Why is Easter Good News? (part 1/6)

Q+A about why Jesus had to die, plus The Triumphal Entry

Hello! I am SO EXCITED about today’s newsletter. While I’m not a kids pastor any more, I still share a sentiment from that time: it’s never too early to start thinking about Easter!

This week on IG I checked in on how Easter’s feeling aaaannnd… it’s complicated. I understand that. Part of the story is quite violent, of course. But also, many of us were given a heap of theological assertions that we were told are the way to understand the stories. And now, we’re not so sure about those very assertions.

Which is why I’m so excited! Because you are smart and ask good questions and there are better ways to talk about Easter with kids. Scroll on for:

• A Bible Story Breakdown of the Triumphal Entry

• Exploring the question “Why is Jesus good news?”

• What to say to the kid who asked: Why does blood have to be the payment for sin?  That’s so gross and mean and stupid.

• Lots of links to Easter resources.

• PLUS! What we’re doing first in the Kids + Faith Community

See you in the comments!

-Meredith

THE STORY: The Triumphal Entry

GOOD FOR AGES: 2 and up

READ OR PARAPHRASE? Both can work. (As a general approach I like paraphrasing until at least age 6-7. Here’s how I do it on Ask Away.)

ATTRIBUTES OF JESUS YOU MIGHT HIGHLIGHT: 

• Jesus is king

• Jesus is gentle

• Jesus does not use power the way the world does

• Jesus is worthy

Remember: pick 1, save others for another time unless your kid brings something up that makes the connection relevant.

FOR VERY YOUNG KIDS YOU COULD:

• Have a parade of your own. Watch a parade on YouTube (Disney or the Rose Parade—my absolute favorite parade of all—are especially fun).

• Say: The people were excited to celebrate King Jesus. Why is Jesus a good king? What do you like about Jesus?  Share one thing for yourself. You might also say: Some people did not like Jesus. It may be hard to believe, but it’s true. This was a happy day for the people, but a sad day was coming soon. I’ll tell you more about that around Easter time.

FOR OLDER KIDS YOU COULD ASK:

• What kinds of things come to mind when you think of a king? What makes a good king? What makes a bad king?

• Jesus talked a lot about something he called “the kingdom of God”. It’s not a place on a map, but a group who would live together like God really was king. They’d live in a way that matches who God is. Then flesh this out by asking: So what are some traits of God’s? List them out. What would it be like if people treated each other like that too?  i.e. God is gentle–what if everyone were gentle with each other? What might change? God is just–what if the world was just? What might change?

HELPFUL TO KNOW:

• This event gets so much meaning from the reality of Jewish life under Roman occupation. Rome is violent and oppressive, making it feel like Jerusalem isn’t fully home. Matthew (who loves to connect dots between Jesus and God’s larger story) notes how Jesus’ entry echos Zechariah 9:9, a gentle, humble king. This is important on its own, but carries extra weight contrasted against Cesaer who is… not.

• A donkey or colt is still “a royal ride” as scholar Marianne Meye Thompson notes. Jesus is making a political statement. He’s king. Not like Cesaer, and not just of the Jewish people, but of the world. What’s more, you know when the king rides a donkey? At the victory parade. After winning. You see how this helps us understand why Jesus is such a threat to Rome? Why he’d need to be eliminated?

This brings us to our two questions for this letter. 

• You asked: Why exactly did Jesus have to die? Because the answers I grew up with either don’t make sense anymore, or I’m not comfortable passing them on to my kids, or both.

• Your kid asked: Why does blood have to be the payment for sin?  That’s so gross and mean and stupid. 

Yup. We’re going to take on this teensy question of what, exactly, Jesus’ death and resurrection mean.

If your background is very individualistic (“Jesus died just for you”) or if you’ve been told “sin must be punished” (a fundamental assumption of what’s called penal substitutionary atonement) then you’ll find this especially helpful. Because neither are true, and we want better answers for our kids.

The fact is, the Bible gives LOTS of answers about why Jesus coming, dying, rising are good news–answers I find beautiful and hopeful. Answers that speak to the world we actually live in, not just a heaven we hope to rise to after we die. This variety of answers sometimes get called a “kaleidoscopic view” of the atonement. (Atonement: fancy theology word for how God through Christ reconciles the world.) So here we go!

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You Asked: Why exactly did Jesus have to die? Because the answers I grew up with either don’t make sense anymore, or I’m not comfortable passing them on to my kids, or both.

What, God as bloodthirsty tyrant who makes his own son die so that we could go to heaven isn’t the message you want your kid taking away about things? 

This question, or something like it, is among the most common things I get asked, which is understandable given that this is kind of the core of our faith we’re talking about. 

The simplest answer I tell kids is this, “When Jesus came, he said God was doing a new thing. Jesus called this new thing “the kingdom.” The Romans didn’t like him because they already had a king, so Jesus was a threat. Some of the religious leaders didn’t like him because he claimed to speak for God, and that was unacceptable. But Jesus stuck to what he came to do and say, showing people who God was in a new way, and the powerful people were not going to let him keep doing and saying those things and live.”

In other words, Jesus had to die because he scared the Roman and Jewish leadership during a time in history when doing that was a death sentence. You simply couldn’t say the things Jesus said and survive for very long, as many other so-called messiahs found out around the same time.

But that isn’t really what this sort of question is asking.

We’ve been told that Jesus’ death and resurrection were “good news”, but the way that good news is explained doesn’t always seem, well, good. 

I believe you’re uncomfortable with the version of the gospel you learned as a kid not because you’ve wandered off the faithful path, but because there are elements of that story that just don’t mesh with who we know God to be from other parts of the Bible. And so we feel that tension; it makes us uncomfortable; we feel like there must be a better answer out there. 

And there is! Well, there are better answers, plural, out there. Because, like I said, the Bible doesn’t talk about the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection in just one way. There are multiple images, metaphors, analogies, and explanations that are used in different places in the Bible. 

So to kick off the Kids + Faith Community (aka the paid subscription group here), I’ve turned this response into a series. We’ll tackle one of the answers to this question today, then once a week from now until Easter we’ll expand into 5 more.

This is one thing the Kids + Faith Community will provide us: the space and time to dive into the issues and questions that require more depth, for those who are interested in that. If that’s you, I hope you’ll consider joining—it’s $5/month or $50/year.

Right here, I’d love to add a handy lil’ button for those who might want to come on over. But I’ll be darned if I didn’t google to the high heavens about how to add that and find… nothing. Nothing! So I think there’s maybe a button below? I don’t know! It’s a mystery!

Either way, know that the plan is to keep the same amount of content as usual on the free side of things. This newsletter will still come each month, Ask Away will stay commercial free, I’ll still be on IG. So if a paid subscription isn’t for you, no worries! I’m so glad you’re here.

Alright! Let’s dive into our first answer to why Jesus’ death and resurrection are good news: peace. Just a note, I’m going to share a bit about pregnancy loss. If that’s not for you today, scroll until you see ‘Sounds Like’ in blue.

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I became a mother in January 2012 when, 5-months pregnant with twins, I went into preterm labor. I spent the night in the hospital, waiting, hoping, praying my body would quit betraying me.  I kept calling the pain “cramps'' because I could not handle the idea that I was in labor, that those were “contractions.”

At 8:49 am Sunday January 8, our daughter Kate was born. Her sister Lucy came at 9:47. They were just perfectly formed, with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, with dinky little ears and lovely little noses. 

The nurses found hats to fit their tiny heads and wrapped them in blankets and took their pictures and foot prints, all the same things you would do for living babies. But they were born too early to survive.

The whole time my husband and I were first driving down the 101 to the hospital, as I prayed, one of the things that came to mind was a line from Scripture, from a story in Daniel chapter 3. The story takes place when Israel is in exile in Babylon, which is a devastating disruption. Their land, the PROMISED land, is invaded. Destroyed. And they are captured, removed. 

It’s hard to overstate the collective devastation of being taken into exile at the hands of Babylon.  In Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar is king. He decides to build an idol of gigantic proportions for the people to worship. His mandate is clear. Music will play, and knees will bow. You are going to bow down and worship this god that I have created. If you don’t bow down, you will die.  

But there are three Israelites – Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego – who know that their God is the true God, and that this God is with them, even in the devastation of exile. The instruments played... and they stood. The King threatens them with a blazing furnace, saying “What god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

They replied, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Even if he does not.

Driving down the 101, I thought, God can save us, but even if he does not…

When we are in grief, we hear the music enticing us to bow. I did. It plays and says: Give up. Stay angry. Let your pain close you off to other people. No one knows your hurt, and you’re right it’s too much hurt. No one understands. Shut them out. Shut it all out.

Just bend the knee.

We all have had, and all will continue to have, times when we hear that music playing in this world that is not all it should be.

What makes Jesus good news in those times?

It’s not that our sins are forgiven; that message would have been pretty thoroughly irrelevant to me lying in my hospital bed, offensive even. Are you saying my sins are what led to this pain?

And it’s not that Jesus is going to make it all better so that we won’t have to experience any pain, either. The good news is that, like the fourth person walking around the fiery furnace next to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God will be present with us through the flames. Jesus’ death and resurrection show us that God is willing to join us in our pain, and that life and joy and peace will come on the other side. 

People who know Jesus well will attest to the joy of life with him. They are not saying that things have not been hard, that they have not experienced disruption. Usually it’s the opposite. They know what it means to go through hard things with hope, and so they can attest to life on the other side. When we lost the girls, it was those kinds of stories, from my faith community, that gave me hope for the possibility that joy would return.

These folks aren’t spiritual superheroes. They simply have found a way, in the midst of the disruption, to take their fears and anxieties to God, to really name them honestly in God’s presence, and to talk with God about them in such a way that peace is no longer a platitude, it’s real. It takes practice, it’s a process, but the joy and peace of God become sweet gifts right in the midst of hard times. They aren’t artificial promises that it will all be ok. Peace is the confidence that even if it’s not ok, God has not actually abandoned us. 

There is joy in this life. There is peace in the midst of disruption.

It’s not to minimize or downplay the pain. It’s also not escapist. Not at all. It’s just that life this side of heaven will always be about the ashes with the beauty, the bitter with the sweet, and the broken with the whole.

Our God can save us.  But even if he does not…

It does not mean that he will not.

It’s just not yet.

Because heaven is coming, yes, but doubly so because heaven is breaking through. Even here. Even now.

• “Kiddo, the world is full of both wonderful things and hard things. And when people experience hard, sad things, we may wonder where God is. Jesus came, in part, to show that we’re not alone in the hard, sad things. Have you ever been sad, and just being with someone who loved you helped, even if it didn’t fix it right then? It’s like that. Sometimes the Bible talks about it as peace. Easter is such good news because since Jesus is alive, we know hard, sad things don’t win in the end.”

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Your kid asked: Why does blood have to be the payment for sin?  That’s so gross and mean and stupid. 

Cue ‘kid voice’: It does seem pretty gross for us today, doesn’t it? I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be a priest in Old Testament times, having to do sacrifices over and over again every day. 

There are a couple of things that might help with your question:

First, did you know that in the Bible, almost all the sacrifices actually aren’t payment for sin?* They did things like show honor, act as a gift, or show that someone trusted Yahweh God and not the other gods.

Second, sacrifices weren’t actually God’s idea to begin with. They were something that humans did first. In fact there are times in the Bible when God says something like “I don’t even WANT your sacrifices. What I want is for you to trust me and to love me and to love one another! That’s what matters to me!” 

But ALL the other people around God’s people used animal sacrifices as part of how they worshiped their gods. That was normal for them, in a way that seems strange to us. For them, to NOT have sacrifices would feel like they weren’t worshiping God right.

God tends to meet people where they are, like speaking in language that we can understand, or Jesus telling stories of everyday people and situations. In this case, God lets people do something gross and mean and stupid because that’s what would make sense to those people at that time. And then, God kinda did a cool thing by both limiting what sacrifices would be and how often (a lot less than the other gods). [older kids: AND by protecting people from being sacrificed (like the nations did.)]

So it’s ok that you think sacrifices were a dumb idea. It’s possible that God feels the same way. Sacrifices actually show that we don’t have to worship God just right for God to love us and accept us, not that blood has to be a payment for sin.

*Source: John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Life. This isn’t to say the sacrificial system was unimportant. It just simply isn’t the case that sin requires blood to appease God.

ONE - I’d just be tickled if you’d join the NEW Kids + Faith Community!

If today’s email resonated with you at all, then you’re going to love this.

• We’re going to unpack theological concepts that impact our kids (you know, like why Jesus is good news beyond penal substitutionary atonement).

• We’re going to do more Bible Story Breakdowns (with more detail than I can include in IG stories).

• We’re going to connect in the comments because you are awesome and it’ll be fun. 

• Plus, I know sometimes this feels lonely but my DMs testify: YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Come meet other grown ups who want to give kids the chance to get to know God rather than train kids to obey.

TWO - Easter resources are here! LOTS OF THEM!

I KID YOU NOT

• Erin Moon and I have you covered on Easter on the latest episode. We talk Good Friday in depth (and we have Resurrection Day all lined up.)

ZIPPEE EASTERTIME

• What is it? A toolkit with 7 stories related to Easter—Triumphal Entry, Foot Washing, Last Supper, Good Friday, Resurrection Day, the Road to Emmaeus and the Upper Room, and Breakfast on the Beach—

• What’s included? For every single story there’s an age-accessible paraphrase; wonder questions (a technique we love!); and a menu of ideas for responding to God and the story. Plus the little ones get a poem each time!

• There’s a version for ages 2-5 and one for 6-10.

JUST WANT THE EASTER STORY?

• Sad Day, Happy Day is an interactive story script for kids under 6. It’s gentle but honest and geared just for this age. (It’s included in Zippee too.)

• Easter Story Scavenger Hunt is for kids who can read and works wherever you call home, taking them all about solving 5 clues. (It’s not in Zippee.)

BUT COULD IT BE A PODCAST FOR KIDS?

• On Ask Away we’ve made lots of episodes for kids to explore Easter!

  • We did a 5 story series that connects Exodus to Easter

  • And I have just Easter on its own here and here.

I’d love to hear from you! While you’re welcome to chat about anything that came up for you as you read—ideas, questions, stories—here are some ideas too:

• What are the main messages you’ve heard about why Easter is good news? Which ones are you holding onto? Which ones are you feeling less sure about?

• What is one thing you hope your kid discovers about who Jesus is this Easter?