At lunch, Stacey and I compared notes from this morning’s service.  She served in KidMo with the elementary-age kids this morning, and before she dove into the songs and the story, she wanted to make sure the kids knew that Easter was about more than the Easter bunny. So she asked all the kids “Why do we celebrate Easter?”  And one of them immediately called out, with a big smile on his face, “Because Jesus is dead!”

(She honestly doesn’t remember which kid it was.  That means it was probably yours.)

She kept from bursting out laughing and asked, “And…? What happened next?”  And several kids called out, “And he came back to life!”

Just to make sure that stuck, she made them call out “Jesus is alive!” a whole bunch of times. 

I was going to tell this joke at the beginning of this morning’s message, but I ended up feeling a bit rushed for time, so I skipped it. Now I wish I hadn’t. I stumbled across it twice in the past week, once as a joke involving three blondes at the Pearly Gates being interrogated by St. Peter, and once like this:

A Christian School teacher asked her class the week before Easter if they knew what happened on Easter and why it was so important.

One little girl spoke up saying: “Easter is when the whole family gets together, and you eat turkey and sing about the pilgrims and all that.”

“No, that’s not it,” said the teacher.

“I know what Easter is,” a second student responded. “Easter is when you get a tree and decorate it and give gifts to everybody and sing lots of songs.”

“Nope, that’s not it either,” replied the teacher.

Finally a third student spoke up, “Easter is when Jesus was killed, and put in a tomb and left for three days.”

“Ah, thank goodness somebody knows” the teacher thought to herself. But then the student went on: “Then everybody gathers at the tomb and waits to see if Jesus comes out, and if he sees his shadow he has to go back inside and we have six more weeks of winter.”

What do you think?  Is it worth holding onto so I can tell it next Easter?