April 5th, 2012 by Kristi Stephens

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him who has set the captives free! The Tomb is Empty! He is Alive! The Lamb has come and taken awaythe sins of the world!
Next Year! In the New Jerusalem!

-From Ann Voskamp’s Christian seder printable

One of the things we have talked about throughout this week is that Jewish people who do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah are celebrating the seder differently. They are looking back to Exodus and forward to a yet future Elijah, a yet future king.

As believers in Jesus, we, too look back – we think of the work of John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lamb of God, we look back to the finished work of Christ on the cross. We look forward, as well – but we look forward to His triumphant return!

Today we celebrated the search.

We discussed the three matzoh crackers and the breaking and hiding of the afikomen. I put the three matzoh on a plate and said, “why does the number three remind us of God?” The kids fairly quickly arrived at the conclusion that we were referring to the Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit. (If you’re intimidated about teaching your kids about the Trinity, this is a a great book!) We pulled out the middle matzoh and I broke it in two, and we talked again about Jesus, our Bread of Life, broken for us. Then I wrapped it in a towel and said, “now we’re going to hide this and you will have to search to find it. Why do you think we’re doing that?” I think I literally saw a lightbulb above AG’s head as she said, “when He was buried and then the women went looking for Him at the tomb!”

The kids searched for the Afikomen for a while (eventually they were just hiding and looking for a towel, as the matzoh had been breaking to smithereens in the process!), having a great time! I loved hearing them say, “I found the Afikomen!” :)

After that, we played “search for Elijah!” We had already discussed Elijah’s cup on the table, and that “Elijah” has already come! In Luke 1:17, Zechariah is told that his miraculous son who would later be known as John the Baptist would “go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

It is a tradition in the Jewish seder for the children to look to see if Elijah is coming to tell them about Messiah. We took a lighthearted twist on this and I had the kids play hide and seek. The “seeker” would count and then say aloud, “Where is Elijah?” Then when the “hider” was found he/she would yell, “I’m John the Baptist – behold the Lamb of God!”

It was corny, but it got the point across. :)

A seder is full of looking back and also looking forward. It has been a wonderful week of looking back at who Jesus is and what He has done – but it also builds in us an anticipation of what is to come.

Perhaps next year in the New Jerusalem…

And now I sign off to do some Good Friday planning. Are you ready to lead your children to the cross?

April 5th, 2012 by Kristi Stephens

For Day Four, AG and I worked for quite a while on this printable resurrection set. She actually told me this was her favorite thing we did all week! As I work on this post, the kids are behind me playing with this set and reenacting the story; LB has been saying over and over in his little husky voice, “that man really was the Son of God.”

Day Four was definitely a more abbreviated version of our Five Day Seder – Wednesdays are AWANA and Bible study night for us, so dinner is always rushed and crazy! I tried to have things ready ahead of time, but it still was a little bit chaotic. So, no pictures. =)

This time we focused on the lamb, and the roasted lamb bone joined the other items on our seder plate. One frivolous point: I have decided that I really do not like the smell of cooked lamb. Good thing I’m not and Israelite! This process wasn’t that enjoyable for me and I bought my lamb shank packaged up at the supermarket! Ha!

There is something about laying that big, heavy lamb shank on the seder plate that is full of emotion. The rest of the plate looks so attractive – the fresh green parsley, the sweet-smelling charoset, the white creamy horseradish… and then a large bone, such an obvious symbol of death. LB kept asking me which lamb this bone was from!

This really is one of the things I love about a seder meal, and stretching it out like this has more vivid impact both for me and my kids, I think. Everything is tangible and sensory. We can talk about the death of the lambs in the Old Testament and the death of The Lamb on our behalf… but looking at a large hunk of bone starting at you from the plate is a tangible reminder of the reality and cost of our sin.

As I was cooking the lamb (and I was clearly not enjoying it), AG and I were discussing that this process is a little bit “yucky” – and it wasn’t even our lamb. I don’t think she had thought before about the Israelites sacrificing their own cute and fuzzy little lambs. She said it was too bad that God didn’t have them sacrifice the Egyptian’s lambs instead, to make the loss of their lambs an extra plague!  But, no – it was their own. Because the weight of our sin is heavy, and the death of the lamb, the death of the innocent substitute, vividly pictures for us the cost of our redemption.

While we ate breakfast we listened to a large portion of the Passion Week accounts from the kids’ audio Bible {which, by the way, we love and recommend – and it costs less than a dollar!}. AG asked if we could “skip the part about Jesus dying.” I don’t blame her. That part is hard. It is heavy to bear. I want to skip ahead to the good news of resurrection Sunday, too!

While we ate dinner we were discussing again the meaning of the lamb. AG said softly, “the lamb died so they could live.” Just like our resurrection garden reminds us (as small sprouts are beginning to come up!), Jesus’ death brought forth life. Unless that seed fell into the ground and died… there would be no harvest, no new life coming forth.

Tomorrow is Good Friday. I urge you to not skip over it, not pretend like it’s just another day and “skip the part about Jesus dying.” The lamb shank on the plate is ugly. The crucifixion of Jesus is ugly. Our redemption is costly – and we must not turn our eyes away from what our Savior did for us to focus only on what is pretty and fun. Without Good Friday, there would be no joy of Resurrection Sunday!

Our plans are always in flex – looking back at my plan for Good Friday last year I improvised and changed a lot as we went through the day, but I am so glad we had a plan that gave structure and purpose. I’m still pondering how we will observe Good Friday this year, but you can see our plan for last year at  this link.

If you are enjoying these posts, would you consider sharing them on facebook, twitter, or pinterest to enable others to find them, as well?

April 3rd, 2012 by Kristi Stephens

Even though we were greeted this morning by the sun shining through our stained glass crosses…

…today was a harder day to get into with our Five Day Seder. It wasn’t because of uninteresting content or lack of interest… I just felt tired and worn out in general and had lots of heavy things on my mind! It was a reminder to me of how we should expect resistance when focusing on the meaning and beauty of Easter. We’re commemorating the day the head of the serpent was crushed, sin and death defeated. Of course Satan would much prefer we let it slide by with little intentional focus!

So we celebrated Jesus’ triumph at snack time with an empty tomb donut! {The trail mix is the path to the tomb!}

 The sweet taste of victory!

Tonight we continued our pattern of “traditional” seder foods with Sausage, Peppers, and Potatoes along with yeast rolls… hmm. At least the sausage was turkey and not pork. ;) I also made some charoset {ours was apples, raisins, almonds, honey, cinnamon, and a splash of grape juice} for us to have with our “seder” meal, which was very warmly received! We might be having charoset more often!

Tonight we focused on the question of “why do we dip our herbs twice?” as well as on the meaning of Elijah’s cup. This was the first meal we actually used the seder plate, now that we had a few different things to put on it!

The first time we dipped our parsley in vinegar, we talked about the salty bitterness of the tears of the Israelites in slavery, and the sadness of living in a sinful, broken world. I also filled a bowl with grape juice and put a large bunch of parsley in it, and we talked about how the Israelites were to dip the hyssop into the blood of the lamb to mark the doorways of their houses. Because the lamb died, they would live!

Once our hearts are marked with the sacrifice of Jesus, our Passover Lamb who died in our place, we will live!

Then we dipped our parsley in the charoset, we talked about the hope we have in Jesus. He wipes the tears of our suffering away and gives us hope! One day the brokenness of this world will be behind us and He will bring us into the sweetness of His presence. Earlier today AG was working on her “God time card” from church, and she was reading about Jesus preparing a place for us in heaven from John 15. The prompt said to draw a picture of her “dream house.” She didn’t know what that meant, so I told her just to draw a picture of the home she thinks Jesus is preparing for her. I LOVE what she drew! It fit so well with us talking about the sweetness of heaven! {Notice the bunch of balloons and Jesus hugging her!}

I’m so thankful that we “dip our herbs twice!” This world is broken, but the hope He gives us is sweet, indeed!

Good Friday is just a few days away! Are you ready to intentionally lead your children to the cross? Last year I received feedback that people wished they had known ahead of time what my “plan” was for the day as they wanted to do the same. If you’d like to see our schedule for the day last year on Good Friday, you can find it here. Also, if you are enjoying these posts, would you consider sharing them on facebook, twitter, or pinterest to enable others to find them, as well?

April 2nd, 2012 by Kristi Stephens

This morning the kids were begging for the second installment of our Five Day Seder at breakfast! As today’s activities involved eating horseradish, I put them off until lunch. {But who knows – perhaps an English Muffin and egg breakfast sandwich would be delicious with horseradish?}

Lunch today reminded us that Jesus laid down His life for us in love:

After lunch was over, we were ready for day two of our “seder.” Today we focused on the second question: “Why are we eating bitter herbs?”

First we talked about what “bitterness” really means, and talked about the bitter suffering of the Israelites during their time of slavery in Egypt. They were not free to leave and to worship God. We discussed how we, too, are slaves to sin without the work of Jesus on the cross – we are unable to free ourselves to truly worship and follow Him.

But when Jesus, the Bread of Life, was broken in our place and died on the cross, He took the bitterness of our sin upon Himself. We spread the horseradish (just a bit!) on a broken matzoh cracker and pointed out again that the matzoh is made without yeast, symbolizing sinless Jesus taking the punishment for our sin onto Himself. We have also been reading The Lamb by John R. Cross, which does an outstanding job of explaining the idea of a sinless substitute taking our punishment, so this terminology is very familiar to the kids.

I love how sensory-filled a seder meal is. We don’t just talk about the bitterness of sin – we taste it. We cringe because it lingers in our mouth.

Later on tonight we did our search for the “yeast!” This year I used pieces of colored tissue paper that I happened to have pre-cut and “hid” them in various places downstairs… even though they basically are in plain sight the kids get so excited about this!

After that I gave them each a feather and a paper bag and sent them to hunt for the “yeast of sin.” Using the feathers makes it a little more fun and challenging!

After they gathered up all the papers, I had them come back to the table and we used them to make a stained-glass cross. We cut cross shapes out of construction paper, and then the kids covered a piece of waxed paper with glue and tissue paper, making a colorful collage.

While they worked I used the time to reinforce to them again that the hunt for “yeast” symbolizes sin – and that Jesus took the bitterness of our sin upon Himself on the cross. When we were done, we decided to write two of the Bible verses we’ve been learning (using Seeds Family Worship’s “Seeds of Faith” cd!) onto the crosses. I love being able to tie all of these things together in their minds and hearts.

Once they dry we’ll be hanging these in the windows above our dinner table throughout the rest of Passion Week.

The kids are loving our Five Day Seder! LB wanted “another question” at dinner tonight and I told him we had to wait until tomorrow!

Good Friday is just a few days away! Are you ready to intentionally lead your children to the cross? Last year I received feedback that people wished they had known ahead of time what my “plan” was for the day as they wanted to do the same. If you’d like to see our schedule for the day last year on Good Friday, you can find it here. Also, if you are enjoying these posts, would you consider sharing them on facebook, twitter, or pinterest to enable others to find them, as well?