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Each Year One Lesson includes:

Teacher Introduction/Getting to the Heart of the Lesson, Teacher Reflection, Spiritual Affirmation with full color Art, Original Story, and Activities, Bible Verses, Wisdom Quotes

 

Lesson 38 from Year One is about: Easter, “New Life”

 

Original Story: Andre’s New Day

 

Affirmation: My true self is ever-new. I am eternal light, love, and joy.

 

Getting to the Heart of the Lesson

 

Easter is a celebration of rebirth, renewal, and the inner discovery of spirit that cannot die.

 

Like all spiritual and religious celebrations, Easter can be experienced and understood on many levels. In the cycles of nature, we see examples of renewed life: animals being born, trees sprouting leaves, and flowers bursting with color in the spring. Our hearts respond with deep yearning for inner renewal as well. Springtime rituals in the northern hemisphere have always been a way to welcome the awakening life energy of the earth and the return of light, but they are also symbolic of the inner awakening that all souls experience. In the southern hemisphere, Easter is celebrated in the fall and is a time to celebrate the fall harvest and the gathering of family and friends.

A Christian scholar, the Venerable Bede (672–735 AD), first asserted that Easter was named after Eostre, the great mother goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring, eastre. Pagan festivals associated with birth, the renewal of life, fertility, and sunrise date back to long before Christianity. Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area are recorded as having a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Many of the present-day customs of Easter have their origins in these festivals.

Easter is a celebration of life and rebirth, or resurrection. Spring is an outer reality that shows us that the natural world is constantly renewing and being reborn, but there is also a reality deeper than the surface of life: eternal joy that cannot be touched by death or change. That is what Jesus wanted us to understand. And more importantly, we can experience that reality if we choose. Jesus lived in that reality, and he understood that the physical world, the physical body, were not what defined him. He taught that everyone has a spiritual nature that is deathless and ever-new.

The resurrection of Jesus happened when his body died and the experience of his inner reality became real for those who let go of fear and anger. A spiritual rebirth happens whenever we let old habits and old thoughts die and we start new with the power of light and love.
Ancient traditions mix with modern commercialism in today’s Easter, but the underlying message is always true. We can let children enjoy the fun, superficial aspects of Easter while also helping them become aware of the deeper truths that lie in the symbols,

 

Affirmation: My true self is ever-new. I am eternal light, love, and joy.