Celebrating Easter takes all shapes and forms world wide.  From bunnies and pastel coloured eggs to Easter carol services and everything in-between – it’s a celebratory weekend.  And yet, what are we celebrating?  Good Friday celebrates the death of Jesus.  Resurrection Sunday celebrates His resurrection.  Yet, for many, this is inconsequential.  The weekend means days off work; time to enjoy family or simple a great break.

For us the Easter weekend means celebrating the reason we breath… the reason we have hope… the reason we tell others the Good News.  And, for us, this weekend is a great opportunity to reflect deeply and celebrate excitedly.  And so we do.

Since neither Craig nor I grew up with any Christ-focused Easter traditions, I decided to establish a few in our family to help us focus on Jesus and celebrate meaningfully.  Not being naturally inclined towards spontaneous celebrations means some serious research goes into making desire reality.  And, over the years, we’ve accumulated some wonderful and significant traditions that help us keep the spotlight on Jesus during this otherwise family fun long weekend.

The first tradition is to enjoy a meal together on Friday night in a vein similar to that of the Passover meal. 

The night before He died, Jesus shared in the passover meal with his disciples.  As He broke the afikomen (the unleavened bread that is always broken) suddenly the significance of it came it reality – “this is my body broken for you…” he said to His disciples.  As they shared in the Cup of Redemption he said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins….”  Working through the Messianic Haggadah (order of wording and celebration), we remember how God released the Jews from captivity and death by covering them in the blood of the lamb.  We remember how He promised them, and us today, that He would send a Saviour for all – how that lamb’s blood above the doorposts was merely a symbol of what was still to come: the blood of Jesus, the ultimate sacrificial lamb. 

Enjoying this tradition together helps us focus on the depth of meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection.  It’s not something that God mandates we do as gentiles.  In fact, He frees us from the obligation of everything and anything simply by His death and resurrection.  No longer are those, who accept the gift of eternal life, judged by what we do – forever more we are judged by what Jesus did for us.  Traditions are meaningless and obligations are nought – they have no weight in the eternal day of judgement.  But, enjoying these traditions is a blessing indeed!  So, while some Christians celebrate Good Friday with a meal of fish or a celebration service, we enjoy the blessing of a Passover meal together.

Preparing the meal involves a lot of work.  I am glad that my mom takes over the cooking part and makes the most delicious lamb roast, with roast potatoes and veggies galore!  I can then focus on preparing the elements of the meal – the grape juice, the afikomen, the charoset, the egg and the bitter herbs…

Finally, after a day of preparation, the evening begins.  Mom, the honoured woman, lights the candles… whilst the rest look on.

The children always look forward to the meal.  Passing the crystal glass of “wine” (grape juice) is always treated with great solemnity and awe.  Of course, being the person to finish off the dregs is also much-anticipated business!  Thankfully we have no more than 4 kids – 1 cup per kid!  Craig leads us through the Haggadah and this year Kiera got to do one of the readings too.  And this year, a very excited Kiera was the one to find the Afikomen – the piece of matza that is hidden for the children to find.  It’s also the one of the 3 matza pieces that is broken and shared – Christ’s body, along with the third cup – the Cup of Redemption.

It was a lovely evening indeed, despite a whiny Micah who drove everyone to distraction until he went to bed!

The next day we enjoyed a wonderful family day – a meal at Mogg’s Country Kitchen in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley.  Seriously the most delicious food I’ve tasted in a very long time!  The kids loved their soup and fish – a welcome break from the usual kids’ far at restaurants!

On Saturday night, we enjoyed another one of our traditions – making resurrection cookies.  We’ve been making these for 5 years now, and slowly but surely perfecting the recipe.  This year, however, we left half the ingredients behind AND didn’t have an electric egg beater.  We had to use a whisk and a hand-beater.  Our egg whites never whipped up into stiff peaks and Craig and I had dropping-off-arms by the end of it.  We were sure it would be a disaster!  But, we kept going with the bible readings and the tasting of the ingredients – all of which represent something to do with Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Into the oven they went for the night – the kids sealed it up with sticky tape.  And the next morning … they came out beautifully!  Big and hollow inside, just like the tomb of Jesus.  And tasty to boot!

That night, despite all the frustrations of our seemingly failed attempt at baking the resurrection cookies, the bundled tension melted away when we stood outside and enjoyed this beautiful sunset.

Church the next morning, at Christ church.  Craig got to actually listen to the sermon this time!  I went with the kids to their morning programme where they learned a little more about the wonderful gift that God gives us.  Kiera got to bead a cross too, as a part of the activity for the morning.  Definitely a highlight of her morning!

We came home to enjoy a late breakfast together and some Easter yummies from granny and grandpa!

Then, the last of our Easter traditions … the Resurrection Sunday Hunt!  Yes, we hunt for chocolate.  Yes, it’s definitely inspired by the whole Easter Bunny hunt of our youth.  No, we don’t do the Easter bunny – not because of the pagan elements, but simply because we’re jealous for Jesus … or in other words, we don’t want to detract from what we’re really celebrating.  Especially since, one day, they’ll realise that the Bunny doesn’t exist.  For me, realising that took all the joy out of Easter.  I want them to be joyful about Easter for the right reasons… forever.

So our hunt takes the form of a poem explaining the gospel tool, The Wordless Book.  As we encounter the next colour of the book, off they go to find the corresponding coloured egg – and then back to mom for more poem and more actions and more goodies! 

Scavenger hunts are always fun!  Even for the parents!

The last of the hunt was finding a treasure box of beads.  Each bead represents a colour from the Wordless Book.  This year they got to make a keychain and a necklace – one to keep and one to give away to someone else, on condition that they explain what each bead means!  So watch out, you may just be the recipient of a sweet necklace or pretty keychain!

That took up a large portion of the afternoon as we beaded and chatted and enjoyed each other’s company.
 

The finished results … mom’s; Kiera’s, Katie’s and Sam’s.

The weekend’s weather was mostly overcast and sometimes a bit rainy, but we still enjoyed time outside, a swim and even some tennis!

Craig and I hit the ball around a bit – I confirmed my suspicions that I am no good, but I had fun anyway!

All too soon, it was home time.  We had the loooong trek back to Cape Town.  Despite leaving at 7pm, hoping to miss the traffic, we got stuck on Sir Lowry’s Pass.  A 1 1/2 hour trip took 3 hours.  We had tired, hungry and cranky kids.  But, the second half of the trip was actually quite pleasant once we all realised there wasn’t any point in complaining.  Instead we played loads of guessing games and got to know each other better playing “what’s your favourite” and “what’s your worst” – now we know all about each other’s best and worst colours, plants, road signs and more!

Finally – our Easter traditions are well documented here – but each year I end up improving, tweaking and adding to the things we do.  Many other families want to do similar things, so I’m toying with the idea of making an ebook with all our traditions: exactly how we do them, tips, pictures, templates and more to sell online at a nominal fee.  Maybe then this website can start paying for itself!