No Bunny is Coming for Easter

In our worship and study of the Bible, we believe the LAMB represents the Son of God during the Feast of Passover. At our house, we use LAMBS, not bunnies, to celebrate the JOYOUS occasion of the Resurrection of our LORD after His crucifixion.

Although we do have some wicker and plastic baskets now, our treats and egg collections were more often placed in baskets of our own creation.

HERE’S HOW:

Roll down paper bags (usually free) and gently shape to look like a bowl.

Spray paint ($1 can) with pastel colors.

Shred colorful junk mail (also free) to create compostable grass/padding for your new home-made basket.

Fill with boiled oatmeal cookies and fresh fruit and, of course, the more traditional dyed boiled eggs.

Another ASHLEY tradition is to carefully construct and decorate paper LAMBS.

Glue curled papers (quilled) or cotton balls to simulate wool.

Let the children spend time making their LAMB very special.

Don’t forget:
Have them write their name and the year somewhere on the body of their LAMB.

On Friday night, we read about the crucifixion of JESUS.
Discuss how JESUS’ disciples and loved ones must have been feeling: the fear and disappointment.
Carefully place your crafted LAMBS into your basket.
Cover it with a red cloth to symbolize His shed blood.
On Sunday morning, when the children wake, the red cloth is gone and so are their own hand-crafted LAMBS.
In their baskets are all their treats- and usually some other form of lamb (chocolate or stuffed).
Discuss how JESUS’ disciples and loved ones must have celebrated when they discovered that JESUS had been raised from the dead.

We do hide and hunt dyed boiled eggs with the children. It is a good time to discuss with the children how some pagan traditions got mixed into the Christian celebration of the Resurrection. The pagans may have used eggs to symbolize life and resurrection or eternal life. Our LORD has freely given us the Gift of Life. (John 3:16)

Instead at Passover, the family tradition is to search the house to remove any leaven, symbolic of sin.

Donna of toteallyreal.blogspot.com tells us:

The days before Passover begins are spent cleaning the house and getting rid of anything with leaven in it. We have a “bread hunt” the night before Passover, where we search for leaven. I hide 10 pieces of bread, and my husband leads the hunt in the dark with a candle. The bread is swept into a paper bag which is burned the next morning. This is a wonderful illustration of getting rid of the sin in our lives. The leaven represents sin, and we need to search our hearts in order to make sure there’s nothing hiding in there that we need to get rid of. God’s light helps us in this search and reveals the leaven. Then we need to get it out of our lives and totally destroy it. It’s really quite a job finding all the leaven and getting it out of our house. There is leaven in the most unexpected places!

It is with GRATITUDE that I realize: We don’t have to search for LIFE (what the eggs symbolize)- JESUS has provided it for each of us.

We are all offered abundant life through the atoning work of our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

To learn more, read a LOVE LETTER.