? 

Of course there is, and most of you reading this probably believe so too. But how do we course correct for our students or children and bring the attention back to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus? How do we make Easter significant enough for them to understand the weight, but also the freedom, that Easter brings?

It starts with you, the parent, creating intentional space and time to make it significant. Let’s take a look at three things that will help make Easter significant for your students or children.

1.  Read the Resurrection Story.

This is a simple first step, but we as parents might take it for granted. I’m raising my hand. Take fifteen minutes to sit down with your children and read through one of these eyewitness accounts in the gospels: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, or John 20. 

This models the importance of several things to your kids. Firstly, it emphasizes the importance of Scripture and its place in the home. Secondly, it communicates to your children that family is essential. When you combine the two, the family unit becomes a unified force.

2.  Take Communion as a Family.

If you have never done this before, don’t fret. There is no better time to start than now. Read Luke 22 together and imagine how Jesus presented it to His disciples on the night of Passover before He went to the cross. Take a moment together to remember His body that was broken for you and me. Share in gratitude for His blood, the new covenant, that was shed for our sins. Take a moment to pray.

3.  Share a Passover Meal.

More specifically, share what’s called a Seder Dinner or Seder meal. If you really want to go all out and recreate what it would have been like during the Jewish festival of remembrance, prepare the traditional components and share them together as a family. The meal typically consisted of lamb, eggs, fruits, nuts, bitter herbs, vegetables, and salt water. Passover was at hand when Jesus sat down with His disciples one last time (Matthew 26). It would be the last time they fellowshipped together before He would be arrested and crucified. 

As a whole, if our goal is to make Easter significant for our kids, then it starts with us, the parents. Simple enough. As we say at Bethlehem Church often, “Whoever wants the next generation will get them.” Our job is to model Easter’s importance and significance for our students. If they do not see it as a priority in our lives, then it will not be a priority for them. It starts with us.

Let me leave you with this Proverb and this word of encouragement:

“Train up a child in the way he (she) should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  – Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)