23. World Map.
Story: The Great Commission. Matthew 28:16-20.
Hymn: We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations, or Lead on, O King Eternal (One of my very favorites - listen online here!)
24. Cotton Ball.
Story: The Ascension. Acts 1:1-11
Hymn: Thine be the Glory, or On Jordan’s Stormy Banks (This is Laurel's very favorite hymn. I love hearing her little voice sing, "I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the promised land." May God make it so, little one.)
And that brings us to the end of our Easter devotions! If you have any notes, questions, corrections, or hymn suggestions to improve these Resurrection Eggs devotions, I'd love to hear them.
This year I'd love to start work on doing something to celebrate Pentecost, since these holiday devotions offer such a great teaching time that our girls excitedly look forward to. I haven't found a lot of leads on celebrating Pentecost (especially for protestants), so if you have done anything about it or can point me to any good resources, I'd love to hear about that too!
For the other posts on our Resurrection Eggs Easter Devotions, see Part 1, Part 2, and look for Part 4 in the next few days.
13. Sponge with vinegar. (Cut a small piece of a sponge, and lightly soak with vinegar. You don't want to put too much vinegar in it or it will make the paper fall apart. This one you will have to re-charge every year.)
Story: Jesus breathes his last. Matthew 27:45-50.
Hymn: Death of a Son
15. Woven curtain. (I wove a small square for our curtain on a toy "Weave-it" type loom, but you could easily use a square of fabric, torn in two up the middle.)
Story: Temple veil torn in two. Matthew 27:51-53.
Hymn: Were You There?
16. Spices.
Story: Anointing Jesus’ body. Luke 23:50-56.
Hymn: We Three Kings (especially verse 4)
8. Soap.
Story: Pilate washes his hands. Matthew 27:11-26.
Hymn: No Tramp of Soldiers’ Marching Feet (This is a fairly modern Lutheran hymn that I found when looking for songs about Pilate. It's set to a well-known tune - Kingsfold - and I really like it. I wish it were more well-known! I couldn't find any lead sheets or free sheet music, but here is a chord chart I worked out, and here's a video of a choir singing it. We sing it in a more folksy-style and with a lot quicker tempo with the kids.)
Ever since I was a little girl, my family celebrated the season of Advent (the days of December leading up to Christmas) with special Advent devotions. We had a big felt Christmas tree wall hanging, and each night one of us kids would get to take a turn hanging a felt ornament that symbolized part of the story of Christ's incarnation, while Dad would read a corresponding passage from the Bible. Collin and I have been doing Advent devotions in our own little family now for three years, and the girls love it so much that I wanted to expand our holiday devotions to celebrating Easter as well.
Resurrection Eggs are certainly not my original idea. You can buy sets of them at Christian book stores, and find ideas for building your own sets all over the Internet. I've put a lot of work into creating our set over the past three years and I really like the way it's turning out, so I wanted to share our version with you all.
Our Resurrection Egg set includes a full two dozen eggs, and they extend the Easter season on both sides. We start 17 days before Easter (that's today, this year!), with Easter Sunday being egg number 18. The remaining six eggs continue past the resurrection to Christ's ascension back into heaven. Each egg contains both a little object symbolizing part of the passion or resurrection, as well as a slip of paper with a Scripture reference to read and discuss. After the girls open the egg and Collin reads them the story and asks them a few questions about it, we sing a hymn related to the part of the story we read. There are so many wonderful hymns about Christ's passion and resurrection, it was a very enjoyable part of the project to pair hymns with the Scripture passages.
Right after Easter last year I finally put together a songbook with all the hymns we sing with these devotions. I can't share the compiled songbook with you because I downloaded the songs from many different sites, but I can share the links to the music with you. If I could find it available, I included a lead sheet that has the melody written out as well as guitar chords. When I couldn't find a lead sheet, I went for the sheet music, and when I couldn't find that I put in lyrics with guitar chords. If there is a recording that's particularly great or helpful with a less-known song, I'm including that in this blog post as well. If you have a favorite recording that I don't have included, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!
Because a blog post explaining all 24 eggs would be simply enormous, I decided to break it apart into four posts of six days each. The first year we did this, I certainly didn't have all 24 eggs ready before we began using them. As long as I stayed a day or two ahead of the egg we needed for that night, all was well!
To begin, you'll need two dozen plastic Easter Eggs, and two egg cartons to store them in. I also used some stickers from the Dollar store to label the numbers on each egg. You could use markers or paints as well, but this was a neat and easy option. You'll also need to print the slips of paper for each egg, cut them apart and place one inside each numbered egg. I printed ours on cardstock so it would hold up well for several years. Here are the links to download .pdfs of the slips for each egg, as well as a table of contents telling you what each egg contains and the corresponding hymn.
Now that we have all that explanation out of the way, here come the first six days of our Easter devotions!
1. Perfume. (This can be a sample-size bottle of perfume or a cotton ball soaked with perfume. As you can see, I found a small bottle, but it was still too large for our egg so I had to cut a hole in the bottom of the egg to make it fit.)
Story: Mary anointing Jesus' feet. John 12:1-8.
Hymn: We Three Kings (Especially verse 4)
2. Palm leaf. (This can be an actual piece of a palm frond, a similar-shaped leaf from your back yard, or a plastic fern like this. Your kids won't care!)
Story: Triumphal Entry. Matthew 21:1-11.
Hymn: Ride On, King Jesus or Hosanna, Loud Hosanna
4. Silver coins. (Three dimes)
Story: Judas betrays Jesus. Matthew 26:1-4, 14-16.
Hymn: Why? by Michael Card
5. Unleavened bread. (Broken crackers or matzah bread)
Story: Last supper. Luke 22:7-20.
Hymn: Nothing but the Blood
6. Praying hands. (I found this little pin at a thrift store, but you can also print a paper picture)
Story: Garden of Gethsemane. Matthew 26:36-46.
Hymn: Go to Dark Gethsemane
