The Easter Story (from Church In The Nursery)
The Easter Story
Compiled for Church In The Nursery
April 16, 2011, Edmonton, AB
Rev. Jonathan Crane, Holy Trinity Anglican
In the beginning
there was only Love
Nothing else
But this kind of love is so mysterious and deep
that it can’t exist on its own
It is a love that had to be shared
The love was God
And God shared his love into the daytime and the night time
and the earth and the water
and with all living things
and with us
We were made by love
the whole earth was made by love
and God gave us love to share
But some people didn’t
Some people didn’t share
not just a few people
but a lot of people
God loved them so much
that he realized they needed a new start
He sent a flood that cleaned up the whole earth
because the love was nearly all gone.
Now, one man Noah had love
And God saved him, along with all the animals
In a great big boat
So after the sharing incident
God knew that they needed some supervision
So God sent prophets
People to speak for him
and to remind people to share their love
It worked for quite a time
Hundreds of years
But people are tricky
And God knew that they really didn’t know how to share at all
They just didn’t get it
So God said
“Well, they don’t know how to share my love”
“I’ll have to go among them myself to teach them and show them”
So God did just that
He was born as a baby, like us
he grew up, like us
He ate and played,
He was baptized like many of us
and lived in every way, just like us
The one difference, was that Jesus
(That was God’s name on earth)
The one difference, was that Jesus could share God’s love perfectly
He never kept it for himself
And “wow!”
It was amazing!
People who were sick got better
People who were afraid, got stronger
Twice someone who had died, came back to life
To live many more years
Jesus was amazing to be around
and many people came to learn from him
Meeting Jesus was like meeting God’s love face to face
He was like no one else
But people are tricky
And not everyone liked Jesus
Some thought he was dangerous
Several times people tried to catch him to kill him
Things got worse and worse
And when things were getting darker and darker
Jesus gathered his closest friends together for supper
And when they were eating he said
“I have to go soon”
“remember me every time you eat and drink like this”
“And I will share God’s love with you like I always have”
That night he was arrested
And people were not nice to him at all
They’d caught him
They beat him
and convinced a Judge
(Pontius Pilate was his name)
To have Jesus killed
So some soldiers took Jesus
and, it was awful,
They made a wooden cross
hung Jesus on it by the side of the road
And left him to die
It was awful
And his closest friends were devastated
After Jesus had died,
they took his body and wrapped him in a white cloth
It’s what they did for everyone who died
They also put him in a cave
and rolled a big stone in front
His friends went home very sad
They were expecting to be sad for many weeks
The way we are sad when someone dies
But they had forgotten
that Jesus shared God’s love perfectly
And they had forgotten that Love was only thing that existed at the start
They had forgotten that God was showing us how to love
And Love is stronger than death
God’s Love is stronger than death
On the third day after he had died
Some women went to the cave
And the stone was rolled away!
Lo and behold!
God’s love had won
And Jesus was given a new life
He visited his friends again
and ate with them
It was like nothing they had imagined
But soon after Jesus went to be with God
where we can’t see him
But before he left he said
“share my love”
“Share God’s love”
“Now, you can do it for real”
And many people are doing just that
– Even people who never met him
We call them Christians because another name for Jesus was “the Christ”
And they’re waiting till they can go be with him
and eat with him again