Easter Sunday

Year 2: April 12, 2020

Mark 16:1-8

The Thing Lou Couldn’t Do by Ashley Spires

(Written for ages 3-7)

Comment: Mark’s account of the resurrection is abrupt and baffling. Jesus doesn’t even appear, and the story has an unfinished quality to it. It’s hard for younger children to digest the ambiguity and uncertainty with which Mary, Mary, and Salome leave the tomb. They don’t fully understand what’s going on; despite Jesus’ predictions, this is something new that they’ve never experienced before. You might notice that the women were afraid and help children to think what it would be like, not knowing exactly where Jesus went or why. Is there a time they faced something unknown? How did they overcome their fears? Lou is facing a similar dilemma in Spires’ book: her friends invite her to climb a tree, which she has never done before. She makes many excuses because she is afraid. Ultimately, she finds her courage and makes it up the tree. The truth is, much as Lou overcomes her fears, the women must’ve come up with a reason to share this baffling good news, since we are reading their story today! We can recognize the faithfulness of these women, without whom the world would never know the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection.

Thanks to Joshua Andrzejewski, Union Presbyterian Seminary alumnus and chaplain for the pediatric and women’s health units in the VCU Medical Center, for writing the Year 2 Narrative Lectionary Links.

Lectionary Links (NL): April 12, 2020 by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.