We are so excited to present the April IN SEASON Lifestyle Family Tree. It is a teaching tree!
Now we are entering a sacred season; that of Passover, The Seven Days of Unleavened Bread, Early First Fruits and Resurrection. There is so much a child (or an adult for that matter) can learn in this season. It is a serious and sacred time which ends in the celebration of the joy of God’s greatest Gift to us – The Messiah!
He is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!
The top of our tree tells the end of the story.
It is a depiction of Christ rising from the grave. What a beautiful day this was! We celebrate it on Early First Fruits, the 2nd Day of the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread, and the Third Day when we include Passover into our counting.
This is the beautiful end of the new beginning of Life in God’s Kingdom for all Christians who celebrate Resurrection.
We think that salvation was a wonderful gift from God which we received when God sent Jesus to live and die and come alive again for us!
Our tree represents the fact that salvation is a “gift from God” by using the little gift bags to display the scenes from our story.
In order to understand all of the story of salvation we need to go all the way back to the days of Moses and the time of the very first Passover.
We hang a picture of Moses and his Mother as she puts him inside a waterproof covering and sends him down the river in order to save his life. She is trusting God to deliver him.
He comes to the place where the Pharaoh’s daughter (the Princess of Egypt) is bathing in the river and she takes him into her home and raises him as her own child. His sister, Miriam followed his basket (that was shaped like an ark and sealed) to the place where the royal princess found him. She offered to bring a wet-nurse to look after Moses for the princess and Moses’ real mother was brought into the place to help raise him. (Her secret was kept safe though.)
We chose the bible verse we wanted to place on this section of the tree and we decided on “With God nothing is impossible.” We also placed that same verse at the top of the tree under the depiction of the Resurrection. Two great miracles happened in this story; among many more! Nothing is impossible with God. God saved Moses from drowning as a baby and then later on as Moses was able to walk through the parted Red Sea on dry land and escape the wrath of Pharaoh. This was after he grew up and led the Children of Israel out of slavery and through the waters which God parted for them to cross, then covered over their enemies; keeping them safe and free.
As she was making the part of the tree that told the story of Moses, my granddaughter noticed how much Moses as a baby with his Mother reminded her of Jesus as a baby with His Mother. (We had begun to display baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph under our tree back in the Fall and on into December of last year.)
She saw the similarities and observed the five year old version of the “type” and “shadow” of Moses and the Messiah who came later.
Using this tree to teach her has helped her to see even beyond what many grown adults notice or to see some of the things they fail to see! Nothing is impossible with God!
As we remembered Moses we placed the ornament that represented our Passover Seder on a pretty paper bag. Under it we stamped the scripture “God is love.”
I asked her how she thought the Passover story showed us that God is love. She remembered that the angel “passed over” the homes of everyone who had the blood of the Lamb on their doorpost. She remembered that was why that night was called “Passover.”
God IS love in so many ways; and we want it to show this important attribute on our tree and in our stories around our table.
We finished making the piece and placed the depiction of Simon of Syrene carrying the cross for Jesus. Simon loved Jesus and did not want to see him suffer. He gladly carried the cross for him. How can we show our love for Jesus like Simon?
My grand-daughter said we can show our love by remembering how much Jesus loved us. Isn’t that the whole message of Passover, Unleavened Bread and Early First Fruits condensed down to three words?
God is love! Out of the mouths of children we learn to live the truth.
We covered our tree and all of it’s stories in purple flowers. We know that purple is the color of royalty. We are remembering our King who died for us; but most of all we are remembering that the grave could not hold him! On the third day after Passover, on the day of Early First Fruits we remember that He is Alive Again! and He has Risen!
We sing and celebrate because we know the end of the story now.
In the Passover we celebrated the physical deliverance of God’s people. We looked at the Matzah and we knew that it represented The Bread From Heaven; Jesus Christ our LORD and Messiah.
After the Seder the child who finds the hidden Matzah wins a prize. We all get a prize though; because the person who finds Jesus hiding in the Passover Service wins a spiritual blessing!
As we celebrate the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread; we clean all the leaven out of our houses. This is how Jesus cleans the sins out of our hearts.
Sometimes God asks us to do the physical things to help us to remember the spiritual things; like when we are Baptized; as baptism is a physical representation that shows how God has spiritually washed our hearts clean and given us new life; and like when we share communion. Communion is a physical act that creates a spiritual connection between us and God and each other. This also happens with the Passover Seder.
With the observance of Passover, Early First Fruits and Unleavened Bread God brings us through salvation, deliverance, death, Resurrection and New Life in Christ. With all of these days; God has given us Joy!
He is Risen;
He is Risen Indeed!
God told us to start the counting of our days from Passover; so that we would know even more of the story. In 50 days we will celebrate Pentecost – we count and we remember.
We made another craft (keep watching for that article) to remember to number our days and to help us wait to see what the next thing is that God will do in time.
God has another gift for us and the only way we can know when it is coming is to do the counting that begins right after Passover!
As we celebrate these gifts; we anticipate even more gifts from Our Heavenly Father.
God is Love!
He has given us all we need to make our days full and rich and blessed!
He has taken those of us who are enslaved and set us free.
He has parted the waters of deliverance for us.
He has given us his life by becoming our Passover Lamb and we now carry him around with us over the doorposts to our hearts.
At one point my granddaughter made a mistake and stamped the verse upside down. She was concerned; but I told her it was okay. Jesus and his disciples turned the world upside down and inside out with their new ways of living; so this will help us to remember that fact. She was so glad to learn that God can take the upside down things and the inside out things and use them in His Kingdom for good. We are even today; learning to live from the inside out; displaying the things that are special to our hearts here in the kitchen for all our visitors to see.
He is risen!
One day we too will have everlasting new life with him.
What a season of joyful celebration!
If you wish to celebrate by making your own teaching tree you can find the products we used in The IN SEASON Lifestyle Community Store for April 2019. Here is an easy link: The IN SEASON Community Store for April 2019.
We always post the monthly store products for each season under the ABOUT TAB, so click it and then click PRODUCTS and you will find all that you need in our April Community Store. Chose your favorite bible verses and stamp and/or write them on some colorful paper bags. (God’s gifts.) Use two-sided invisible tape to stick the ornaments on the bags. All of these ornaments and more are in our store for purchase.
Thank you for helping us tell the stories of God!
Keep living life inside out and upside down and keep living out 2 Timothy 4:2.
You will always be living The IN SEASON Lifestyle!
