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Remembering The Greatest Romance

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As Easter approaches, I’m reminded of The Greatest Romance, of God loving us so incredibly much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to be a sacrificial lamb for us. Now that’s love!

These weeks–days–leading up to Easter should be a time of reflection and growth, but unfortunately, too often life becomes a distraction, or we get caught up in the world’s view of Easter with chocolate and bunnies and Easter eggs and more. As a parent the challenge was always “How do we teach our children to see Jesus, to know and understand the real meaning of Easter, when the world keeps pointing in a different direction?”

Our family has a few different Easter traditions, but one our twenty-something “kids” still want to do is create Resurrection Cookies. Making these cookies tells the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection and gives a visual and tangible reminder of His amazing love and sacrifice.

Typically, we make the cookies the evening before Easter.

What you need:

  • Bible
  • Mixing bowl, cookie sheet, wax paper
  • 1 cup chocolate chips (Well, the recipe calls for 1 cup whole pecans, but we substitute chocolate chips since the kids didn’t like pecans.)
  • 1 teaspoon vinegar
  • 3 egg whites
  • A pinch of salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • Zipper baggies
  • Wooden spoon
  • Tape

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 300.
  2. Put chocolate chips into the baggie. With the wooden spoon, have family members *beat* the chips to break them into smaller pieces. While they do this, someone reads from John 19:1-3.
  3. Let each family member smell the vinegar, then put it in the mixing bowl. Explain that when Jesus was on the cross, He was thirsty, and they gave Him vinegar to drink. Read John 19:28-30.
  4. Add egg whites to the vinegar. Egg whites represent life. Explain that Jesus sacrificed His life to give us life. Read John 10:10-11.
  5. Sprinkle a dash of salt into each person’s hand. Tell them to taste it, then brush the remainder into the mixing bowl. Tell them that the salt stands for sin’s bitterness and the salty tears Jesus’ followers shed. Read Luke 23:27.
  6. So far, the ingredients aren’t very appealing, right? So add 1 cup of sugar while explaining that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because of His love for each of us! Read Psalm 34:8 and John 3:16.
  7. Beat the ingredients with a mixer on high speed for 12 – 15 minutes, until white peaks are formed. Explain that the white stands for purity in God’s eyes for all who’ve been cleansed by Jesus. Read Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3.
  8. Add in the broken chips (or pecans). Then drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a wax-paper covered cookie sheet and tell the family that each cookie mound stands for the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. Read Matthew 27:57-60.
  9. Put the filled cookie sheet into the oven, close the door, then turn off the oven. Have each family member tape the oven door to seal it. Tell them that Jesus’ tomb was sealed. Read Matthew 27:65-66.
  10. Go to bed! Tell everyone that just like they might be sad that the cookies are in the oven overnight, Jesus followers were also sad that Jesus was dead and in the tomb. Read John 16:20 and 22.
  11. On Easter morning, have everyone remove their tape, open the oven, and remove the cookies. Give each family member a cookie and have them notice the cracked surface. Then take a bite. The cookies are hollow inside! On that very first Easter, Jesus’ followers were surprised to find the tomb open and empty! Read Matthew 28:1-9.

What Easter traditions do you follow that help remind you of God’s amazing love?

Brenda S Anderson (12 Posts)

Brenda S. Anderson writes gritty and authentic, life-affirming fiction. She is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), and is Past-President of the ACFW Minnesota chapter, MN-NICE, the 2016 Chapter of the Year. When not reading or writing, she enjoys music, theater, roller coasters, and baseball, and she loves watching movies with her family. She lives in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area with her husband of 30 years, their three children, and one sassy cat. Readers can learn more about Brenda S. Anderson at www.brendaandersonbooks.com


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Comments

  1. Love this. Easter going to be special this year. I am alive. Battled for my life in Dec. Into Jan. Flue, pneumonia and sepsis (bacteria in bloodstream). So thankful to be celebrating my birthday Sunday.

  2. Hi Brenda, this is awesome! Thanks for sharing, I cannot wait to do this with my kids, they will love it. We typically go camping over Easter, I think this recipe will work while we are camping too! We usually organise an egg hunt on Easter Sunday with our friends- I love hiding the eggs around the campsites, then watching the kids enthusiasm as they hunt. We also share the story of the crucifixion and resurrection, to remind us all of the real reason for Easter.
    Blessings:)

  3. Hi Brenda! What an amazing Easter tradition and recipe. When my husband was pastor, we often had a Passover Seder preformed by a Jewish Christian. Many of the cookie ingredients are elements of the Seder (vinegar, salt) and the Old Testament story of “passing over” is read and explained through the elements, which then is an introduction to Christ’s death and resurrection.

    Since we can often still have snow at Easter, traditions vary. If Easter is in March, we often celebrate our oldest son’s birthday, who will be 40 on Wednesday. Easter 2016 we had a color coded egg hunt for all, even the adults. In their first egg they received how old they were on their first Easter and then each person had to search for that color plastic egg. The grandkids found their eggs faster than the adults. Best wishes. Happy Spring.

    • Love that the adults participated! Sounds like fun to me. :)

      Last year our church participated in a Passover Seder. I’d never realized how much everything symbolizes and points to Christ. What a powerful experience!

  7. The is one of the coolest Easter traditions I’ve ever seen! I wish I’d known about it when my boys were kids. They’re in the 20’s now too and won’t be home for Easter.
    Thanks for sharing your tradition with us.

  9. Thanks for the recipe. I want to share this for my daughter for her kids. Having just moved and retired we have to start new traditions. I’m used to helping with a huge outreach to kids and families with our old church. Some of our kids are nearby some an hour away Not sure of our plans yet.

  10. We have made those cookies before when our children were young, as well as making a tomb where we rolled away the stone on Easter morning. The most meaningful thing we have done is when our church would have a sunrise service outside and we would take communion together.

  13. Brenda, thank you for sharing! What a great tradition you have, we don’t really have any…so we might use your suggestions ? God is so good, His Love is an example to follow! Blessings!

  15. I haven’t seen that recipe before but how neat. As kids my mom would help my brother and me make empty tomb rolls on Easter morning and I still like to make them now as an adult.

  16. Typically we do Good Friday service, Easter Egg Hunt the next day, and Easter Sunday service at church.

  17. How wonderful! I can’t wait to make this with my grandchildren.
    Have a wonderful Easter, filled with sweet blessings!

  18. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It will be a fun and educational experience for my grandchildren.

  19. Easter baskets are pretty much our only tradition. This year it’s been so busy that I can’t believe it’s already time for Easter.

  20. This sounds like a great tradition and something I could do with my grandchildren! We mainly just have an Easter egg hunt, but this is way better and so much more in line with what Easter is all about. Thanks for sharing!!

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