Our Easter Celebration!

We, as a family, have committed to celebrate Jesus this Easter and focus our thoughts and activities on his death and Resurrection. One of our Bible readings this week was in Nehemiah 9 where the Israelites who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity began again to keep the holy feasts God had declared in the Book of the Law. In preparation for the Feast of Tabernacles, the children of Israel spent time fasting, mourning, confessing their sin, reading the Law and worshipping the Lord their God. We have spent a good deal of time this week talking about the sin in our hearts and sacrifice Jesus made to take away our sin forever. Today, we sang hymns about the cross and talked about what the words meant. It was as sweet time of worship!

In lieu of an Easter egg hunt, this year we are going to have an Easter Bible story scavenger hunt. Since our cousins will be with us on Easter, we are going to divide the kids into 2 groups - each group will have an older "reader" and the younger ones will help find the clues from the reading. Also, each group will have a couple of adults to help with the clues. Here are the questions the kids will answer :

1. What was the name of the Feast Jesus celebrated with his disciples? Matthew 26:17
Find one piece of this inside and bring it to your adult leader.
2. What were the names of the disciples Jesus sent to prepare the Passover Feast? Luke 22:8
Find one thing inside for the first letter of each name that you can use to make a sandwich.
3. What did Jesus and his disciples do in the upper room besides eat and drink? Mark 14:26
Come do this to your adult leaders.
4. How many times did Jesus say Peter would deny Him? Matthew 26:34
Find this many items that begin with the letter "P".
5. When Jesus went to the garden to pray, how far away was He from His disciples? Luke 22:41
Find one of these outside.
6. Who came to strengthen Jesus in the garden as he prayed? Luke 22:43
Sing a song that has this word in it.
7. What did Judas do to signal Jesus was the man the soldiers should arrest? Mark 14:44
Come and do this to your favorite adult!
8. What animal was heard in the story when Peter denied Jesus? Mark 15:68,72
Act like this animal.
9. Who did the people want to set free instead of Jesus? Matthew 27:15
Using the first 3 letters of his name, bring me a - - - of soap.
10. What was the name of the place where Jesus was crucified? John 19:17
Use all of your group to make a cross with your bodies.
11. What did Joseph of Arimathea use to wrap Jesus' body? Luke 24:25
Go inside and find something similar to this.
12. What did the angel tell Mary and Mary when they came to the tomb? Matthew 28:6
Yell this truth all together as loud as you can!!!