Did you know… Easter eggs (at least hollow ones) are just like Jesus! Let’s find out why – and learn a fun illustration you can use to tell the gospel to your friends.
Jesus the King
Before he came to earth, Jesus was in heaven. He was God, and he was with God. That’s a confusing thing to think about, but what it means is that he was the most important, most significant and most powerful thing in the entire universe. Even greater than the universe!
When you first get your Easter egg, it’s wrapped in pretty foil: shiny, grand and beautiful. So that reminds us that Jesus is king!
Jesus the Servant
Now take the wrapping off your Easter egg. It’s now just plain chocolate. No fancy decoration, no crown, but it is still an Easter egg. Jesus was still king, but he left his place in heaven and came down to earth, as a human, born in a stable, to share God’s love with us. Jesus was a servant
Jesus the Sacrificial Saviour
This is where things get awful.
Jesus was a king without a kingly robe, but he didn’t just come to heal, or teach, or to try out being a human. He came to be broken.
Bite the top off your Easter egg.
Who bit the egg? You did. Sure, we didn’t personally kill Jesus, but would we have been any different if we were there? Even Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends, denied knowing him when he was about to be killed.
The egg is broken. Jesus was broken, suffered and died for us.
God is a perfect God, and he can’t be with sin. Sin needs to be punished. Jesus took the punishment we deserved, of death. He was broken, by the world. But he wasn’t defeated – he was the defeator! He defeated sin.
Jesus the Death Defier
But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus had dealt with our sin, but there was one more thing he had to do.
Look at your egg. What’s inside it? Unless you’ve got one of those super fancy filled eggs, nothing!
Three days after Jesus died, his tomb was empty. He was not there. He had risen from the dead
Sometimes we only think about Jesus dying for us, but this is actually just as important as his death. Jesus’ resurrection shows that, because he defeated sin, life is the result. And because Jesus lived again, so can we! Someone coming back to life is also not a normal thing to happen. But Jesus did it. This reminds us that Jesus is God.
Remember that shiny wrapper? Even though he didn’t look like an all-powerful king anymore, Jesus still was.
So, two important things to remember about Jesus the death defier: he came back to life, and we too can come back to life, and he was God. Fully and completely God, who died for us.
So what?
This is a massive deal. Maybe you’ve never thought about your Easter eggs in this way, but they can actually remind us that Jesus died and rose again, to eternal life with God, and we can have that too, through his sacrifice.
This is the most important thing you’ll ever hear, and I really hope you remember more from this Easter than just the chocolate.