Connecting with Easter

Our son, Jacob, is excited about Easter a month ahead of time. Not because of a bunny, eggs or candy. He is excited about a sedar meal! Yes, my son, a seven year old, is excited about a Jewish tradition which we have modified to celebrate Easter weekend.

So, let me get this out of the way. Yes, I am a nerd! But this time, the nerdiness paid off! I was trying to figure out a way for Easter to become more exciting than Christmas for our kids. Our culture has made this extremely difficult. What developed in our house was that we built a tomb and found a crucifix with a removable figurine of Jesus. On Good Friday, the cross is up with Jesus on it until that evening, when he is taken off, wrapped in a cloth and left in the tomb until Sunday morning. Of course, when our son goes to find Jesus in the tomb, he is gone and then he has to search for a "risen" Christ figurine some where in the house. You can see more in this post from before.

But we also added the sedar meal and modified it to be meaningful to Jacob and this morning he was already talking about the rice krispie treat pyramid and finding the hidden bread. He wants to hide bread for Mom and Dad to find this year. He is looking forward to dipping vegetables in salt water (symbolic of the Red Sea and the tears of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt) and cracking the hard-boiled egg (symbolic of our and Pharaoh's hard heart that is softened by Christ) The meal tells the story of both the Passover in Egypt and the "Passover" at the cross. It tells of the salvation at the Red Sea and the tomb. But we want to make the celebration of these things connect even better.

What other suggestions do you have to make the week of Easter more fun, spiritually educational and point us and our children toward the wonderful message of new life in Christ?