Easter Explained by Emma Catherine

This weekend we celebrated Easter with the little Rosebushes.  Easter is an amazing time of year because it usually bring with it the beginning of spring, warmer weather,  beautiful flowers,  and cute fluffy bunnies.  For Christians Easter means so much more and nothing is better than having a five year old explain to you what Easter is all about like you are a clueless buffoon.  All week last week Emma carefully explained to me many times, that Jesus died on the cross.  This is the best conversation.   She started,  "Mom,  seriously they nailed Jesus to a big cross.   They put nails right through his body and I'm sure it hurt.  Do you know why they did that?"  I decided to play along with her belief that I knew nothing and pretend to be clueless, "No Em, please tell me."  Her eyes got bigger,  her chest puffed out, and this is what she said,  "Well mom,   they did that because God said it was ok.  He sent Jesus here on Christmas,  you know when he was born, so that he could save us all from sins one day.  I'm not sure why people were so mad at Jesus that they wanted to hang him on a cross but they did.  They killed Jesus but don't worry mom cause this next part is pretty cool."  I nodded my head and encouraged her to continue.   Her tone changed a little and she got very matter of fact, "After they killed Jesus his friends took his body and put it into a grave.   It wasn't a grave in the ground like Maddie, it was more like a cave.  They put a big stone in front of the cave like a door so people couldn't go in.  Jesus was in that cave for three days."  The three days part was  very important because she kept nodding her head and  she held up three fingers carefully stressing the word THREE.  She continued,  " MOTHER,  after THREE days do you know what happened?  That stone rolled away and Jesus was ALIVE!  He walked right out of that grave.  That is how he saved us from our sins. You know now that means we can go to heaven now when we die,  like Maddie. " I smiled and nodded so proud that for once she got most of the details of a bible story correct and seemed to understand the meaning.  I don't know if it was the teachers at the school she attends, the volunteers that teach Children's church at our church, or the bible stories we've read at home but she actually got it!  I will give the credit to a combination of the three.   She was a proud little peacock telling the Easter story.
Once we covered the Easter story and Emma was confident that I understood; she had one more little piece of Easter that we needed to discuss.   Emma is an extremely logical kid so once again this year she seemed to question the plausibility of the Easter Bunny.  Here are a few facts about the Easter Bunny that Emma just doesn't think add up.
    1.  We've never seen the actual Easter Bunny.  We've only seen people dressed up in bunny suits that just pretend to be the Easter Bunny for pictures.
    2.  The Easter Bunny is not human.  He doesn't have hands so how does he carry baskets and put things in them.
    3.  Santa has a sleigh and elves but the Easter Bunny has none of that so how does he get around. There is no possible way that a bunny could hop around the world.
    4.  Bunnies are typically small not human sized.
    5.  Bunnies would eat all the candy because that's what animals do.
So after careful discussion of the facts a Emma has decided the Easter Bunny is a thing of fiction.  However, in the interest of her brother she has decided to go along with it so that they can both get baskets of stuff.  You know,  just for Jaxon's sake.

It's so amazing to watch my little girl finally get it.  I can't wait to see how her faith grows.  It's bittersweet to see her starting to give up on a childhood tradition but I love the way her little mind works.  I am so thankful for this time and these memories.  I love watching my little Rosebushes grow.