Easter Story

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday morning, and the 8 year old primary children were fidgeting in their seats. The teacher had prepared an Easter lesson, that included something very different
One of the children in her class, Bobby was born with special needs. He looked different from the other children and it took him longer to learn some of the concepts in the lessons. The teacher told the class that, since it was such a bright sunny day, they were going to go outside in a few minutes and enjoy what nature had to offer. First, she took a few short minutes to tell them the story of resurrection morning, and what had occurred around Jerusalem so many years ago. They talked about the three days before the resurrection, being careful to omit the more gruesome details of what occurred at Gethsemane and at Golgotha, and centered most of her remarks on the glorious event where the women returned to find Jesus missing from the tomb.

She then gave each of the eight year olds a brightly covered plastic egg, and explained that they were going outside for a short nature walk. Each child was to find something to put inside their egg that reminded them of Easter, just as she had just related to them. Then they would come back into their classroom, and each child would open their egg, and tell what they found, and lastly, why it reminded them of the Easter story

The children spread out over the grassy area that surrounded the church building. One by one, they ran excitedly back to the teacher to let her know that they had selected the perfect item to tell about, except for Bobby who did finally return to the group. When they all finished, they went back to the classroom for what the teacher believed would be a “guided discovery” lesson the children would not soon forget about Easter.

One by one, they opened their eggs. One had a newly opened leaf inside, and said it was about newly formed life. One had parts of a broken robin’s egg and said the baby robin went away just like Jesus did. Each child had a different item and related quite good reasons as to why their item was a representation of what happened on resurrection day. As each child made their short presentation, the teacher beamed with pride. Her sudden inspiration had produced the exact effect she had hoped for. The children had internalized the concept of Easter, at least as much as an eight year old could.

Bobby was the last child to open his egg, as he was used to being last at almost everything else. He opened his egg with a big grin. The teacher gasped when she saw that there was nothing at all in the plastic egg. She thought to herself: “Why hadn’t I just given the lesson I had prepared from the lesson manual”. At least, she should have made sure Bobby found something to put in his egg. What was she thinking?

The other children began to giggle and snicker. Bobby watched this go on for a minute or so, and then he spoke up with a loud voice, as he sometimes would do. He said: “Teacher, teacher”. He paused for a moment, and as the children heard his loud voice; they stopped their arguing, and turned to look at him. Bobby then smiled again, held up his empty plastic egg, and continued, this time in a much softer voice: “Teacher, the tomb was empty”.