Easter or Palm Sunday assembly ideas: using a chocolate egg

 

Brand new resource for kids homework questions about the Christian faith

If you have kids in school and want to find out about the Christian faith, there’s not a lot of information around.  Some of it is old fashioned and boring.  So we thought we would try to put it right.  Tell us if we got it right! The site is new but expanding rapidly.  We are aiming to have a complete Easter resource including history, stories and pictures by Easter. http://kids.splatontheweb.org/

This chocolate egg Easter assembly or sermon doesn’t use your run of the mill chocolate egg, you need to use an egg you paint in chocolate.  You can use it for during Holy week or on Easter day – that is Palm Sunday through to Easter Sunday.

The assembly is about surprise, and not eggs-pecting what happens.

Assembly outline and resources:

Preparation
You will need:

• 1 raw small egg (cream egg sized)
• 1 Cadbury’s cream egg
• 1 bar of cooking chocolate
• 1 Bain-Marie : put a perspex glass bowl on top of a simmering sauce pan of water
• Egg box (optional)
• Cake rack (optional)
• Wooden spoon
• 4 cards printed with ‘we eggs-pected that’
• 4 cards printed with ‘we didn’t eggs-pect that’

Put the chocolate in the Bain-Marie and melt it.  Coat one half of the raw egg in the melted chocolate, let it set on the cake rack, then coat the other half.  You might need two or three coats to get this right.

Unwrap the cream egg and eat it (well, there has to be a benefit somewhere!). Do this carefully because you need the foil entact.  Wrap the raw/chocolate egg carefully in the wrapper.  Put the egg in the egg box.  If  you are doing this in a few schools you could set up a whole box full of the things!

Outline

Start the assembly or Easter sermon by announcing that you have a chocolate egg in your box that has been laid by a chocolate chicken.  Of course no one will believe you.

Take out the egg, and they will believe you even less, a good opportunity for some fun.  Unwrap the egg and point out that it really is a chocolate egg and you must assume that it came from a chocolate chicken.  Ask if it isn’t a chocolate chicken, then what is inside it.  The kids will of course tell you that it is sugary creamy stuff.

Say that you will come back to the egg.

Invite 8 children up, and divide them into pairs.  Give one of each of the cards to the pair (i.e.expected that/didn’t expect that to each pair)

Explain that each pair of children represents the different people who were around in Jesus’ day.

• The Romans, who were the ones who ruled the country and told people what to do
• The teachers of the law who thought they were in charge of the people, and didn’t like Jesus
• The people of Jerusalem – Israelites
• The disciples

Have the pairs of children stand across the front of the assembly hall or church.

Encourage the children to help you decide who expected what in the following story.  Pause at the end of each paragraph for a response, and try to memorize it rather than read it from a script!  Go along each pair of people and touch the shoulder of the person of each pair who should respond by reading the card they are holding.  Bear in mind that writing this down is a lot dryer than the fun you can have with this.  Directions below in italics.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.

The Romans didn’t expect that, everyone else did.  They thought kings rode horses.  But the people did as they saw Jesus as the new king from the prophecies who would get rid of the Romans, and ancient kings rode donkeys, not horses.

All the people shouted out ‘save us, save us!’

The Romans didn’t expect that.  The teachers of the law didn’t expect that.  Everyone else did.

The teachers of the law were unhappy, ‘we must get rid of Jesus’ they muttered.  Then they told Jesus to tell the people to be quiet. ‘I can’t’ said Jesus, ‘if I did, even the stones would call out!’

No one expected that

The people were excited, but after just 5 days, the Romans were still there.  They were unhappy, they thought something was going to happen, and it didn’t.

The Romans and disciples and teachers of the law expected that.  The people didn’t.

Then on the Friday, Jesus was killed.  He had done nothing wrong, but the teachers of the law made everyone not like Jesus by winding them up.

The Romans didn’t expect that.  The disciples didn’t expect that.  All the people did.  And the teachers of the law were really happy.

But on Easter day, Jesus came alive by God’s power!

No one expected that.

Now go back to your chocolate egg.  Ask what people expect will happen if you break the egg open. (use the perspex bowl to break the egg into)

You hopefully will get surprise.  Explain that we all expect certain things to happen, and when Jesus was killed, everyone expected him to stay dead.  But he didn’t. Explain that you believe that Jesus is alive today, and that everyone who believes in Jesus and follows his teaching will be brought back from being dead, by God’s power, in the same way.  Ask if anyone expected that.