Between the lines: explaining Easter's message to children

To me, Easter is all about children's games, arts and crafts. This year's activities included making Easter bonnets, egg decorating, and countless egg hunts. My children, on the other hand, are fixated with the Crucifixion. They chat about Jesus dying on the cross, which leads them to sing in unison a song with an upbeat tempo about the Crucifixion. Next thing I know, I overhear them continue with other dead people.

Little sister: "A cross means heaven. Yeye [Grandpa] is in heaven, so Yeye died on the cross."

Big sister: "No, Yeye died in the hospital."

Little sister: "Oh."

This sobering talk makes the overflowing bag full of colourful giant chocolate eggs and bunnies that I have stockpiled in the closet seem somehow sinful and indecent.

Children are fascinated with the Crucifixion because they only contemplate Jesus the man, rather than Jesus the Messiah. Thus they wonder about the physical pain of being nailed to a cross and they try to find answers to why people were so mean to Jesus.