Easter education
The Easter story is a familiar one to Christians throughout the world. Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey to cheering crowds and within a week's time is crucified on a wooden cross, only to rise from the dead and emerge from the tomb.
The story is both wondrous and inspiring, yet horrifying in it's cruelty. It's also one that adults can struggle to discuss with young children.
While the details are gruesome, the core message of sacrifice and redemption is essential for youngsters to understand, religious education teachers throughout the county said.
"That is a hard concept," said the Rev. Herb Goetz of Plain Grove Presbyterian Church in Plain Grove Township, Lawrence County, "because you have the question of 'What is death to a child?' and also 'What is coming back alive?'"
"Death is a difficult concept to understand, but it's a reality," said Roy Warren, pastor of Christ Our Rock Bible Church in Slate Lick.
"If (children) are 4 or 5 years old, they've likely had a pet die. Then imagine that it comes back to life. We see things die, but we don't see them come back to life — but with God, all things are possible. ... It's something that can't be skipped. You need to put it forth in the terms they can understand."
"A lot of times, people try to water it all down, especially with kids, and not even give the truth," Warren added. "I really do believe that it's still got to be the truth."
At Zion United Methodist Church in Sarver, Sunday school teacher and youth leader Cheryl Peters agreed.
In teaching the Easter story, Peters discusses the 39 gashes Jesus received — "things that kids don't normally hear about," she said.
"We want to give them a biblical foundation straight from the Bible, not like you would see in a children's book," she added.
Peters said children are impacted hearing how Jesus was treated in Jerusalem — being beaten with a leather whip until he was unrecognizable. And older children can hold, touch and place on their heads on a crown of thorns to get a small indication of the pain it would have caused.
"They are impacted by it. They understand. Our society really has children growing up a lot faster than we are sometimes comfortable with," she said. "What they see out there — there are a lot of ways for them to access it, so we want them to know the truth."
To put those abstract ideas into terms children can understand, Sunday school teachers often take a more concrete approach.Young children, especially preschoolers, learn by touching, tasting, seeing and doing, so teachers incorporate as many visual and tactile activities as possible."To reach kids today, you have to teach them where they are," Cindy Zonts of Grace Community Church in Cranberry Township said.Because today's children are what Zonts calls the "video generation," Grace Community relies heavily on video presentations to get the message across. Children watch a space-themed video series featuring characters that represent God, sin, Jesus and people on Earth.The video lessons are reinforced through a variety of activities. The Bible story is told directly, followed by discussion, quiz competitions, discussions and games.Sections called Learn It, Link It, Compass Point, Live It, Memory Verse and Quiz Time bring the video series into focus and help children apply the lessons to their daily lives, she said."Rarely do we have kids who are not on the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens next," Zonts said.Religious education teachers at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Cabot also incorporate videos into their CCD program, said Sister Eugenia Forbeck, director of religious education."The Proud Tree," for instance, tells the story of a tree that eventually becomes Jesus' cross."The sadness and sympathy for the suffering of Jesus mixes with the joy of the resurrection," Forbeck said, "and that the tree supported the suffering Christ."Forbeck said teachers also use stories, songs and analogies to help children understand."We try to put it into their reality and still not lose the concepts," she said. "Our third-graders drew pictures of the Stations of the Cross. They were awesome. They had it. Sometimes they have more of a handle on this than we do.""Sometimes as we grow older, there are more things that clutter our lives. Children are innocent enough that they can see things that we do not see," she added.
For many churches, religious education involves not only the children, but the entire family. At St. Peter's Episcopal Church on East Jefferson Street, an agape dinner on Maundy Thursday involves both adults and children."The main objective is for (children) to understand and carry this on into their adulthood," said Judy Herman, director of Christian education."When we have the agape dinner and a very solemn service following the dinner, we try to get parents to bring their children to teach them that it's a very solemn time for the 40 days up until Easter, and then Easter is the celebration.""When we talk to them about the Last Supper," she continued, "we let them know that this is what started our communion. We encourage the parents to bring them. Although it's a meal that most children don't like, they do enjoy coming."Another favorite teaching aid for young children is resurrection eggs — 12 colored plastic eggs containing different symbols from the Crucifixion story.One egg, for instance, contains a small plastic donkey to represent Jesus' ride on the animal into the city of Jerusalem on what is now Palm Sunday.Other symbols include silver coins to represent the price paid to the apostle Judas for betraying Jesus, a miniature Passover cup representing the Last Supper, praying hands representing Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and a strip of leather to represent the whip used to flog Jesus."We learn visually at that age, so it is a help," said Donna Scholl, director of children's education and ministry at Zion. "These symbols are also placed around our church, and they see them and remember what it's for. That age level retains much better with the visual and in handling."Peters said Zion also used the resurrection eggs as the basis of their traditional egg hunt. The event on March 15 included the entire family. As participants gathered after the hunt, they each shared a part of the Easter story.Peters said the hunt was well received, with 20 families following a list of clues to find 12 eggs of an assigned color."We wanted to incorporate the real story of Easter into something fun like an Easter egg hunt. That's what makes it special," she said.The preschool and kindergarten children in the Plain Grove Sunday school class of Linda Goetz also have fun as part of their learning. Goetz uses visual props and lets them make noise with musical instruments to get her lessons across.On Palm Sunday, children had the opportunity to wave palms during a children's play."They're inquisitive. They each bring a certain joy," she said. "I explain things as simply as I can when I talk to them. This is a sad time, yet it's a very joyous time. Jesus had to go through so much because he loved us.""It's all about God reaching out to us," said Kathy Shever, who teaches middle school children at Faith Lutheran Church in Butler. "If Jesus hadn't died for us — if that wouldn't have happened — we would be permanently separated in Hell.""I'm not sure that even as we get older we can fully grasp how Christ died for us," Scholl said. "As far as children can understand, this is part of God's plan, that Jesus died for us and that we are loved, truly loved. I think they get that."
