In efforts to be intentional about Holy Week, I took it upon myself to explain Good Friday to my three year old. It went something like this:
"Do you know what day it is?" To which she replied, "no." I told her today was Good Friday. She asked me what that was. Okay, here we go. I said that a long time ago, there were people who were really mean to Jesus. They called him names and they were mad because they didn't believe that he was the King. "Jesus is a King?!" she asked excitedly as she is quite familiar with kings, queens, princes, and princesses. I told her that Jesus went away for a couple of days.
Then, I said that Easter is when Jesus came back and saw his friends and everyone was so happy to see him. To which she replied, "awwww, cute! That's my favorite part."
"Which part is your favorite?" I asked. "The part about Easter," she said.
It's amazing how difficult it is sometimes to explain things to a three year old. But, in the same breath, if only we would be in awe and ask the questions and be okay with the simple things as they are. Not that the incidents that happened this time many years ago are simple. The sacrificial death in no means should be taken lightly; for that amazing selfless sacrifice is what gives us hope and is what helps us love.
Your heart is broken, the heart that did not know hatred, revenge, resentment, jealousy or envy but only love, love so deep and so wide that it embraces your Father in heaven as well as all humanity in time and space. Your broken heart is the source of my salvation, the foundation of my hope, the cause of my love. It is the sacred place where all that was, is and ever shall be is held in unity. There all suffering has been suffered, all anguish lived, all loneliness endured, all abandonment felt and all agony cried out. There, human and divine love have kissed, and there God and all men and women of history are reconciled. All the tears of the human race have been cried there, all pain understood and all despair touched. -Henri Nouwen
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