He is Risen!

He is risen, indeed!

I hope you all have had a blessed Easter! Due to illness, I didn't quite feel prepared, but you know, the great thing about God is that He meets you where you are at. And Easter is all about Him...I am thankful for His gift.

Speaking of being 'all about Him' and gifts, each year we do Easter baskets for the girls. Each year I strive to keep the focus on Christ and also maintain life principle integrity. I try to be as 'green' and non-commercialistic as possible. This year, I didn't quite go as far as I wanted to (the lack of preparedness...been sick for about two weeks with type A influenza). But I hope that my girlies could experience the joy of Christ's resurrection and the feeling of the gift through our gift...

This year I tried to choose things that represented what, precisely, Christ's death and resurrection achieve for us.



Each girl got a coloring book and two picture books mostly for fun...one book each was about Easter from a Christian perspective. Then they got a dark chocolate cross...death for the Christian is bittersweet. Death has lost its sting, and it is through death--Christ's, and our 'old man'--that we experience true life. They each got a new skirted leotard and a pair of tights for ballet class, and that represents being clothed in righteousness. Through Christ's death and resurrection, we are made righteous, and we put off our old man and on the new life in Christ. It is based on Isaiah 61, specifically 61:10 "I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."

To represent the death and resurrection, each girl was given a packet of seeds. Jesus uses wheat kernels (seeds) to illustrate how death brings more fruitful, abundant life and therefore the seeds represent His death and life as well as ours. The baskets were chosen to use as planters for the green beans we are going to be planting :) (see? environmentally friendly!).



Lastly, I made each of the girls a "crown of life". Through Christ's death and resurrection, we have the gift of eternal life. It also represents our inclusion into the Body of Christ and family of God, as heirs and co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8), therefore we are daughters and sons of the Most High King. And finally, it represents our reward in heaven and acknowledges that our true hope and home lies in that realm, not here. The term 'crown of life' comes from Revelation 2:8-11 "“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.""



The brown vine along the bottom represents the crown of thorns that Jesus' wore, but because He already paid the price and death has lost its sting, it is blooming with red 'roses' and no thorns. The middle is a heart, the color white was chosen because He has washed us "white as snow". The gold embroidered part is meant to be evocative of wings/heaven and our reward there (plus the pretty flowers). On the inside, there is a strip of red satin ribbon. It is meant to represent Jesus' blood which washes us white as snow (so when they put on the crowns, they put on His blood but you can't see it, you can only see the whiteness).



Here they are all set up, with some hershey's kisses and robin's egg-filled plastic eggs:


The girls enjoyed their gifts and also the lesson. It was a good beginning to our Easter Sunday, and put us all in the mood for church and further worship and learning. :)