When I was a child, I went straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. I don’t remember much about the days in between, probably because I was in the nursery. If you miss the days in between, it is very possible that you go from celebration to celebration, and you miss the depth of sorrow, pain, and love that is Holy Thursday and Good Friday.
I probably missed those services as a child because they are very sad, and the images that they invoke can be very scary for children, but there are ways that you can celebrate Holy Week with children. If you’re here on Sunday, I will give your children a little box with instructions on how to understand Holy Week. The box will contain a peg person (Jesus), some green paper to make leaves with, a white piece of cloth, and instructions on how to draw on the box to represent a communion table, a cross, and how to create the tomb with the box. It lets children play with the Holy and come to their own understanding of the last week of Jesus.
On Easter Sunday, that great day of celebration, this year we will have a cross to decorate with flowers, so if you have any flowers at home from your garden, or some from the store, please bring them to adorn the cross with.