Bible Stories

We always read a story or two to Lindsey before bedtime. Lately she's been pulling out her children's versions of the Bible, most recently the New Testament. She'll turn to a page that has interesting pictures, then ask us to read the story around those pictures. (Thanks to aunts Sherrie and Kristi, by the way, who provide these tools of religious learning which our children would otherwise have absent from their lives because of their heathen parents.)

Yesterday she picked out the pictures around a group of men glaring at Jesus and asked me to read the story about the angry men. Sure enough it was the Easter story, and I wasn't so sure about reading this to her. After all, it deals with death, a concept that she knows no further than "Spiderman is going to 'kill' his enemies," something the boys in her pre-school playact. And to be killed means that you fall down.

So I started at the Last Supper and read through to when Judas betrays Jesus, he is captured and crucified, then the stone is rolled away from his tomb and he re-appears to the apostles. This version did a great job of putting the story in terms children could relate to, by calling Jesus the apostles' best friend, and they were very sad when their friend went away, but happy when he came back. (Friendship is a concept Lindsey definitely understands.)

When I turned the page to keep reading, the one on the left showed the apostles looking up at heaven to where Jesus ascended to God, while the angels asked, "Why are you looking up at the sky? Jesus is still with you." The next page had a picture of the apostles standing around smiling, while Jesus appeared as in a thought bubble over all their heads. (Cheesy, I know, but something that young children would understand.)

I barely got through the first page when the angels told the apostles "Don't look at heaven, Jesus is not there," when Lindsey gasped and pointed to the page of Jesus in the thought bubble. "Look!" she said, "Jesus is with them! They are sooooo happy!"

Now there's the meaning of Easter.