We've decided to take concrete steps to change that this year. Here are a few activities we're planning to put the focus back on Christ's resurrection:
The week leading up to Easter, we're going to spend each day reading what Jesus did that day leading up to the crucifixion and then resurrection. It will culminate on Easter day, when we'll read the Easter story aloud, passing around the Scripture with each person taking turns reading one verse at a time.
*Click here for one such reading plan.
We will also share what we are thankful that the resurrection has done for us, personally, and take time to look at Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, as well as End Times prophecies we are looking forward to His fulfillment of.
We will all sit on one side of the table - you know, like in Da Vinci's famous painting The Last Supper? It's definitely not from the Bible, but it's fun all the same. :-)
After dinner, our family always does some sort of sport outside, like baseball, dodgeball, or basketball. We thought that this year, we'd have a footrace - commemorating how some of the disciples raced to see the empty tomb for themselves.
And here's what we're thinking of writing on the placecards for the table, pulled from 1 Corinthians 15:3-8:
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time...then He apppeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all...He appeared to _______ also."
In the blank, Paul says "me," but that's where we'll write in the name of the person sitting there.
Do you have any activities or traditions planned this Easter to keep the focus on the resurrection?
Image Citation: The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. Wikipedia. {{PD-1923}} Public domain in the United States.
2 comments:
I love those ideas. Especially the place card one!
Easter is my favorite day of the year. I can almost taste that sweet hope in the air that comes from the resurrection.
One thing I like to do on Easter is wake up early, just as the sun rises. I read the story of the resurrection from the different points of view of Mary Magadelene, the apostles as they race toward the tomb(a personal favorite). I always feel like I'm somehow transported back into time and am right there with them, crazy amazed and breathless with wonder.
I love those stories, too, Clare! It seems a lot of accounts in the Bible can start to lose their emotional impact if I read them too often, but the women's and disciples' reactions to the resurrection get me every time. :-)
Post a Comment