two ideas for easter kids' talks

1.  Why did Jesus die?
Aim
To explain how Jesus took our sin when he died on the cross

What you need: 

• A3 piece of paper (landscape) with 2 people outlines drawn on.  They should be labeled 'Me' and 'Jesus', 
• A piece of glass or perspex (A glass chopping board works really well.  If you don't have glass or perspex, make something with clear contact or laminate your piece of paper.)
• Paint or tomato sauce or something messy like that.
• A sqeegey or something maybe a sponge.

What to do:
Stick the piece of paper behind the glass, so you can paint on the person and wipe it off again.
Explain to the kids that the picture on the left is me (and you) and the other is Jesus.  Talk about sin.  Say how it messes us up, gets in the way of our friendship with God etc etc.  While saying this put mess (paint, sauce, whatever) all over 'Me' picture.  Explain that Jesus had no sin.  See?  All clean.  Talk about how God has to deal with sin etc.  He does that by putting all our sin onto Jesus (use squeegy to transfer mess onto Jesus, leaving 'me' clean.).  Talk around all that kind of stuff.

(This isn't original.  Don't remember where it came from.  Was it part of bible in ten?) 

2.  Humpty Dumpty Easter Set
Aim
Explain that Jesus came back to life again.  We used this in our RE assembly today after we had told the story to reinforce the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.

What you need:

• Guitar or piano (if possible) and singing voice
• Humpty Dumpty easter egg, or just a big regular easter egg.

What to do:
Humpty Dumpty is one of my favourite Easter characters.  Huh?  All the shops I look in are filled with humpty dumpty eggs... (show one or ask kids if they've seen them.)  I like humpty dumpty eggs because they are filled with smarties.  Yum!  But Humpty Dumpty is actually a really sad story.  A tragedy in fact.  (Ask kids if they remember the story.  Get a kid to tell it.  Make a few comments about the poor choices that Humpty made.  He should never have been sitting on the wall in the first place.  Dangerous etc.)  What we are going to do now is a re-enactment of the humpty dumpty story.  Just as a warm up, we might sing the song through a couple of times. (sing)  Need a volunteer...  (choose someone.  Everyone sings at appropriate moment in the song, helper needs to push humpty off wall.  Watch him smash.  Sing song.  Watch him smash...  Make sure he gets really broken.)   Like the song says, 'All the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn't put humpty together again.  And it's true.  Look at him.  I can't fix him.

Death is a bit like that.  When someone is dead, there's nothing we can do.  All the kings horses and all the king's men can't make the person alive again... But there's an exception... (talk about Jesus coming back to life.)  To help you remember this, we have a song to teach you (to the tune of Humpty Dumpty):


Easter Friday, Jesus has died
All his friends were sad and they cried (boo hoo)
Sunday morning, what a surprise,
Jesus has risen, Hooray he's alive.

sar 2007

(you can get free sheet music here)

Give the kids a bit of egg each to eat!