Teaching the Easter Story to a Toddler

My two boys are three and one. They are young but we still pray every night before bed and teach them bible stories, and raise them by the Bible. With Easter approaching I struggled a little bit about how to share the story of how Jesus died and rose back to life in a way that Noah would understand and not be too traumatized by. As young as he is, he still loves Jesus, and wants to pray to Him, and learn about Him. So I was worried that if I told him he died, he'd be very upset and sad, even if I told him that he came back to life. I was just worried he wouldn't understand it. But at the same time I didn't want Easter to be just about Easter egg hunting, candy, and the Easter bunny for him. 

First I looked around on Pinterest for some activities we could do that would help explain to him the story a little easier. I found a few things, like these Resurrection Rolls, that I thought were great, but a lot of the activities were bunnies or eggs. So then I talked to my mom about it, and I don't know about your mom, but my mom always seems to have the right words when I need them. 

I told her why I was struggling with telling him about the story and how I wanted to be sure he understood it and she told me something very wise. She said, yes he might be sad that Jesus died, because it was a very sad thing that happened, but then you tell him that he rose from the dead three days later and he will believe. The faith of a child is amazing! They just believe! If we all had the faith of a child, oh how wonderful that would be! Hebrews 11:1 says, " Now faith is confidence of what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see."  I just needed to tell my son why we celebrate Easter and why it is such an amazing holiday! There wasn't a Pinterest board for that! Just a mommy, her son, and the Bible would do the trick!

So we sat down the other night and I told him the Easter story. Guess what? He was sad. He stared at the picture I showed him of Jesus on the cross for quite a while. But then, I told him about how he rose from the dead three days later and he was happy again! He believed! We also made those resurrection rolls and they were so cool and such a great way to explain the resurrection! I just needed to have a little faith of my own it seems! 

I'm just sharing this for anyone out there who may be struggling with how to tell your toddler the Easter story, like I was. Or for anyone who needed a little reminder that we just have to have childlike faith that our God is watching over us and will take care of us if we just believe and trust in Him.