Jesus Arose From the Deadness! The Hope of a Three Year Old

Our oldest was three. We dropped her off at her Sunday School Class Easter morning and she ran into the room, excited as always.  When we returned to pick her up, her teacher told us she had rushed in and announced, “Guess what, Mrs. Beth? Jesus arose from the dentist!” I laughed, knowing exactly what had happened. Then, I explained that what she actually said was, “Jesus arose from the deadness!”

The oldest loves books. We read to her from birth and she soaked up everything. Her vocabulary astounded us, our pediatrician told us she was precocious because she not only learned the words, she knew what they meant and how to use them.

She loved going to church and she absorbed all the Bible stories. When I’d take her for a walk in her stroller, she begged for stories as we walked, especially Bible stories. I told her every story I could remember, then I had to start digging in and studying, not only to find new material, but also to make sure I was telling the ones I knew correctly.  She wanted every detail.

When she was three and Easter was approaching, Kent and I struggled over how to tell her about the crucifixion. I mean, the kid was three, she had an extremely tender heart, and she understood things. How were we supposed to tell our little girl that people hung Jesus Christ on a cross and killed him?

We finally just decided to tell her the truth. Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, falsely accused, given a mockery of a trial, and hung on a cross to die. On the third day, he arose from the dead. He died in our place. Because of his death and resurrection, we can be forgiven of all our wrongs. We can have Him in our lives forever if we choose. We laid it all out for her. She thought about it a minute. Then, she got all excited, her face lit up, and she exclaimed, “Jesus arose from the deadness!” She got it.

God knew from the foundation of the world that the only way for us to have free will was to give us a choice to follow Him or not. Because we are incapable of living a perfect life, He knew His son Jesus, would have to die so we could have forgiveness. He knew we’d have to tell our sensitive three year old baby girl that story. And He knew if we’d just do like he says and trust Him, she could handle it. “Jesus arose from the deadness!” Hallelujah!

This world is broken. People can be cruel and life isn’t fair. But we cannot protect our children from life’s difficult things. That doesn’t mean we need to tell our tiny children the cold hard truths about the horrors of life, but it does mean that we need to be honest with them and, as they are old enough, talk with them about real life.

C. S. Lewis believed that there are truths in every religion, but that the only complete truth is in Jesus Christ. Mr. Lewis called the shared morals common to most of the world’s cultures the “Tao”, or the “chest.” He argued that God has put a natural law in place that all of us must acknowledge and pass on to our children. This natural law consists of virtues like compassion, honor, valor, and love. He argued that if we deny God’s existence and attempt to reason away his laws and then expect our children to have compassion and caring for anyone besides themselves, we have essentially ripped out their “chest” and given them a meaningless morality. We have given them a bunch of rules. Why would they want to be kind to others if it means nothing more that checking good deeds off a list?

God’s Son became a man, He came to tell us how to love God and each other. He came to give us hope. Those of us who profess to follow Him are human and we are often poor examples of the One we claim to represent. The church is not supposed to be a group of pious perfect people, it’s meant to be a group of imperfect people who are in the process of learning to live out God’s word, the Bible, a group of people who reach out to love, help, and encourage others and point them to Christ.

We taught our kids right from the start about Jesus. We, two very imperfect parents, have tried to keep pointing them to Him all through their lives. My prayer is that God uses both our successes and our failures to teach them that He doesn’t expect perfection, but  He does expect obedience and faith. This world needs Him. It needs the hope that He provides, it needs the Truth of His word. On Easter, “Jesus arose from the deadness!” and we celebrate that Truth.

Hiding eggs and eating chocolate bunnies are fun and we’ve always enjoyed both at our house, but the heart of our Easter celebration has always been the resurrection of Jesus, the One who can save us all. This year and always, I want to have the hope of a three year old.

“Jesus arose from the deadness!” I hope I never stop being excited about that very real, incredibly amazing, fact.

He is risen! Blessings.