It's often easier to share the Gospel with children during the Christmas season because the stories are about a young couple journeying to Bethlehem, the birth of a baby surrounded by animals, angels in the heavens announcing His birth to the shepherds, and magi travelling from afar to worship this new king.
However, sharing the Easter story may not be so easy as it involves betrayal, the brutality of the Romans and the angry mob led by leaders in the church, the horrific death on a cross of the man, Jesus, whose birth we just celebrated not that long ago.
How does one share the full story of the Gospel to a child without giving them nightmares?
Killarney's Lakeside Christian School Principal, Nancy Reimer, says it's in the telling of the whole story of Jesus that makes it complete, no matter what age we are. We all know we're missing something, and when we find out that it's Christ that we're missing, we can become whole.
"It doesn't matter what age we are, we all deal with things we've done wrong and every child that comes to school, no matter where they are, no matter who we are, no matter what age we are, we all understand what sin is," explains Reimer. "We all understand that we've done things that we shouldn't have. We've done things habitually. We've done things on purpose. We've done things trying to hide them."
"Being able to share with the kids that we have a Savior who understands that, and He has done something about it so that we can be reconciled with God because we also know that we have been created in such a way that we all are missing something. We know we're missing something, and when we find out that it's Christ, we are whole," she adds.
The blessing of teaching children from kindergarten to Grade 12 in a faith-based school is the freedom to share the birth, life and death of Christ not just at Christmas or Easter, but throughout the year.
"But when it comes to Easter, we can celebrate the fact that Jesus loves us," she says. "God loves us so much that he did actually send his son, which we celebrate. We celebrate that at Christmas time, so a few months later we can now say, well, what happened? He didn't stay a baby. He grew up and he listened to the Father. He listened to God, and he followed through with what His purpose was in this world."
"And so, we don't leave baby Jesus in the manger."
"We talk about what He did through his life, and we have Bible classes each week in each grade and at each level of understanding. In each of the classes we share those pieces with the kids, at their own level of understanding, and we let the kids interact with that and work through that," explains Reimer.
"In high school, the kids are able to understand at a deeper level what that actually means. And so, we're always thinking age appropriate. How do we share this with our kids? But we don't just do that in December for Jesus' birth and then, oh, it's April, it's Easter now we're going to share that piece of Jesus' life. No, we share that throughout the year, but we are so thankful that we definitely can share that, and we definitely do share that."
Reimer says the staff at Lakeside Christian School speak words of life and encouragement to their students in all situations, and as a school they are most certainly taking the time to reflect on the true meaning of Easter and how it connects to Christmas.
The students have been participating in their 'I Love to Read' month now in April and so both staff and students have been reading Easter stories on a regular basis for this month.
The beauty of the Easter story is that Jesus didn't stay on the cross. On the third day He rose from the dead and spent 40 days with his disciples and followers before His ascension to Heaven. And that's the hope we can share with our children. Yes, Jesus died a horrible death, but He's not on the cross anymore. He's in Heaven sitting at the right hand of God the Father and He's waiting for us.
"I'm just so thankful that our staff loves the Lord and we have had so many times when we can see God is working each and every day here," shares Reimer. "To be able to share that and be aware of it is so important because we can have this good thing happen, or this tough thing happened. But where do we where do we land?"
"Do we land on it just by chance or do we land on this God who's leading us," she adds. "And so being able to work through those pieces of our faith is just so amazing when we put our faith and our thankfulness in the right place and we land that on the Lord on Jesus."
"And so, during the Easter time, if we leave that out, we have lost an opportunity to speak truth," says Reimer. "So, we definitely take it seriously and we want to take each day and share that with our kids and help them walk through those hard days and celebrate with them on those good days."
"So, each day I really challenge my staff to speak words of life and encouragement to the kids and to those they meet. And I'm just so blown away and so thankful and blessed that God has placed me here. And it's a bit overwhelming sometimes. And I'm just so thankful."