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Sharing the Easter Faith with Children
By Carolyn C. Brown Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2005 Carolyn C. Brown
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4267-1947-9
CHAPTER 1
The Good News for Children: Commentary on the Easter Stories from the Children's Point of View
The stories of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection are probably the Bible stories we least want to tell children. We prefer to stick with the stories of gentle, kind Jesus who fed the crowds, healed the sick, played with children, and told us to love one another. We want to shield children from the ugly story of how people turned on Jesus and killed him. But no one of any age can get to Easter joy without knowing what happened on Friday. Children who participate in a Palm Sunday processional and return the following Sunday to celebrate Easter joy can only wonder what all the excitement is about.
This chapter is commentary from a child's point of view on the major events from Palm Sunday through Ascension Day. It is an attempt to hear the stories as children hear them, to ask the questions they ask, to identify the meanings they attach to the stories, and to point out truths that are meaningful to adults but beyond the understanding of children. Every child is an individual and will respond to every story in a unique way. Children also grow and mature in their faith on their own individual timetables. Within this variety, however, there are some patterns that help us know what to expect. To give some idea of what to expect during different eras of childhood, I will speak of "young children" to refer to preschool children, "early elementary schoolers" to refer to children in kindergarten through second grade, and "older children" to refer to children in third through fifth grades.
The Palm Sunday Parade
Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19
Children read the story of Palm Sunday as welcoming Jesus with a parade. They have experience with celebrity parades (everything from character parades at Disneyland and Christmas parades ending with Santa Claus to parades welcoming home the Super Bowl victors). They march with their scout troops and in bands in hometown parades. Parades are generally fun and exciting. A parade for Jesus looks promising.
The Gospel texts present fairly different accounts of the event. Only Matthew includes children among the participants. Mark and Luke say that only the disciples participated in the parade and that it was fairly low key. In Luke's story there are neither palm branches nor hosannas. John does not mention the search for the donkey. Over the years the church has merged the four stories, overlooked differences, and opted for the triumphal—just as was done with Christmas texts. Most versions of the story for children follow this collective pattern. Indeed, whichever Gospel is read, worshipers of all ages often hear, not that Gospel, but the merged story.
Older children can identify the differences among the Gospel accounts and, in the process, learn to do parallel Gospel study. That is an important exercise, but for a time other than Palm Sunday. On the first day of Holy Week, the focus should be on the big story rather than on learning a Bible study skill.
The Donkey
When reading texts and talking about the animal Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day, follow the lead of modern translations and speak of a donkey rather than an ass (King James Version). Because of current usage of the latter term, children respond with fits of giggles when they hear the word in church. While they are enjoying their knowledge of what the word can mean, they miss the rest of the story.
Children are interested in that donkey. Indeed, many children's versions of Palm Sunday feature the donkey as the narrator telling of his pride and care as he carried King Jesus to Jerusalem. Some children's stories and songs even connect this donkey with the nonscriptural one Mary rode to Bethlehem. Anthropomorphizing the donkey in this way can be a good approach to telling the story to preschool children. First and second graders, however, are trying to differentiate between imaginary characters and historical ones, and so can be confused by a talking donkey in a story the church celebrates as a historical event. Middle elementary children are ready to enlarge their understanding of the day by exploring the significance of a king who rides a donkey.
All four Gospels compare Jesus' arrival on a donkey to the arrival of God's king on a donkey in Zechariah 9:9 (Matthew and John directly; Mark and Luke more subtly). Scholars argue about whether the donkey was a humble beast, the transportation and beast of burden for the poor, or a noble beast used by all people for peaceful purposes. One tradition is that kings rode donkeys in peacetime and horses when at war. In either case, a donkey, unlike a warhorse, is used for peaceful purposes. So, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, he was showing everyone that he came in peace. But, it is also true that in the messianic tradition, of which Zechariah was a part, the messiah was expected to enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey. So Jesus was just as clearly claiming for himself the title of messiah. Claiming to be the messiah was bound to produce conflict rather than peace. Older children tend to be interested in these details about the significance of the donkey.
Hosanna
Hosanna is, for the youngest children, simply a special word to yell to welcome Jesus on Palm Sunday. They join Christians of all ages in their congregation in singing and saying this interesting, happy sounding word to show their love for Jesus. They do not need to know the meaning of the word. Older children, however, are ready to learn its meaning and its Old Testament roots. The phrase comes from Psalm 118:25-26 where the crowds used it to welcome the king to the Temple. It means "Save us now" and recognized the coming king as the only one who could save them from their big problem. It was used to welcome Judas Maccabaeus when he returned victorious from battle to Jerusalem one hundred years before Jesus entered Jerusalem. Unfortunately, the crowd that met Jesus remembered Judas Maccabaeus and thought the Romans were their "big problem." Jesus had other ideas.
What Kind of King?
Discussion of the donkey and "Hosanna!" lead to discussions about the kind of king Jesus was coming to be. The people who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem compared Jesus to the kings they knew, political kings or the messiah. Children today are most familiar with the kings of fairy tales and ancient history. These kings come on magnificent horses or ride in golden carriages. They do what they want, make all the rules, and are taken care of by everyone else. Their people, on the other hand, bow to the king, obey the king's rules no matter what, and give money to support the king. That is neither bad nor good. It's just the way things are. Jesus comes as a king who rides a borrowed donkey, is kind, forgives when forgiveness is needed, and takes the best care of his people. Rather than fight to claim his rights as king, Jesus is willing to die. Jesus is as different from the kings children know today as he was from the messianic king Jews were expecting!
A royal costume crown and a homemade crown of thorns make good props with which to help children identify the differences in the kind of king who wears each one. Having identified these differences, older children are ready to think about how the disappointment of the crowd when Jesus did not become a warlike king who got rid of the Romans might have led them to call for his crucifixion on Friday. It was the great Palm Sunday Misunderstanding.
Why Did People Want to Kill Jesus?
The first question children ask upon hearing that angry people killed Jesus is "I thought everyone loved Jesus. Why did people want to kill him?" How could the people who welcomed Jesus with a palm parade on Sunday want to kill him on Friday? They need the answer to this question before they can pay much attention to the rest of the Holy Week stories. When one four-year-old asked his assembled class that question, a wise classmate replied, "Because Jesus told them they had to share and they did not want to." He was on the right track.
Jesus made the religious leaders of Jerusalem very angry and uncomfortable. (Note: The most significant thing about these angry leaders is not that they were Jewish, but that they were religious leaders whose authority and vision were being questioned. To avoid suggesting to children that Jews were/are responsible for killing Jesus, use terms like religious leaders or church leaders.) In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) the anger of these leaders was roused by things Jesus said and did. John traces their anger to Jesus' claims about who he is. Children understand the very concrete complaints in the Synoptics more quickly than they do the blasphemy charges based on fairly abstract logic in John. So why exactly did the leaders turn on Jesus and which texts help us introduce those reasons to children?
First, the leaders did not like what Jesus said. Jesus talked about sharing what you have with others in need. He told people that they were to forgive those who hurt them. He even insisted that they love instead of hate their enemies. The religious leaders felt this was asking way too much.
Second, Jesus made friends with the wrong people. He befriended people no one else would get near. He ate in the home of Zacchaeus, the tax collector, and called Levi, another tax collector, to be one of his twelve disciples. (Tax collectors worked with the occupying Romans and no Jew wanted to have anything to do with them.) He spoke with women, which no man did in public in those days. In this sense, the anger of the leaders was really not all that different from the anger that erupts when a child befriends the class outcast at school.
Third, Jesus did things that made powerful people angry. One that children quickly understand was throwing the money changers out of the Temple. Most elementary school children are fascinated by this story of "gentle Jesus being destructive at church!" They know they would be in big trouble if they did anything even remotely like what Jesus did.
The entry point to understanding why Jesus was killed is to identify who was angry and why: the Temple leaders and the money changers were angry because Jesus messed up their stuff and told them what they were doing was wrong. Older elementary children are interested in the function of the animal sellers and money changers. They understand Jesus' anger more fully when they know that worshipers could only be sure that the animals they offered for sacrifice would be accepted if they bought them at the Temple and could give offerings only with special coins that could be bought only from the Temple money changers—all for profit. And they share his sense of injustice that the money changers had been allowed to set up shop in the area of the Temple reserved for foreigners to worship. This knowledge helps them understand more fully why Jesus did it. It is important in telling this story to children of any age to include Jesus' punch line: "It is written in the Scriptures that God said, 'My Temple will be called a house of prayer for the people of all nations.' But you have turned it into a hideout for thieves." (Mark 11:17, GNT)
Jesus also angered the religious leaders by breaking their interpretation of religious rules. All four Gospels include accounts of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. In John's Gospel, a brief statement about the growing anger against Jesus follows each healing. Younger elementary students, who argue for hours and even come to blows over how the rules of a game were or were not followed, resonate with the religious leaders' anger at one who disregards the rules. It is important to talk through why Jesus healed or did other things that kept the spirit rather than the letter of the Sabbath laws. But at some points of their moral development, children are so focused on the importance of keeping the rules that this conversation will fall on nearly deaf ears. At those times we must simply be content that the children deeply understand what angered the Pharisees and will one day understand how Jesus was interpreting the rules.
Each Gospel also includes texts pointing to reasons Jesus was killed that are harder to explore with children:
The trick questions about Jesus' authority and which of the seven husbands of one wife will be her husband in the resurrection make sense to children only as questions that Jesus answered in a way that made the questioners look silly. Children understand that no one wants to look silly in front of a crowd. So, they understand how Jesus' answers would have made his questioners angry. But even children recognize this as petty anger. It may have been the proverbial last straw for Jesus' antagonists, but hardly merited a death sentence. And since the questions about the wife with seven husbands can lead the children of blended families to worry about the fate of their own multipli-married parents in the afterlife, it is best to save these texts for later in life.
Jesus' answer to the question about the greatest commandment made the Pharisees angry because it was so good. They asked the question hoping that Jesus would choose one of the many rules and thus upset people who preferred a different rule. But his answer made no one angry. It made everyone think more clearly about the purpose of all the commandments. One popular way to help children understand Jesus' answer is to have them link each of the Ten Commandments to one of Jesus' two great commands. Doing this helps children grasp Jesus' point that the two great commands that all Jews knew were summaries of the ten commands of Moses. Because making this connection does not explain why the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus, it is best to pursue this study on its own merits rather than to use it as the Gospel writers did to show why people wanted to kill Jesus. It is a good text to share with children early in Lent.
Making sense of paying taxes to Caesar requires fairly sophisticated understanding of the interplay of governmental powers and individual responsibilities. Many American children by late elementary school are familiar with the demand for religious freedom. They have learned of it in history classes about the pilgrims' flight from religious persecution in Europe. That provides a base on which to begin exploring the question. But Jesus and his questioners are debating more than religious freedom. So, while the issue can be introduced to children, this is a discussion that will make more sense to them in their adolescent years.
Jesus further offended the religious leaders with the parable of the wicked tenants and the woes to the scribes and Pharisees. They did not like the parable because they heard Jesus identify them as "wicked tenants" and they certainly did not like the pointed criticisms and name calling in "the woes." While children can understand why the leaders would not like that, they often wonder why Jesus would say things guaranteed to antagonize the leaders. They are constantly warned about the results of saying such things to friends and adults in authority. Exploring Jesus' purpose here requires more sophisticated understanding of the responsibility of religious leaders than children possess. In adolescence they will understand exactly what Jesus was saying, why he was saying it, and how it would have infuriated the leaders.
In summary, Jesus did and said things that angered the religious leaders of his day for some reasons that children can understand. He broke their rules. He "acted out" in the Temple. He associated with unacceptable people. He told the leaders off in public. These are infractions children can understand in the present and which they can grow to understand more fully as they mature.
Counterpoint to All the Angry People: Mary Anoints Jesus
Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8
In the middle of all the growing anger against Jesus, Matthew, Mark, and John tell the story of a woman who anointed Jesus' feet with costly perfume. Commentators agree that this was simply a beautiful gift of love. The woman (Lazarus and Martha's sister Mary according to Matthew and Mark) gave Jesus the best she had to let him know that he was loved. When she was ridiculed, Jesus defended her and her generous gift. For children this story provides both evidence that a few people (Mary, the women who stayed with Jesus at the foot of the cross, and Joseph who arranged for Jesus' burial) did what they could to take care of Jesus in the middle of the storm and encouragement to follow their example in showing love to those around them.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sharing the Easter Faith with Children by Carolyn C. Brown. Copyright © 2005 Carolyn C. Brown. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
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