Yesterday Koen and I did the activity while Tav was still napping and Koen needed something to keep him busy. I had been looking forward to it all day! It was a lot more fun than when we did it last year. A year at this age makes a big difference in their ability to appreciate these types of symbolic activities. I feel like he really understood all that we were doing and he asked some great questions. He also recalled how the story we were reviewing and acting out by the steps in the cookie process reminded him of what he learned at church on Good Friday. Here's one of the first steps in the process, Koen is beating the pecans. This represents how Jesus was treated before he was crucified. As Koen is now more aware of death, hurting others, etc. (how is it that at 4 they are so into these ideas?), this meant more to him this year and we talked about how sad it was that Jesus was treated that way, but that he did it so that we could be saved.
The other steps were just as interesting. He smelled the vinegar that Jesus drank when he was thirsty, he tasted the bitter salt (although he thought it was yummy) that represented the bitterness of our sins, he tasted the sweet sugar which represented the gift of God's salvation through the cross. And this year he got to use the blender to beat the egg whites. He did it for about 10 minutes. Then we talked about how he cleanses us and makes us white as snow.
Finally, the last step is putting the cookies (they look like little mounds of rocks or tombs) into the oven and sealing it as the tomb was sealed. Then you leave them there overnight. Koen can't wait to pop open the oven this morning (it's a little before 8am as I type this, so we are moments away!). And now it's almost 10am. Here are the pictures of the big reveal...
As you can see, when you break into them or bite into them they appear empty in the middle. Koen said, "God's not in the cookies!" Right, well, that's sort of the point. Christ is risen indeed!
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