Easter Ornaments - The Easter Story in Context

Recently I was invited to speak to our MOPS group on the topic of Easter traditions. As I prayed about how to best prepare for this talk, the Lord plopped a terrific idea into my head, about how to tell the Easter story in the context of the entire Bible. As christian parents we do need to be faithful to teach our children about the spiritual significance of this holiday, but I think the death and resurrection of Jesus makes more sense when our children understand why Jesus had to die. So with the Lord's help, I worked out a way to tell a condensed version of the entire Bible in about seven minutes, using household objects.



Starting with a lego tree to represent creation,


I told about how satan (a fallen angel who wanted to be god instead of God being God) came to the first man and the first woman in the form of a serpent, and lied to them about the fruit that God had told them not to eat. A plastic snake represented the serpent, and a plastic cherry from the Hi-Ho Cheeri-O game represented the fruit.


There were a couple other objects in between, but then we came to when the promised Savior, Jesus, was born, and that is what we celebrate at Christmastime.


I used a couple other objects to tell about Jesus' time on earth, and then got to the part where he was betrayed by a friend and turned over to the religious authorities, to whom he was a tremendous threat. I used a cross and nail when telling about Jesus' crucifixion (the red on the cross is wax ~ this was from an activity we did at a Good Friday service a few years ago).


I used a strip of cloth to tell about how when ladies went to the tomb three days later to put spices on Jesus' body, it wasn't there! The cloth his body had been wrapped in was neatly folded in the tomb, but Jesus' body was gone!


A playmobil crown represented heaven, which Jesus is preparing for those who put their trust in Him for salvation from sin.


When I did this at our MOPS group, it took me right about seven minutes to tell the whole story. When we do it around our Easter dinner table tomorrow I suspect it may take a few minutes longer because we plan to go around the table, taking turns reading the parts and hanging objects on the tree.

My children were very enthusiastic about helping me find objects to represent different parts of the story, and were eager to hear the whole story in context, from creation to the resurrection.

Thank you, God, for this great idea!

For a complete script of the story, and a list of all objects used, go here.