holy week, easter eggs

When we got out our Easter decorations last week, Johnnie was most enthralled by the set of "Resurrection Eggs" I made several years ago. It's a tradition we had since I was a kid: a set of a dozen plastic eggs with item inside that walk you through the Easter story. While there are some standard items (a cracker for the Last Supper, a nail for the crucifixion, and an empty egg for the empty tomb), I've also adapted them to emphasize parts of the story I find particularly meaningful. 

I love how the eggs draw in all the kids - the girls still love opening them up and remembering each item's meaning in the story. But so far this year, Johnnie has asked to go through them every day, usually more than once. 

His favorite egg is the second, which has a bit of a bar of soap that represents Jesus' washing the disciples' feet. At this point, Johnnie barely knows the name "Jesus," and doesn't really understand what all we're talking about, so I pulled out the children's Bible that I used as a small child. He started connecting the pictures from the book to the item in the egg. He loves to pretend to wash his own feet, and the feet of whoever is nearby, by rubbing the soap right onto our socks!

It is so precious to see him start to learn this story, even as I still wrestle with my own feelings and beliefs about what it all means. Going through the story egg by egg, and trying to describe it in the simplest possible terms, is helping me walk through Holy Week this year. 

If you want to make your own set, here is what's in my eggs: 

1. Three quarters, representing the thirty silver coins Judas was paid in exchange for betraying Jesus

2. Soap, for Jesus' washing the disciples' feet

3. Cracker, for the bread he ate with them

4. A melatonin gummy (haha), to represent how the disciples couldn't stay awake in the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus

5. Feather, for Peter's denial

6. Thorns, for his crown

7. Nail and Wood, for the crucifixion 

8. Stone, for the stone rolled over the entrance to the tomb

9. Three different fabric pieces, representing the women who were with him at the cross and saw where he was buried

10. Spices, for when the women came to anoint his body early Sunday morning 

11. Empty, for the tomb they found empty

12. One piece of fabric, for Mary who stayed weeping, and who met Jesus, who then sent her to tell the disciples he was alive